For some bizarre reason I have spent the last hour or so reading commencement speeches. Among them was one by Susan Sontag that she gave at Wellesley College in 1983. In a backhanded kind of way it is quite comforting to read a passage about the President of USA then,that, given a few minor changes, could have been written today. But I won’t quote that one – you can read it yourself – instead I draw your attention to this one, which is worth some moments of time to ponder:
“As individuals we are never outside of some system which bestows significance. But we can become aware that our lives consist: both really and potentially, of many systems. That we always have choices, options—and that it is a failure of imagination (or fantasy) not to perceive this. The large system of significance in which we live is called “culture.” In that sense, no one is without a culture. But in a stricter sense, culture is not a given but an achievement, that we have to work at all our lives. Far from being given, culture is something we have to strive to protect against all incursions. Culture is the opposite of provinciality—the provinciality of the intellect, and the provinciality of the heart. (Far from being merely national, or local, it is properly international.) The highest culture is self-critical and makes us suspicious and critical of state power.”