Dana Gioia is a poet and critic, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and graduate of Stanford, where he recently gave the commencement address:
What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.Read it all:
Why do these issues matter to you? This is the culture you are about to enter. For the last few years you have had the privilege of being at one of the world's greatest universities—not only studying, but being a part of a community that takes arts and ideas seriously. Even if you spent most of your free time watching Grey's Anatomy, playing Guitar Hero, or Facebooking your friends, those important endeavors were balanced by courses and conversations about literature, politics, technology, and ideas.
Distinguished graduates, your support system is about to end. And you now face the choice of whether you want to be a passive consumer or an active citizen. Do you want to watch the world on a screen or live in it so meaningfully that you change it?
Dana Gioia's commencement address (Stanford News, via Arts and Letters Daily)
Related posts
American reading habits
Freshmen surveyed
George Steiner on reading
Words, mere words
Zadie Smith on reading
comments: 0
Post a Comment