June 13, 2013
Dear David Guterson,
I wanted to find you after the ceremonies last night to let you know that you were heard. What I heard you saying was that we naturally pursue happiness but settle for amusements that feel like happiness and are aggressively sold as happiness when a deeper joy is quietly available to us—if we recognize these amusements as deliberate evasion, if we turn instead to unafraid thoughtfulness in naked contact with mortality and the world.
That’s what I heard you say.
The audience became agitated, as far as I could tell, when your message lingeringly spelled out the big things we had to fear—inevitable annihilation, polar ice caps melting, a likely creator willing to spare no child, saint or self from torment—and became further restive when you unblinkingly confronted the young audience with common and, given beloved supporters and generous regard on this night, embarrassing ways high schoolers already fled themselves—most notably, the number of seats filled by students repeatedly using marijuana. Perhaps the audience was right and you were reciting too much of our darkness for the occasion; but I also appreciated your willingness to treat graduates as adults and share with them honestly and bravely your largest questions and fears and our most entrenched dangers, with language that reflected real grappling and no mere platitudes.
Graduates of my philosophy class seemed to understand the layers of your speech. I know this because several of them found me and dropped a line or two that connected your speech with things they’d learned. Certainly hedonists provided related counsel on happiness. Epicurus said that “happiness is that which is under our control,” and that “it is not an unbroken succession of drinking, feasts and revelry […] that produces a sober life; it is sober reasoning” (Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, 1925). We read passages as well by Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill who also assert that thought, instead of impulse fulfillment, is the path to happiness. J.S. Mill says that “pleasure of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of moral sentiments [have] a much higher value as pleasures than those of mere sensation” because they are more permanent, and more importantly, because they fulfill our greatest capacities as human beings (The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill, 242). Rousseau, meanwhile, distinguishes between duty and impulse, between appetite and justice, and says that “impulse of mere appetite is slavery”:
Although in this state, he is deprived of many advantages he derives from nature, he acquires equally great ones in return; his faculties are exercised and developed; his ideas are expanded; his feelings are ennobled; his whole soul is exalted to such a degree that, if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade him below that from which he has emerged, he ought to bless without ceasing the happy moment that released him from it for ever, and transformed him from a stupid and ignorant animal into an intelligent being and a man. (Social Contract, chapter 8)
J.S. Mill sums up this idea famously: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” So, when you spoke to the ways we distract ourselves, with texting and music stuffed in our ears, for example, and of the few rare moments left for real thought, you seemed to be speaking in this tradition. And when you spoke of the need to face mortality head on, you seemed to be speaking in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer, who says that our suffering brings us into sanctifying harmony with a universe indeed full of pain.
Such ideas, of necessity, are morbid and accusatory, but they were intended, as I understand them, to challenge students to break from a culture that esteems consumption and multitasking—a challenge onerous and sincere enough that you had to topple their complacency to get there.
Unfortunately, parents mostly heard the morbidity and accusation on a night when they hoped to celebrate achievements and wanted to make bright a luster of possibility. It’s true warnings can be welcome: the valedictory speech, for example, masterfully presented moral hazard as an inevitable partner of our dreams. Yet because of the urgency of your warning, you dwelt there longer than was welcome for these parents.
I was proud of our graduates, who, for the most part, did not join families in opposition but listened instead, and, indeed, worked to hear you.
Finally, I want to thank you, and to apologize, and to ask you for your own thoughts about the evening.
I am also enclosing my parting words to my Philosophy students, which includes a message I think you’ll find familiar.
Your colleague as a high-school-English-teaching-Mr.-G—
David Grosskopf
Roosevelt High School
January 29, 2013
Dear Philosophy and Literature students,
This is a farewell letter.
I wanted to repeat some of the things I have said in class.
The pressures of the life to which you’ve signed on will continue to have an irresistible rhythm. I know that you have felt their aggressive push from the onslaught of class assignments coming at you many ways at once, and from rebuilding over and over for unformed groups of students every five months, and from the impersonal, unassailable judgments of college entrance boards, and from your parents’ need for your safety and academic progress.
These pressures have undoubtedly forced a rhythm on you time and time again that prevent you from your healthiest states of being: when you can think with clarity and laugh -- and cry -- with ease, when you have time and sense to be compassionate and grateful, when imagination is engaged, when interactions electrify, and when your heart is big and easy, you are in a good place.
You’ll get into college or whatever and the pressures of high school will end, but new pressure will continually force the rhythm of your life. That’s just the way it is. You’ll have things to do by certain times, and you’ll be overwhelmed and you’ll cope. The feeling of anxiety and unease that has felt like something you just need to get through is going to come back, again and again.
I know you’ve seen adults that live this way much of the time. Television and alcohol fit very nicely into this rhythm, and that is part of what you’ve seen (and part of what I think you’ve already done).
But there are ways to take control of the rhythm of your life again. You have to deliberately slow down the pace. You have to put yourself in jagged relationship to the grinding path to which you default. Television and alcohol will do nothing to change this pace. But you already know and do many things that can. Travel, adventure, and exercise can shift your rhythm enough for you to reevaluate and readjust. Conversation with someone smart and unafraid. Inefficiencies can be good for you. Creative and expressive arts can put you back in mind. Any kind of art -- literature, painting, theater, music, etc., -- has the potential to alter perspective and change your pace. It’s the job of art to do so.
These things are enlivening and accessible; but taking control of the rhythm of your life will often require a conscious, deliberate step.
Thank you for the honor and privilege of being your teacher. I’ll miss you.
David Grosskopf
Dear David Guterson,
I wanted to find you after the ceremonies last night to let you know that you were heard. What I heard you saying was that we naturally pursue happiness but settle for amusements that feel like happiness and are aggressively sold as happiness when a deeper joy is quietly available to us—if we recognize these amusements as deliberate evasion, if we turn instead to unafraid thoughtfulness in naked contact with mortality and the world.
That’s what I heard you say.
The audience became agitated, as far as I could tell, when your message lingeringly spelled out the big things we had to fear—inevitable annihilation, polar ice caps melting, a likely creator willing to spare no child, saint or self from torment—and became further restive when you unblinkingly confronted the young audience with common and, given beloved supporters and generous regard on this night, embarrassing ways high schoolers already fled themselves—most notably, the number of seats filled by students repeatedly using marijuana. Perhaps the audience was right and you were reciting too much of our darkness for the occasion; but I also appreciated your willingness to treat graduates as adults and share with them honestly and bravely your largest questions and fears and our most entrenched dangers, with language that reflected real grappling and no mere platitudes.
Graduates of my philosophy class seemed to understand the layers of your speech. I know this because several of them found me and dropped a line or two that connected your speech with things they’d learned. Certainly hedonists provided related counsel on happiness. Epicurus said that “happiness is that which is under our control,” and that “it is not an unbroken succession of drinking, feasts and revelry […] that produces a sober life; it is sober reasoning” (Hicks, Stoic and Epicurean, 1925). We read passages as well by Jean Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill who also assert that thought, instead of impulse fulfillment, is the path to happiness. J.S. Mill says that “pleasure of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of moral sentiments [have] a much higher value as pleasures than those of mere sensation” because they are more permanent, and more importantly, because they fulfill our greatest capacities as human beings (The Basic Writings of John Stuart Mill, 242). Rousseau, meanwhile, distinguishes between duty and impulse, between appetite and justice, and says that “impulse of mere appetite is slavery”:
Although in this state, he is deprived of many advantages he derives from nature, he acquires equally great ones in return; his faculties are exercised and developed; his ideas are expanded; his feelings are ennobled; his whole soul is exalted to such a degree that, if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade him below that from which he has emerged, he ought to bless without ceasing the happy moment that released him from it for ever, and transformed him from a stupid and ignorant animal into an intelligent being and a man. (Social Contract, chapter 8)
J.S. Mill sums up this idea famously: “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied.” So, when you spoke to the ways we distract ourselves, with texting and music stuffed in our ears, for example, and of the few rare moments left for real thought, you seemed to be speaking in this tradition. And when you spoke of the need to face mortality head on, you seemed to be speaking in the tradition of Arthur Schopenhauer, who says that our suffering brings us into sanctifying harmony with a universe indeed full of pain.
Such ideas, of necessity, are morbid and accusatory, but they were intended, as I understand them, to challenge students to break from a culture that esteems consumption and multitasking—a challenge onerous and sincere enough that you had to topple their complacency to get there.
Unfortunately, parents mostly heard the morbidity and accusation on a night when they hoped to celebrate achievements and wanted to make bright a luster of possibility. It’s true warnings can be welcome: the valedictory speech, for example, masterfully presented moral hazard as an inevitable partner of our dreams. Yet because of the urgency of your warning, you dwelt there longer than was welcome for these parents.
I was proud of our graduates, who, for the most part, did not join families in opposition but listened instead, and, indeed, worked to hear you.
Finally, I want to thank you, and to apologize, and to ask you for your own thoughts about the evening.
I am also enclosing my parting words to my Philosophy students, which includes a message I think you’ll find familiar.
Your colleague as a high-school-English-teaching-Mr.-G—
David Grosskopf
Roosevelt High School
January 29, 2013
Dear Philosophy and Literature students,
This is a farewell letter.
I wanted to repeat some of the things I have said in class.
The pressures of the life to which you’ve signed on will continue to have an irresistible rhythm. I know that you have felt their aggressive push from the onslaught of class assignments coming at you many ways at once, and from rebuilding over and over for unformed groups of students every five months, and from the impersonal, unassailable judgments of college entrance boards, and from your parents’ need for your safety and academic progress.
These pressures have undoubtedly forced a rhythm on you time and time again that prevent you from your healthiest states of being: when you can think with clarity and laugh -- and cry -- with ease, when you have time and sense to be compassionate and grateful, when imagination is engaged, when interactions electrify, and when your heart is big and easy, you are in a good place.
You’ll get into college or whatever and the pressures of high school will end, but new pressure will continually force the rhythm of your life. That’s just the way it is. You’ll have things to do by certain times, and you’ll be overwhelmed and you’ll cope. The feeling of anxiety and unease that has felt like something you just need to get through is going to come back, again and again.
I know you’ve seen adults that live this way much of the time. Television and alcohol fit very nicely into this rhythm, and that is part of what you’ve seen (and part of what I think you’ve already done).
But there are ways to take control of the rhythm of your life again. You have to deliberately slow down the pace. You have to put yourself in jagged relationship to the grinding path to which you default. Television and alcohol will do nothing to change this pace. But you already know and do many things that can. Travel, adventure, and exercise can shift your rhythm enough for you to reevaluate and readjust. Conversation with someone smart and unafraid. Inefficiencies can be good for you. Creative and expressive arts can put you back in mind. Any kind of art -- literature, painting, theater, music, etc., -- has the potential to alter perspective and change your pace. It’s the job of art to do so.
These things are enlivening and accessible; but taking control of the rhythm of your life will often require a conscious, deliberate step.
Thank you for the honor and privilege of being your teacher. I’ll miss you.
David Grosskopf
Mr. Grosskopf, thank you for this thoughtful analysis. I had a lot of these same thoughts last night, in between craning my neck to look in horror at booing parents and watching other graduates snicker or text their friends. While it was hugely disrespectful, I think the crowd's general reaction illustrates Guterson's point quite well. People didn't want to think about the scary things in life, the uncertainty in death, or question their own sources of happiness. It is hard to evaluate yourself honestly and clearly and even harder to recognize in yourself thoughts or pleasures that may be shallow or destructive. Guterson tried to urge us to not be satisfied with happiness derived from superficial sources and to pursue a greater joy from fearless thought. I wish I could say I was having these thoughts and understandings while Guterson was speaking, but those came a little later--at the time all I could think about was how Matrix-esque it all was. It's funny that you included the philosophy farewell letter because at the end of Guterson's speech my immediate reaction was comfort in that I'd heard this message before, from your letter and from class in general. That message is one I will try to keep in mind as I venture off into the unknown, sometimes scary world of college and beyond. So, to both Mr. Grosskopf and David Guterson, thank you for such good advice, which may be a bitter pill to swallow but will impact our lives for the better if we take a minute to listen.
ReplyDeleteAs a parent of one of the graduates who attended the ceremony and heard Guterson's speech last night, I though it was one of the most courageous speeches I have ever heard. You may or may not have liked what he had to say, but I can honestly say I have never heard anything like it. What I found most interesting is that my son and many of his friends liked it - it was the parents that seemed most horrified by it. Is that because so many of the parents are in fact living the lives of quiet desperation he was warning the graduates about? The more I think about about it, the more I think that it was a notable speech, and Guterson's willingness to shatter social mores and speak truth to the graduates (and their parents) was remarkable. I'm really happy that I could be there to hear it.
ReplyDeleteI was fortunate to have been in the stadium to hear that magnificent speech. I was in such awe that I didn't start recording his words until 5 minutes before the end. Does anyone have a full recording/transcript of his speech?
ReplyDeleteThere were elements of truth within Guterson's speech, however uncomfortable they might be. Truth is inherently convicting and when presented clearly, will always inspire change in some way. While I don't want to be too forthright, the audience's reaction brings to mind a few choice words from Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men: "You can't handle the truth!"
ReplyDeleteEverything fadged out in the end
ReplyDeleteLike the other people who have commented here, I, too, was horrified at the reactions of some of my fellow graduates and their parents. They were just proving Guterson right. There was a girl next to me who showed me her phone after her mom texted her something like "disregard everything he's saying, you'll find happiness if you look for it." Why does that parent believe that we need to think that? Certainty is just a comforting illusion. Life is uncertain; happiness is uncertain. The sooner we realize that, the better. We all fear uncertainty to some degree, but we can't avoid it. I wish more people had understood that message instead of blindly reacting to things they didn't want to hear. It made me realize just how close-minded people can be, and it made me reaffirm my commitment to being open-minded. I'm not sure what those parents wanted to hear. 15 minutes of that other guy's speech? I don't think we need to hear how awesome or funny we are from someone who doesn't even know us. Guterson's speech was great because it was so thought-provoking and controversial. I wish our society could reach the point where it wouldn't be controversial, but since we're not there yet, we really needed to hear something like that. Thank you to both Mr. Guterson and Mr. Grosskopf for bringing up something that needs to be talked about more.
ReplyDeleteIf his message had been as articulate, and as personal, as your's, Mr. Grosskopf, I don't think people would have complained. His speech was too accusatory, too generalizing, and too out-of-place for me to respect. As a gay atheist who has had more than one existential crisis, this speech left me cold. I knew my life was going to be harder because of sexual orientation. But, I didn't want to hear it. My graduation was the one place I didn't want to discuss such things. His points, while valid, were marred by how he insulted the religious people in attendance, and how he generalized all of the graduates as pot smokers who were too vapid to do anything but tweet and create shallow Facebook statuses. It doesn't take bravery to do what Gutterson did; condescending a bunch of teenagers by acting like your more cool than the rest of modern society is easy to do. Your letter to us was short, to the point, and really affected me. It was sweet and poignant. His came off as condescending, cold, not practiced, and insulting. As a fellow graduate said that night, it seemed as though he was forcing his perspective onto us. One of the key ideas in your class was the exploration of multiple different takes on how to live our lives. Gutterson, as he said in the beginning of his speech, took this opportunity to get on his soapbox about the shallowness of modern society. His perspective was the only one we heard, and I find no fault with those who disagreed. However, the heckling was wrong, and I respect the opinions of those who enjoyed his speech. It only left my blood boiling.
ReplyDeleteLinda Shaw wrote an article about the event in The Seattle Times. Find it here:
ReplyDeletehttp://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2021184885_rooseveltgraduationgutersonxml.html
as a parent of one of the graduates, I found Guterson's keynote speech to a gloomy keynote to what most considered a joyous occasion. While I was appalled at the behavior of the parents who heckled Guterson, I was also most impressed by the behavior of the graduates, some of whom turned & looked in askance at the behavior of the adult attending the ceremony. The main issue with the speech was not the underlying message (which you needed a coal miner's pickax to find) but Guterson's assertion that our children & ourselves were hedonistic persons indulging in religion, pot, social media, gossip & sex to escape our innate unhappiness - not the message to send our young men & women off into the world. This speech would be more deserving of an academic classroom, inviting discussion from these attending rather than an accusatory send off for our children into adulthood. The message I hope my graduate takes from this speech is the discernment to pick out the nuggets from the dirt & find something worthwhile in that 25 minutes to apply to his life. I am proud that he realized the audience heckling was not adult behavior.
ReplyDeleteGuterson's speech was excellent, no doubt, but grossly inappropriate to the setting. Graduation is first and foremost, a celebration. For many of our classmates, graduation from high school is a truly monumental accomplishment. One girl I know in particular is the first in her community to receive a high school diploma. This should be celebrated through a keynote speech, not trivialized. I found Guterson's speech arrogant; he seemed to think that what he had to say was more important than celebrating our accomplishments and inspiring us to positively affect the world. His ultimate message was positive, and worthwhile, but since he is clearly an intelligent man, he must have known what kinds of reactions he would receive, but he chose to give this speech anyway. I find that profoundly arrogant, despite his ultimately positive message
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would agree with Bronwyn on that the speech was a good speech in composition as well as message for a much different setting. From the general positive reaction by the philosophy students, I would suggest that it be delivered in a small group of people who wish to contemplate reality in the warmth of a classroom, not in a large, cold stadium in which the majority of the people wanted to get on with life. I found his speech to be arrogant in his determination to link all major problems that we have as humans together and to try to find a cure alone. If he had focused on one example of his point, he may have gotten a more positive reception. His consistent repeats of his point also seemed to annoy everyone as time dragged by. So, thanks for the speech buddy but, next time, think about what we (as an at least 900 strong group of people) want to hear and not what you want to say. Unfortunately, with the reception you got, I really don't think you will be selected again.
ReplyDeleteIt's taken me a couple of days to process both what Mr. Guterson said and the varied responses to it.
ReplyDeleteFor all of the complaining about the length and at times verbosity of his speech, I cannot help but wonder if our short attention spans and unwillingness to probe deeper at the moment of hearing are themselves a comment on or proof of what Mr. Guterson had to say about our distracted lives.
As to the shockingly insensitive behavior of many parents (and sadly, a few of my peers) I am so angered that I hardly know what to say. I certainly agree with the first anonymous commentator who wondered if "so many of the parents are in fact living the lives of quiet desperation he was warning the graduates about?" I'd like to tell those parents who felt moved to heckle that if they'd like to live in a comfortable cage of denial, that's fine, but please don't wall me in too. I think they owe all of us an apology - their negativity struck me as far more extreme than Mr. Guterson's. This brings me to another point - he wasn't excessively negative! He took the brave step of telling the truth, of treating us like the adults so many of us want to be. And being a successful, mature adult involves confronting the often dark nature of the human condition. But to categorize Mr. Guterson's speech as "gloomy" as the Seattle Times did is a gross simplification.
One thing that came up in my family's many discussions was the usage of that word above, "brave." Many of us have mentioned Mr. Guterson's bravery in delivering an unpopular speech. But as my mother pointed out, one's action is only brave when one is surrounded by cowards. Alas, it seems that there were many of those in the audience on Wednesday.
Finally, a word on the suitability of the occasion. I agree that graduation is an accomplishment, something to celebrate and be proud of. And I understand that for some, it represents a personal achievement (first one in the family, etc.) But I also agree with Katrina that having a stranger congratulate us on our accomplishments is not particularly validating. Praise from my family, teachers, and friends means a lot more, and I get that outside of the graduation ceremony. I much preferred Mr. Guterson's deeply insightful speech to a more conventionally saccharine one. And besides, if not at graduation, then when? Isn't that precisely his point, that we like to put off thinking about these things? What makes a classroom a more appropriate place to think about what we want to do with our lives than an evening when we celebrate what we have already done and look forward to what we are about to do?
One last note to my fellow philosophy classmates: did anyone else think about Viktor Frankl's happiness vs. meaning debate during Mr. Guterson's speech? I remember that when we discussed that in class, it was similarly controversial.
I think he nailed some existentialist philosophy, and it was a good speech, but I don't think it was appropriate for our graduation. However, the parents heckling him were way more out of line. At least this one will be memorable.
ReplyDeleteFull text here:
ReplyDeletehttp://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/06/14/the-full-text-david-gutersons-controversial-commencement-speech
I agree with Bronwyn. The speech was interesting from an intellectual perspective but it had no place at a graduation. Guterson could have taken one look at the balloons and cheering parents to realize this. People don't come to an event like graduation to be challenged and attacked. Graduation represents a celebration of our move into adulthood. Ironically, Guterson preached selflessness but then showed disdain for a ritual and a celebration that many people hold to a very high degree of importance.
ReplyDelete"Put yourself away and begin to find freedom. And you can find this freedom, which we might also call happiness".
ReplyDeleteGiven the density of this 23 minute speech, I didn't give these words a second thought. After reading the transcript, however, I see these two sentences as the source of our conflict.
Guterson equates happiness with freedom, but fails to justify this belief. If happiness and freedom truly were one and the same, Guterson's words would probably make more sense to me. I do think that a mind free of anxieties, fears and drugs may be a more free mind - but I do not believe it makes a happier mind. Although the two concepts may go hand in hand, I do not see freedom and happiness as proportional to each other.
Oh, and for all the talk about happiness, where was the discussion on meaning and purpose?