Student speaker Jessica Wei wearing a black graduation gown, speaks to the camera from in front of a virtual background of Brandeis’s Light of Reason:
Around this time, one year ago, amid all the chaos, I found solace in Percy Bysshe Shelley's line, "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" I did not know it would take another year for spring to come, but finally, here we are. Congratulations, my fellow Class of 2021. We made it.
I would like to congratulate you all, not only for your hard-earned diplomas and academic achievements, but also for our spring that has finally come -- the joy after the struggles. Although we are again unable to celebrate this moment together in person, I am so glad that we could all be here today, united not only as a community through Zoom, but also as humanists through our shared passion for the Humanities.
My dear fellow humanists -- some see us as outcasts of a utility-driven society, always bombarded by the impudent, relentless question, "what job can you get with that?" and the humanities are always the first to be sacrificed in times of crisis. In addition, we have our inner doubts too: that we have had to justify to ourselves the value of the humanities when we have felt so powerless seeing the scientists and heroes holding the world together, tumult lighting up the US Capitol, bullets of racial hatred shooting across the country. At times, humanities seemed like a sandcastle that could easily be crushed by a gust of wind like this pandemic, no matter how exquisite their appearance.
But the value of the humanities itself, I think, lies in the word "human". The humanities, in my view, constitute an inward exploration about what it means to be human -- the human condition and our shared human experiences. You know, the things that make us more than just super monkeys who make superior tools.
When I first got into philosophy, I was moved by this humanistic spirit in philosophical inquiries. That human beings from thousands of years ago were asking the very same questions my childhood self was so eager to find the answers to -- questions that I am still urgently pondering today. What makes a "just society"? How should morality be construed? What makes me, me? How does the mental relate to the physical? And, what is the meaning of life? Engaging with these collective inquiries about the world and our place in it makes me feel "human", that I am a part of this everlasting search for answers, shared not only with the greatest minds throughout human history, but also between you and me.
My best friend Elvy, to whom I wish to pay special thanks for the inspirations that led to this speech, studied English here at Brandeis and told me about her very last in-person class, which was on Shakespeare. Amid all the apprehensions and confusions over COVID, Professor Billy Flesch said, "But what's happening now was also how Shakespeare's time looked and, indeed, the vast majority of human history as well."
Well, there is something curiously comforting in this: to be aware that we exist in something much larger than our individual selves, that across space and time, somewhere deep, deep down, we are all connected by this vast range and the complexity of feelings, experiences, and cogitations that define and distinguish us all as humans. All the books we read are records of lives and pains so similar to our own, so palpably existed hundreds and thousands of years ago, hundreds and thousands of miles away. As James Baldwin once said: "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." The humanities -- what we are studying, are living evidence of ourselves as a part of the collective humanity, so we are never, ever totally alone.
So, no, the humanities are not a sandcastle. They are a concrete, real, substantive set of bricks, and each brick is laid down firmly by an individual human being who had walked on Earth, who had lived and struggled and wondered and left his or her mark just like us. Each of them has passed their humanity to us. And I know for a fact that we, the class of 2021 will pass their legacies on.
Thank you.