CHESTNUT HILL, MA (May 2009) - In keeping with the Ignatian call to go and "set the world aflame," eminent filmmaker Ken Burns urged the Class of 2009 to go out and "change the world" - exhorting them in particular to help reaffirm the nation's commitment to its most enduring ideals.
In his address at Boston College's 133rd Commencement Exercises on May 18, Burns said that today's graduates are setting forth at a time of great uncertainty in the nation and world. But, "history, I have learned over the last 30 years of practice, is the greatest teacher there is," Burns told the assembly of 3,395 undergraduate and graduate students, flanked by family and friends wielding umbrellas against the drizzly day.
"The question then becomes for you, this new next generation: What will you choose as your guiding light? Which distant past events, which compelling historical figures will provide you with the greatest help, the most comforting solace, the best examples of wisdom and leadership?"
In his introductory remarks, Boston College President William P. Leahy, SJ, also acknowledged the challenging times, but expressed confidence that graduating BC students could make a difference for the better, encouraging them to "use your gifts for the good of all."
Boston College presented Ken Burns with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree at the ceremonies. Also receiving honorary degrees this year were Margot C. Connell, philanthropist and committed supporter of Catholic education (Doctor of Humane Letters); Joseph E. Corcoran, alumnus, real estate developer and pioneer of mixed-income housing (Doctor of Business Administration); Rev. Daniel J. Harrington, SJ, alumnus, acclaimed Biblical scholar and author (Doctor of Humane Letters); Carolyn A. Lynch, volunteer leader and noted entrepreneurial philanthropist (Doctor of Humane Letters), and Benaree Pratt Wiley, advocate of leadership roles for people of color in the business community (Doctor of Public Administration).
Burns, whose films and unique style have given life to topics including baseball, jazz and other facets of American history, is hailed as one of the most influential documentary filmmakers of a generation. His nine-part film "The Civil War" was the highest-rated series in American public television history, attracting an audience of some 40 million during its premiere. But today, he told the new graduates, "we find ourselves in the midst of a new, subtler, perhaps more dangerous civil war than Abraham Lincoln faced."
Noting that this class is the fifth graduating class to have spent its entire college experience under the pall of September 11, Burns said that the reaction to the tragedy, "which sponsored so much unity and renewal of that national purpose in its immediate aftermath, has now ironically metastasized into an angrier, more divided nation, where we continually emphasize what differentiates ourselves from the other, rather than what we share in common. Where suspicion, rather than trust, is inculcated in us all. Where we retreat behind false ramparts of mindless consumerism to ward off a stultifying loneliness brought on by that very same retreat from each other."
The virtual world of Blackberrys, video games, texting and Facebook, is causing real experience to disappear for many, he said, and "testing our very membership, our founder Thomas Jefferson might suggest, in our democratic possibilities. And that could, without a single shot being fired, divide our country more surely than a seemingly ancient Civil War that killed 620 thousand of us - more than two percent of our population - nearly 150 years ago.
"When everything is done apart, we forget our connection to each other and the world," he said. "We separate. And now we are beset by the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. Testing our faith as a people, making desperately uncertain the future you have worked so hard to ensure for yourself, revealing a stunningly bankrupt soul at the heart of many of our most trusted institutions and questioning the optimistic sense of American exceptionalism that has been the dynamo of our progress and our legitimate self-regard."
Burns called upon the Class of 2009 to accept the "great and challenging responsibility to help reverse this alarming tide and set us right again. In short," he said, "you've been drafted to help clean up this mess. You can't gradually adapt to this new expediency; you actually have to change the world. You're joining an army that must be dedicated above all else - career and personal advancement - to the preservation of this country's most enduring ideals. You must consciously, and with every fiber of your being, choose to live as the old Jimmy Stewart movie 'It's a Wonderful Life' postulates, in Bedford Falls and not Pottersville. To choose the values of enlightened self-interest, but only those interests that lift others along with yourself, that fight tenaciously and vigilantly against those dark forces, who in the name of supporting our democratic way of life, have managed to weaken it. "
Burns concluded with some words of advice. "Don't confuse success with excellence," he said. "Replace cynicism with its age-old corrective: skepticism. Travel. Don't get stuck in one place. Stand on the rim of the Grand Canyon, and go to Yellowstone and Yosemite. After all, you own them. Whatever you do, walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. Listen to jazz music, the only art form created by Americans, and a daily proof that that exceptionalism, no matter what the pundits say, is alive and well. Give up addictions and habits.
"Read. The book is still the greatest man-made machine of all time," he said. "Not the car, not the TV, not the Internet. Write. Keep journals. Besides your children, there is no surer way of achieving a practical sort of intimate immortality. Serve your country. Insist that we fight the right wars. Governments always forget that. Insist that we support the sciences and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the defense of the country, they just make the country worth defending.
"Do only, as Emerson suggests, whatever inly rejoices. But do not forget to help - no, serve - those less fortunate," he concluded. "And do not lose your enthusiasm. In its brief etymology, the word enthusiasm means 'God in us.'
"Remember, most of all, that only love multiplies."
(Photo by Gary Wayne Gilbert)