The President Speaks: Commencement address

It is an honor for me to speak to you this afternoon at your commencement ceremony. Not everyone is lucky enough to attend college. Not everyone has the good fortune to graduate from such a venerable and prestigious university.

At the same time, many people pooh pooh a college education. Maybe they do because they are envious. Maybe they do because they are lazy. Maybe because they lack imagination and can’t see the value in going to college, except to get a job.

One of the failings of our society is that we have made money the only thing that determines a person’s worth. This belief has influenced universities and colleges, both how they perceive themselves and how they are perceived.

The public no longer looks to universities as keepers of the truth of Western Culture. Universities no longer see their role to be educating students in Western history and philosophy. Large segments of the uneducated public no longer lust for Homer, the Greek tragedies, Plato, Shakespeare.

One critic of our academic culture, the late Alan Bloom, wrote that the public does not take the mission of a university seriously anymore because universities no longer teach Truth, nor are proud of the ideas and ideals that have influenced Western Culture and America. Rather he said, universities have caved in to pressure to teach that Truth is relative, that someone who reads mostly modern works has an equally valid claim to be educated than someone who is conversant about our tradition of literature, philosophy and political writings.

So, professor Bloom writes, someone who lusts for Truth, who aches to understand The Bible and Plato, has nowhere to go because our universities do not take the great books, with all their potential for emotion and thought, seriously.

My point is that there is something called Truth. If we do not believe in the truths of our tradition, we seriously lack imagination and we magnificently manifest cowardice. We are willing to crumble to the competition from Islam, Feminism, Multiculturalism, Homocentricism, and still unfortunately, Communism.

It isn’t that Islam, Feminism and Communism should not be studied. They should. So should histories of different regions and countries. But the assumption should be that Western morals are the best, that other philosophies can best be used to see where we are weak, not to replace our tradition.

It is true that the cannon is still taught. But it is not taught as the Truth. Multiculturalists and feminists would ban the great books of the West if they could.

For now they can’t. But they are working on it.

There is more to this than just objective truth. To be a great individual, you have to be true to what is in you. The point of Socrates and Jesus is that they were true to what was beautiful in them, no matter what the price.

The Western tradition has always balanced the subjective and objective truth. There is not this balance in our opposing religions, philosophies and isms. They are not seeking a better world for everyone, only their own group. They do not encourage members of their group to think outside of the box.

Universities have thought outside the box for too long. It is time to return to it, to encourage students to read The Bible every day until they finish, to read Phaedrus every couple of years until they understand it and can talk about love and true speech, to read The Tempest until the closing scence makes them unable to read anything else for days.

I mentioned talking about what was read. One of the weaknesses of the Western academic tradition is that professors were not required, and did not seek, unlike the East, to explain their knowledge to ordinary people in everyday words.

Multiculturalists seek to get their word out. They are aggressive and unashamed, though their ideas cannot hold a candle to the Western tradition.

Not only that, they have no fear. But their courage does not come from Truth or love or love of the Truth. It comes from hate, resentment, momentum and being part of a group that is fashionable.

Those of you here today are the most educated people in America. I want you to be proud of it. I especially want those of you who majored in one of the Western humanities to bring your fire, vision and gratitude into the world.

Tell people that the greatness of Western culture lies in the belief that you can find the God in you, either by being generous like Jesus or by not being greedy like Socrates, by living for love of the poor or love of simplicity, not a hatred of rich people.

You graduates are in a dilemma. You will be called elitists. But if you give up your positions and your wealth, and if you are not proud of your education, you will be laughed at.

My advice is to be proud of your education and your career. But do not flaunt your wealth. Be humble and assertive.

Tell the publilc that Socrates and Jesus were spiritually free. Jesus attained his freedom because of a great tradition. Socrates attained his because of a relatively new form of government. There was room in each of those situations to be free, but even then you had to be careful.

Jesus and Socrates were not careful. They knew they had become beautiful. They did not want to compromise their beauty to be accepted into ugliness.

Our society does its best to cultivate ugliness, whether it’s my fellow politicians, the advertising industry, multiculturalism or feminism, or the glorification of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderhood.

These are lonely times. You must choose between how you are lonely. Do you want to be lonely because you see the light and are overwhelmed by your struggle to be true and beautiful? Or do you want to be lonely because you chose darkness and the false power of espousing ugliness?

My graduates, it has truly been an honor to speak today. I love America. I love our Western tradition.

I hope I inspire you to be daring. Courageous good will is the only thing that can save America and the West from all our internal enemies.

Thank you.

Copyright © 2025 by David Vaszko