Robert Shetterly, Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series artist, delivered a brilliant commencement address at George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 14.

Here are some excerpts:

“We want our children well educated not for success as it is usually defined in terms of jobs and money but because the success of our communities and our democracy depends on well educated, critical thinking, creative, fun loving people, people who seek truth and see through propaganda and advertising, people who understand that personal success is only meaningful in the context of the common good. Today your community celebrates with you and makes two seemingly contradictory offerings: a new sense of personal freedom and a new awareness of personal responsibility….”

“What I ask from all of us is an awareness of our fundamental reality, and then the necessary citizenship — for our communities and the world — to live our lives in accordance with that reality. This is not a chore or a punishment. It’s a privilege and a joy. It’s a life of meaning rather than consumption. It’s a life in harmony with reality. I suspect that all of you appreciate commonsense, but the habits of our lives, our consumptive desires, and the forces that profit from those habits and desires are not based in commonsense. But they can be. Commonsense is closely related to the common good and the common welfare and simply to protecting the idea of the commons. But to live by commonsense will take a great quantity of common courage from all of us. It will take courage because our status quo is the enemy of commonsense. But everything good takes courage.

I want your success — but no more or no less than I want the success of every other species on earth. Because for you to truly succeed, all the others must, too.”

You can read the whole speech at Rob’s website.

~ Zoe

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