Learn English Zadie Smith Why it is a privilege to be with other humans with BIG subtitles

welcome graduating class of 2014 and

congratulations you did it

you made it how do you feel I guess I

can only hazard a guess which means

thinking back to my own graduation in

England 1997 and extrapolating did I

feel like you I should say first that

some elements of the day were rather

different I wasn’t in a stadium

listening to a speech I was in an 18th

century Hall kneeling before the Dean

who spoke Latin and held one of my

fingers don’t ask me why still the

essential facts were the same like you I

was finally done with my degree and had

made of myself a graduate and like you I

now had two families the old boring one

that raised me and an exciting new one

consisting of a bunch of freaks I’ve met

in college but part of the delightful

anxiety of graduation day was trying to

find a way to blend these two tribes

with their differing haircuts and

political views and hygiene standards

and tastes and music I felt like a

character in two different movies and so

old I really believed I was ancient

impossibly distant in experience from

the freshmen only three years below I

was as likely to pretend the squirrel as

a freshman which strange relationship

with time is perhaps unique to graduates

and toddlers nowadays age 38 if I meet

someone of 41

I don’t conclude that friendship is

impossible between us but when I was 21

the gap between me and an 18 year old

felt insurmountable just like my

four-year-old daughter who’d rather eat

sand and have a play date with a one

year old and what else oh the love

dramas so many love dramas mine

the people’s they take up such a large

part of college life it seems unfair not

to have them properly reflected in the

transcript any full account of my

university years should really include

the fact that I majored in English

literature with a minor in drunken

discussions about the difference between

loving someone and being in love with

that person what can I tell you it was

the 90s

we were really into ourselves we were

into self curation in the 90s we even

had a thing called year off trousers

which signified any kind of ethnic or

exotic pants one brought back home from

a distant ideally third world country

and these trousers were meant to alert

to a passing stranger the fact we’ve

been somewhere fascinating and thus

added further color to our unique

personalities personally I couldn’t

afford a year off but I was very

compelled by those trousers in short the

thing I wanted most in the world was to

be an individual I thought that’s what

my graduation signified that I had gone

from being one of the many to one of the

few to one of the ones who would have

choices in life

after all my father didn’t have many

choices

his father had none at all unlike them I

had gone to university I was a special

individual well looking back it’s easy

to diagnose a case of self love people

are always accusing students of self

love of self obsession and this is a bit

confusing because college surely

encourages the habit you concentrate on

yourself in order to improve yourself

isn’t that the whole idea and out of

this process hopefully emerge strikingly

competent individuals with high

self-esteem prepared for personal

achievement when we graduate though

things can get a little complicated for

how are we meant to think of this

fabulous person we’ve taken such care of

creating if University made me special

did that mean I was worth more than my

father more than his father before him

did it mean I should expect more from

life than them did I deserve more what

does it really mean to be one of the few

are the fruits of our education a sort

of gift to be circulated generously

through the world or are we to think us

of ourselves as pure commodity on sale

to the highest bidder well let’s be

honest you’re probably feeling pulled in

several directions right now and that’s

perfectly natural in the 90s the post

graduation dilemma was usually presented

to us as a straight ethical choice

between working for the banks and doing

selfless charitable work the comic

extremity of the choice I now see was

perfectly deliberate it men you didn’t

have to take it too seriously and so we

peeled off from each other some of us

many of us join the banks but those that

didn’t had no special cause to pat

ourselves on the back with rare

exceptions we all pursued self-interest

more or less it wasn’t a surprise

we’d been raised that way born in the

70s we did not live through austerity

did not go to war like my father or his

father for the most part we did not join

large political or ideological movements

we simply inherited the advantages of

for which a previous generation had

fought and the thing so many of us

feared was the idea of being subsumed

back into the collective from which we’d

come of being returned to the world of

the many or doing any work at all in

that world

in my case this new attitude was

particularly noticeable my own mother

was a social worker and I had teachers

in my rowdy state school who had

themselves been educated at precisely

the elite institution I would later join

but amongst my college friends I know of

no one who made that choice for the most

part we were uninterested in what we

considered to be unglamorous pursuits we

valued individuality above all things

you can thank my generation for the

invention of the word supermodel and the

popularization of celebrity and

lifestyle often used in conjunction with

each other reality TV that was us also

televised talent shows also ugg boots

you’re welcome millenials and when the

fussier amongst us detected in these

visions of prestigious individuality

perhaps something a little crass and

commercialized our solution was to go in

some ways further down the same road to

out individuate the celebrated

individuals we became hipsters defined

by the ways we weren’t like everybody

else

one amusing much commented upon

consequence of this was that we all

ended up individuals of the same type

not one of a kind but one of a kind but

there was another aspect I knife now

find melancholic we isolated ourselves

it took us the longest time to work out

that we needed each other you may have

noticed that even now we seem somewhat

stunned by quite ordinary human pursuits

like having children or living in a

neighborhood or getting ill we’re always

writing lifestyle articles about such

matters in the Sunday papers that’s

because until very recently we were

thought we were gonna get through this

whole life thing purely on our own steam

even if we were no fans of the ex

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

we had unwittingly taken her most famous

slogan

and embedded it deep within our own

lives there is no such thing as society

she said we were unique individuals what

do we need with society but then it

turned out the things that have happened

to everybody since the dawn of time also

happened to us our parents got old and

ill our children needed schools and

somewhere to play we wanted trains that

ran on time we needed each other it

turned out we were just human like

everybody now I may have this completely

backward but I get the sense that

something different is going on in your

generation something hopeful you seem to

be smarter sooner part of these smarts

is surely born out of crisis in the 90s

we had high employment and a buoyant

economy we could afford to spend weeks

wondering about the exact length and

shape of our bids or whether Kurt Cobain

was a sellout your situation is more

acute you have so many large collective

tasks ahead and you know that we had

them too but paid little attention so

now I’m afraid it falls to you the

climate the economy the sick

relationship between the individual

prestige of the first world and the

anonymity of the third these are things

only many hands can fix working together

you are all individuals are you also

part of a generation and generations are

defined by the projects they take on

together even at the level of slogan

you’ve decided to honor the concept of

the many over the few that now famous

99% as far as slogans go which is not

very far you’re still sounds more

thoughtful to me than the slogans of my

youth which were fatally infected by

advertising be strong be fast be bold be

different bu bu that was always the take

away and when my peers grew up and

into advertising they spread that

message far and wide just be you

screams the label on your shampoo bottle

just be you cries your deodorant because

you’re worth it you get about 50

commencement speeches a day and that’s

before you’ve even left the bathroom I

didn’t think you’d want any more of that

from me instead I want to speak in favor

of recognizing our place within the many

not only as a slogan much less as a

personal sacrifice but rather as a

potential source of joy in your life

here is a perhaps silly example happened

to be recently at my mother’s birthday

around midnight it came time to divide

up the rum cake and I not naturally one

of life’s volunteers was press-ganged

into helping a small circle of women

surrounded me dressed in West African

raps and head scarfs in imitation of

their ancestors many hands make short

work said one and passed me a stack of

paper plates it was my job to take the

plated slices through the crowd hardly

any words passed between us as we went

about our collective task but each time

we set a new round upon a tray I

detected a hum of deep satisfaction at

our many hands forming this youthful

human chain occasionally as I gave out a

slice of cake and all the person would

look up a murmur ah

Yvonne’s daughter but for the most part

it was the cake itself that received the

greeting a little nod or a smile for it

was the duty of the daughter to hand out

cake no further commentary was required

and it was while doing what I hadn’t

realized was my duty that I felt what

might be described as the exact opposite

of the sensation I have standing in

front of you now not puffed up with

individual prestige but immersed in the

beauty of the crowd connected if only in

gesture to an ancient line of prac

women working in Campania bull silence

in the service of their community it’s

such a ludicrously tiny example of a

collective action and yet clearly still

so rare in my own life they even this

minor instance of it struck me anyway my

point is it was a beautiful feeling and

it was over too soon and when I tried to

look for a way to put it into this

speech I was surprised how difficult it

is to find the right words to describe

it so many of our colloquial terms for

this work of many hands are sunk in

infamy human chain for starters cog in

the Machine brick in the wall in such

phrases we sense the long shadow of the

20th century with its brutal collective

movements we do not trust the collective

we’ve seen what submission to it can do

we believe instead in the individual

here in America especially now I also

believe in the individual I’m so

grateful for the three years of college

that helped make more or less of an

individual out of me teaching me how to

think and write you may well ask whom I

to praise the work of many hands when I

myself chose the work of one pair of

hands the most isolated there is I can’t

escape that accusation I can only look

at my own habit of self-love and ask

what is the best use I can make of this

utterly human habit can I make a gift of

myself in some other way I know for sure

I haven’t done it half as much as I

should or could have I look at the fine

example of my friend the writer and

activist Dave Eggers and see a man who

took his own individual prestige and

parlayed it into an extraordinary

collective action eight to six national

in which many hands work to create

educational opportunities for

disadvantaged kids all over this country

and when you go to one of days

not-for-profit tutoring centers you

don’t find selfless young people grimly

sacrificing themselves for others what

you see

is joy Dave’s achievement is neither

quite charity nor simple individual

philanthropy it’s a collective effort

that gets people involved in each

other’s lives I don’t mean to speak

meanly of philanthropy generally

speaking philanthropy is always better

than no help at all

but it is also in itself a privilege of

the few and I think none of us want

communities to rise or fall dependent on

the whims of the very rich I think we

would rather be involved in each other’s

lives and that what stops us most often

is fear we fear that the work of many

hands will obscure the beloved outline

of our individual selves but perhaps

itself you’ve been treasuring for so

long is itself the work of many hands

speaking personally I owe so much to the

hard work of my parents to the

educational and health care systems in

my country to the love and care of my

friends and even if one’s individual

prestige such as it is represents an

entirely solo effort the result of sheer

hard work does that everywhere and

always mean you deserve the largest

possible slice of the pie but these are

big questions and it is collectively

that you’ll have to decide them

everything from the remuneration of

executives to the idea of the Commons

itself depends upon it and at the core

of the question is what it really means

to be the few and the many throughout

your adult life you’re going to have a

daily choice to throw your lot in with

one or the other and a lot of people

most people even people without the

luxury of your choices are going to

suggest to you over and over that only

an idiot chooses to join join the many

when he could be one of the few only an

idiot chooses public / private shared /

gated community unique mrs. Thatcher who

was such a genius at witty aphorism once

said a man who beyond the age of 26

finds himself on a bus can count himself

a failure

I’ve always been fascinated by that

quote by its dark assumption that even

something is natural is sharing a

journey with another person represents a

form of personal denigration the best

reply to I know is that famous line of

Terence the Roman playwright Homer some

whom are Nina Hill army alienum puto I

am a human being I consider nothing that

is human alien to me

Montana like that so much he had it

carved into the beams of his ceiling

some people interpret it as a call to

toleration I find it stronger than that

I think it’s a call to love now full

disclosure most of the time I don’t find

it easy to love my fellow humans I’m

still that solipsistic 21 year old but

the times I’ve been able to get over

myself and get involved at whatever

level well what I’m trying to say is

those approve the most valuable moments

of my life and I never would have

guessed that back in 1997 oh I would

have paid lip service to it as a noble

idea but I wouldn’t have believed in and

the thing is it’s not even a question of

ethics or self-sacrifice or moral

high-ground

it’s actually totally selfish being with

people doing for people it’s gonna bring

you joy unexpectedly it just feels

better it feels good to give your unique

and prestige ourselves to slip every now

and then and confess your membership in

this unwieldly collective called the

human race for one thing it’s far less

lonely and for another contrary mrs.

Thatcher some of the best conversations

you’ll ever hear

will be on public transport if it

weren’t for the New York and London

subway systems my novels would be books

of blank pages but I’m preaching to the

converted I see you gazing into your

phones as you walk down Broadway and I

know solipsistic danger as it is for me

as it has been for every human since the

dawn of time but you’ve also got this

Mendes contrapuntal force pulling you

into the world for aren’t you always

connecting to each other forever

communicating rarely scared of strangers

wildly open ready to tell anyone

everything doesn’t online anonymity tear

at the very idea of a prestige

individual aren’t young artists

collapsing the border between themselves

and their audience aren’t young coders

determined on an all-access world in

which everybody is an equal participant

are the young activists content just to

raise the money and run no they want to

be local grassroots involved those are

all good instincts I’m so excited to

think of you pursuing them hold on to

that desire for human connection don’t

let anyone scare you out of it walk down

these crowded streets with a smile on

your face be thankful you get to walk so

close to other humans it’s a privilege

don’t let your fellow humans be alien to

you and as you get older and perhaps a

little less open than you are now don’t

assume that exclusive always and

everywhere means better it may only mean

lonelier there will always be folks hard

selling you the life of the few the

private schools private planes private

islands private life they’re trying to

convince you that hell is other people

don’t believe it we are far more

frequently each other’s shelter and

correction the antidote to solipsism and

so many windows on this world thank you

[Applause]