The Observer: Caps, gowns, and new beginnings- Congratulations to the Class of 2024
June is the month for commencements. I attended three graduation ceremonies last week. These were not my first graduations, of course. In fact, I have attended dozens of them over the years. They were all the same. They were all different. They were all wonderful.
I love the uplifting optimism of commencements; the sheer joyfulness, the pageantry, the inspiring challenges inherent in them all. Caps and tassels, robes and academic hoods tell you this is going to be something out of the ordinary. The ritual invariably ends with mortar boards lofted skyward; and individual prayers launched in a flash of collective hope and glory.
Students and officials always parade in to the same tune — a march composed by Sir Edward Elgar in 1901. Pomp and Circumstance is also known as “Land of Hope and Glory.” How appropriate is that? The music is a patriotic salute to the British Empire, to Britain’s place on the world stage, and to the glory of the British nation and people.
I’m not sure how appropriate all that is these days, but the music is perfect for lifting the spirit. One commentator wrote that Pomp and Circumstance has a “stately tempo that makes you want to hold your head up high.” And so it does. No commencement would be complete without it. Then there are the speeches.
A couple of years ago, journalist and writer Bruce Feiler analyzed 100 commencement speeches in search of dominant themes. He concluded that four themes were common to many of his Top 100: 1) dream big, 2) work hard, 3) make mistakes and 4) be kind.
If you were paying attention during any of the commencement speeches you’ve heard, you might recall some of these themes articulated by one of the speakers. These themes promote ideals that American life and culture officially sanction: ambition, industriousness, self-acceptance, and kindness to others. Who can argue with any of those lofty sentiments?
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This year, my prize for the most memorable commencement speech goes to Ken Burns. Maybe you read about it or have even seen it. Burns, America’s preeminent documentarian and filmmaker, was the main speaker at Brandeis University’s commencement this year. He traveled some familiar territory in his remarks while also breaking new ground, explicitly abandoning the neutrality that has characterized his work as a historian and filmmaker.
“I have had the privilege for nearly half a century of making films about the U.S.,” he said, “but I have also made films about us. That is to say the two-letter, lowercase, plural pronoun. All of the intimacy of ‘us’ and also ‘we’ and ‘our’ and all of the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the U.S.”
“And if I have learned anything over those years, it's that there's only us. There is no them. And whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life that there's a them, run away.”
His is an important message right now when the country is turning against itself and its historic values affirming the American dream and the welcoming of strangers with kindness.
“Othering,” Burns went on, “is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self-imprisonment...” Commencement should signify freedom not imprisonment for grads — freedom from who they once were, freedom to be who they are now.
Burns advised the Brandeis graduates to “choose honor over hypocrisy, virtue over vulgarity, discipline over dissipation, character over cleverness, sacrifice over self-indulgence.” Several times, he asked them to “listen, listen” as he doled out his advice. We all would be well to listen. Listen.
Often in graduation speeches, some speaker (major or minor) will point out that “commencement” means a beginning. Even though the ceremony is meant to be a milestone that ends a period of formal education, it also marks the beginning of something momentous.
At the June 2024 commencements I attended, I felt as if I was standing on a dock waiting for a great ship to set sail. I stand, waving farewell as the passenger ship pulls away from the land and heads out to sea. There will be new ports of call, stretches of calm seas, and also spells of stormy weather ahead. So be it. Sail on!
A prosperous journey, graduates of the Class of 2024. Congratulations!
Ron McAllister is a sociologist and writer who lives in York.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Caps, gowns, and new beginnings- Congratulations to the Class of 2024