At Random for May 2, 2008
 |
 |
| Advocate Columnists |
 |
Print
Email
Save
Share
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
As this spring’s high school and college graduates hear commencement speeches urging them to look to the future, I’ve been considering a different piece of advice from David McCullough.
Addressing a group of graduates in 1986, McCullough advised them to look not only toward the future, but into the past.
Not a surprising suggestion from McCullough, the award-winning historian behind “John Adams,” the presidential biography that inspired the recent HBO series of the same name.
But McCullough, in talking to those graduates more than 20 years ago, made the point that history isn’t just for historians — that it is, in fact, a form of time travel as important as any other trip a young person might take.
“I feel so sorry for anyone who misses the experience of history, the horizons of history,” said McCullough, whose speech appears in a marvelous collection of his writings called “Brave Companions.”
“We think little of those who, given the chance to travel, go nowhere. We deprecate provincialism,” McCullough told the graduates. “But it is possible to be as provincial in time as it is in space. Because you were born into this particular era doesn’t mean it has to be the limit of your experience. Move about in time, go places. Why restrict your circle of acquaintances to only those who occupy the same stage we call the present?”
Since McCullough offered those words to the Middlebury College Class of 1986, the advent of the Internet and cell phones has sparked a communications revolution, shrinking geography and allowing a new generation to connect easily and instantly with people and places around the globe. Those changes have been nothing short of modern miracles, doing much to expand the world of knowledge.
But as progress makes technology ever more immediate, its urgency can block the backward glance — the shared history that allows knowledge to deepen into wisdom.
In savoring the great art, architecture and literature of the past, McCullough suggested that we could avoid the common conceit of our time, “which is that our time outranks all others in all attainments.”
Historical filmmaker Ken Burns offered similar advice when he addressed a group of graduates in 1993. Vowing to avoid the cliché of telling graduates that their future lies ahead of them, Burns had this to say instead:
“I thought about this and I am now convinced that your future lies behind you — in our past, collective and personal. If you do not know where you’ve been, how can you possibly know where you’re going?”
Which is why, as this year’s graduates embark on the road to tomorrow, they’d do well to take a look at the rearview mirror.
Advocate editorial writer Danny Heitman contributes “At Random” to the People section each Friday.
