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]