Moyers addressing graduates of SMU
Christine May 29th, 2007
“My young friends, you are not leaving here in ordinary times. The ancient Greeks had a word for a moment like this. They called it “kairos.” Euripedes describes kairos as the moment when “the one who seizes the helm of fate, forces fortune.” As I was coming here to Dallas today to ask what you are going to do to make the most of your life, I thought: Please God, let me be looking in the face of some young man or woman who is going to transcend the normal arc of life, who is going one day to break through, inspire us, challenge us, and call forth from us the greatness of spirit that in our best moments have fired the world’s imagination. You know the spirit of which I speak. Memorable ideas sprang from it: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”…“created equal”… “government of, by, and for the people”…“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”…“I have a dream.” Those were transformational epochs in American politics, brought forth by the founding patriots who won our independence, by Lincoln and his Lieutenants who saved the Union, by Franklin Roosevelt who saved capitalism and democracy, and by Martin Luther King, martyred in the struggle for equal rights. These moments would have been lost if left to transactional politics—the traditional politics of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” But moral leadership transcended the realities at hand and changed the course of our history.”
Read the entire commencement May 19th address by Bill Moyers.
Thanks, Marti.
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