Nothing Gets My Bile Going Like a College Graduation Ceremony
College administrators' pretentiousness-to-intelligence ratio is higher than pederasts' perversity-to-temperance ratio. It's bad enough that they both pollute the youth. At graduation ceremonies, they make us watch. (Screed)
You want to urinate all over a lovely day? Spend it in Ann Arbor, attending a graduation ceremony at the "Big House" (loathsome nickname . . . created ex nihilo by Keith Jackson in the 1980s . . . some reason, it stuck).
I watched my youngest son graduate on Saturday. Well, I didn't "watch" him. Heck, I couldn't even find him, not even with birding binoculars when they called on him and everyone else in his school to stand to be recognized. Call his name? Absolutely not. That would interfere with the honorary doctorates that universities now hand out like a child molester hands out Smarties.
In UM's defense, there were, like, 10,000 graduates. It would've taken at least four hours to read each of their names.
So instead, UM gave us a parade of self-important educators who dropped platitudes, cliches, and vapidness on a captive audience. They brought less creativity and originality to their speeches than a Zerox machine. Their attempts at humor were more bland than an American suburb.
The highlight of the idiocy occurred when the UM President asked every person who "helped form the support network" for any of these graduates to stand up. In case people weren't sure what "support network" means (I wasn't), he clarified: "parents, siblings, friends." The obvious problem is, that network is broader than a fat chick's hips after giving birth. Every person among the 75,000 people in the stadium falls is covered by that net.
It didn't stop him. Why? Because he simply wasn't trying or he's irredeemably stupid. I honestly don't know which, but for a guy who's paid over $1 million annually, I expect a little effort and intelligence.
That was just Exhibit A. From being reminded (twice) that UM's campus is built on Indian land and that UM is academically the best public university in the world (plausible . . . tallest midget thing) to congratulating the students on their hard work and imploring them to go forth and do great things, the audience was flogged with whips of vacuity and pedestrian platitudes that only a moron or masochist could love.
And these morons did love it. At least they seemed to, beaming at their cleverness like a six-year-old finishing her dance recital. They sure as heck had no sense of the shame that cloaks normal people when they've just wholly compromised their souls.
If you read TDE, you know I'm a traditionalist. Tradition provides a buffer against the rabid rationalisms of the left hemisphere. But there's been one revolt against tradition that I applaud: Breaking the mold on awful, outdated, and boring ceremonies of youth. The dull junior prom has been transformed from tuxedo'd sticks dancing awkwardly with their dates to theme nights with lots of games and activities, meaning guys no longer need to shotgun a pint of Five O'Clock vodka to get through the evening.
We need more of that innovation when it comes to graduation ceremonies. I don't know if they should put on a laser show or bring in dancing bears, but something, anything, that would allow the audience to avoid the verbal assaults of these self-important drones would be a pleasing shift.