Scripps 39th Commencement, June 1969
1969 marked the first time a Scripps student made remarks at Commencement.
Susan Dillon of the Scripps Class of 1969 stood at the podium, along with William Ayres Arrowsmith, a Professor of Arts and Letters at the University of Texas.
Recessional: "War March of the Priest," Felix Mendelssohn
WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FRIENDS
Susan Dillon/June 8, 1969
The title of this speech is "With a Little Help from My Friends." That got to be the title a couple of weeks ago when the women in charge of the Scripps news bureau called and wanted to know what the topic of my speech would be. I of course had no idea at the time, but she said her life would be a lot easier if I could think of something to tell her for her story. Well, this title is the name of a Beatles song that I like, and I had heard the song that day, and I told her that would be the title. She released it to all the newspapers, and, as we all know, once something is printed in the newspaper it is the solemn truth, so I was stuck with that title. And, as word spread that I was to be this graduation speaker, I discovered that I had in increasing number of friends. . . everyone wanted to tell me what to say. I had a few ideas of my own of what I wanted to talk about, but it was very interesting to hear what people thought needed to be said and what they wanted to hear. And now the title is very appropriate to the presentation of this speech, because it is being given with a lot of help from my friends -- fellow students, teachers, and some of you parents. And you see, that is a pretty good thing for me, because now if any of you disagree with anything I say, I can just refer you to my friends.
One of the main ideas that has come out of these discussions about what should be said in this speech is the conclusion that now, having participated in a four-year charade of the history of mankind from ancient Egypt to the present day, we find ourselves faced with a paradox: on the one hand we have experienced the grandeur of the age-old ideals of mankind, while on the other hand we have seen that the attempt to make the ideals a reality is rarely an admirable process, but instead is usually entrenched in the muck of needless violence, greed and bigotry.
The person who studies the humanities is shown very clearly that one reason for this paradox is that throughout history, men have valued things more than people. One needs to brush the surface of history only lightly to realize that every war has been fought, not for human values, but for material goods. Many wars have been propagated under the guise of human ideals, but when the guns stop firing and the flags stop waving, the people soon learn that their sons have been killed not for justice, but for iron ore, not for freedom, but for soil and seas, not for equal rights to all citizens, but for an inflated stock market. Men have claimed the most glorious of human concepts to validate the vilest of human actions. A soldier, wading in the blood of his friends, would be well justified in turning to the cause and the ideal for which he is supposedly fighting, and asking, "What is a nice idea like you doing in a place like this?"
The humanities to which we have all committed ourselves could make us very pessimistic. When we study history we find that every page reads like the one before it. The nouns change but the verbs remain the same. In many ways, the world today is only one more repetitive paragraph in a redundant story. But there are two crucial differences between the history of today's world, and the history of yesterday. The first difference is that while we cannot change what has happened in the world for the last 4000 years, all of us here are actively contributing to what is happening in the world today. Whether we will admit it or not, we are all responsible, to a greater or lesser degree, simply by our existence, for the quality of the world we live in. Thus we must exercise our influence on world history wisely, unceasingly directing our actions to the kind of world we would like it to be.
The second crucial difference between the world of our ancestors and the world we live in is that never before in history has the total destruction of the earth been so close at hand. We have in military stockpiles nuclear weaponry equivalent to 2000 pounds of TNT for every person in the world. Our air and water are being polluted to a dangerous degree, and overpopulation is becoming a sobering threat.
This time is a crucial one for other reasons as well. We have always had the poor and oppressed; but never have the luxuries of their oppressors been so flaunted in front of them; in their own homes the poorest people in America are taunted by television ads boasting of the great American dream which has not come true for them. There have always been wars: from the year 1 the world has enjoyed total peace for only 238 days; but never before have whole nations watched the war from their supper tables, and never before have the wars taken on such an ultimate dimension.
There have always been corrupt governments. But never before has the corruption been exposed so incessantly to so many citizens. With the increase in population, and the improvements in transportation and communications, more people than ever before are smelling a stench in the human condition.
But the study of the humanities involves more than the study of man's destruction. We don't need to resign ourselves to cynicism and pessimism. Man is capable of creating the lovely as well as the grotesque; he hates, but he also loves; he can murder mindlessly, but he can also discuss reasonably.
And so, with these opposing capabilities tottering in the balance, we now face an ultimate decision. We can continue on our present course, fighting wars which only cause more wars, oppressing people for the sake of our pocketbooks, expanding an already omnipotent military to suppress momentary enemies. Or, we can turn from our history of destruction, and begin to exploit our history of creativity; we can begin to value people more than goods, we can direct our creative genius to the beautiful, and we can begin to respond to men's needs with effective and compassionate communication, not bayonets and tear gas.
Of course, no one is going to admit that they choose the first option; no one is going to say that they are for more wars and oppression. But it is becoming more and more difficult to get America actively to choose and support the second option. America right now is riding on a solid gold train. It's easy to get a ticket -- you just sell your conscience. The ride involves many wonderful things: a big house, a vacation in Europe, a sail boat, lots of credit cards, two, three, maybe four cars, social prestige, membership in a country club (segregated of course). But the passengers on the train have prostituted their essential humanity, and now the train is hurtling toward its final destination, world-wide destruction. We cannot let it reach its destination; we must stop the train, perhaps derail it, and get the passengers off! If we hope to survive this nuclear age in any reasonable form, we must persuade America to re-evaluate her priorities. We must regard the demand for world peace not as the babbling of a romantic dreamer, but as the prophecy of a humanistic realist. In today's world, the dreamers are not the Martin Luther Kings, but the Sam Yortys and the General Westmorelands, who still believe racism and military power are viable options in the world of today and tomorrow, and who can't seem to see that unless drastic changes take place soon, man will not only not prevail, he will not endure.
Everyone here has invested a great deal in the humanities education of this class. The students have given four years of their lives, the teachers have dedicated their careers to the humanities, and you parents, you know that you've invested about $15,000 for your daughters to learn simply that this is not the best of all possible worlds. If we believe in the validity of the humanities at all, if you believe in the worthiness of what you have bought for your daughter, we must show that the humanities can prevail in a world where science has rendered total annihilation possible, and where a continuation of our present trends will make annihilation inevitable. One group, no matter how young or how old, how Democrat or how Republican, how black or how white, how radical or how reactionary, cannot do this alone. We must put away our petty differences, drop these self-righteous facades, and admit how desperately we need each other as friends. More than ever before, we need a little help from our friends.
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