This Commencement Speech Will Blow Your Mind: David Brooks at UChicago

David Brooks, AB’83, op-ed columnist for The New York Times, speaks to graduates on June 9 at the University of Chicago. The address was part of the University of Chicago’s inaugural Class Day ceremony. I had the honor to help translate the whole speech in Chinese. Hope you enjoy it.

Пікірлер: 87

  • @kenlodge3399
    @kenlodge33997 ай бұрын

    Am so glad I came across this. I've been listening to David Brooks for going on ten years now; his segment on PBS mostly. In all that time am sure if you ask him he'll insist he's a "Conservative" and I would have to tell him he is not. For too many reasons, too many to address here, I would have to confront him with the honesty he so often speaks of. His manner of Conservancy might have been center-Right in say maybe the late nineteen sixties, but I appreciate Mr. Brooks and would have to ask he be honest too. He is by far and away the most independent, politically speaking, as well as spiritually plus psychologically. He is his own man, hands down!

  • @muchmorecoffee
    @muchmorecoffee7 ай бұрын

    Just a wonderful speech - way, way unexpected. Brooks gets to the bone and deeper. I didn't realise how hungry I am for more conversations like this. Thank you, and a tip of the hat, David Brooks.

  • @missheartbreak

    @missheartbreak

    6 ай бұрын

    David Brooks is simply the best. He provokes an entire spectrum of emotions, and moves me better than almost any writer. Definitely read his latest book! 🩶

  • @user-hu9lh3yd9h

    @user-hu9lh3yd9h

    6 ай бұрын

    ​@@missheartbreako

  • @maryannleavitt6344

    @maryannleavitt6344

    8 күн бұрын

    @@user-hu9lh3yd9h😅😅😮

  • @laurellussen3512
    @laurellussen35127 ай бұрын

    Thank you, David Brooks. You have given these likely graduates a few, critical, clues. I am truly grateful.

  • @stephenlee685
    @stephenlee6858 ай бұрын

    I finished this video. For what it's worth, for me, I realize how good his final advice was.

  • @juligrlee556
    @juligrlee5567 ай бұрын

    Beautiful: from an 80 year old reader and intense intellectual.

  • @Dirk80241
    @Dirk8024125 күн бұрын

    "How many see the world through a distorted mirror, how many see only what they want to see..." so true. A good education that makes you see is essential. Be thankful for it!

  • @bpai99
    @bpai997 ай бұрын

    Good speech by Mr. Brooks. Earnest, heartfelt, amusing and wise.

  • @cancionerodelpalacio
    @cancionerodelpalacio6 ай бұрын

    Great exposition of the value of deep thought and the beauty of our western tradition: the waves of profound thinkers and profound livers of meaningful lives in our tradition. The folks ignorant of the western tradition--the critics below-- are alienated by his namedropping, thinking that he is pompous or superficial because they don't share the same context and background as do folks who have sincerely explored our spiritual thought tradition. David Brooks is always thoughtful. Whether you agree or not with him politically, only the superficial would think that he is a thinker who is superficial. Nice speech.

  • @bndnambiar
    @bndnambiar4 ай бұрын

    Truthful and touching speech, always enjoy your views deeply

  • @gregorywright1684
    @gregorywright16846 ай бұрын

    I am so glad, that you graced my life with your knowledge.

  • @dieterhalbwidl4667
    @dieterhalbwidl46678 ай бұрын

    Brilliant! Thank you.

  • @rubbersoulboy
    @rubbersoulboy8 ай бұрын

    Impressive and relatable speech..

  • @sherylbellman7160
    @sherylbellman71608 ай бұрын

    It’s the need to be conscious of truth, beauty and goodness.

  • @stephenlee685
    @stephenlee6858 ай бұрын

    I am 11 minutes into the speech and I took a pause to read the comments. I graduated from Chicago in '85 with a Ph.D. in chemistry, and realized only just now hearing this speech (which I will go back to after writing this message) that I had experienced this same transcendence of thought at Chicago and how important that has been my whole adult life. Thank you. PS. To the person who wrote the critic, ``if this ``blew your mind'', you didn't have much of a mind'' I actually think my mind is OK.

  • @patricia7434

    @patricia7434

    6 ай бұрын

    Perhaps you should have waited until the end of the speech!

  • @chrismorgan9154

    @chrismorgan9154

    4 ай бұрын

    Don’t watch him or PBS anymore. It’s only were one watched one side of a story and opinions and that’s usually too liberal and filled with woke bias.

  • @margarettharpe3138

    @margarettharpe3138

    4 ай бұрын

    "Mind-blowing" is often-& in this case probably was-a POSITIVE (not negative) response. I'm puzzled by the negativity of the "not much of a mind" response."

  • @brunon44
    @brunon446 ай бұрын

    I was one of The Abandoned Overseas Children of American Servicemen...WW11...down in Oz. My rascal father...a Psychiatrist in the U.S. Medical Corp attended the University of Illinois.

  • @charliebrown5611
    @charliebrown56112 ай бұрын

    My grandson is considering this university. I sent this video to my daughter.

  • @katerogers1027
    @katerogers10276 ай бұрын

    I just plain LOVE this man.

  • @kathrynshiels5912
    @kathrynshiels59127 ай бұрын

    Why do I have the feeling the critics here missed the plot. Did they not hear the part about ‘willingness to put your ideas out there and argue and listen.’ It appears cancel culture behind the keyboard is alive and well.

  • @hershchat
    @hershchat8 ай бұрын

    Brooks always good

  • @EnriqueCubillo

    @EnriqueCubillo

    7 ай бұрын

    always

  • @endoravin
    @endoravin4 ай бұрын

    Unusual in that he touches on new ground, describing the experience of getting lost in time, space and thought--better than most science fiction and quite moving, and a real ideal for what a college education might be, at the highest level. Of course, he is talking about the humanities, not the experience of engineering or premedical students, but this is one speech actually worth the time to listen to it.

  • @xiangalan
    @xiangalan6 ай бұрын

    For anyone who knows the title of the book "The Birth of Tragedy", which is just a title. The book really talks about the trend that the mainstream philosophical tradition since Plato actually precipitates the death of tragic spirit of Greek, embodied in Dionysus, the god of wine and emotional energy. So Brooks at the end suggest the students not open the book (Because they would argue that the title is "birth" rather than "death", forgetting it is an opportunity to fool around as graduate of UChicago). This echos the speech's emphasis on Dionysian spirit, cultivating intimate relations in the university setting, over the over-intellectualizing of Platonian metaphysics.

  • @yananzhang768
    @yananzhang768 Жыл бұрын

    感谢如此精确优雅的翻译。

  • @user-dg4ui4sj2t
    @user-dg4ui4sj2t5 ай бұрын

    God bles david

  • @sbechdolt
    @sbechdolt6 ай бұрын

    The critics are too stupid to understand his speech❤

  • @charlesmorse1901
    @charlesmorse19014 ай бұрын

    He is so humane.

  • @jazzfan7491
    @jazzfan74915 ай бұрын

    What an intersection talk

  • @antman8887
    @antman88877 ай бұрын

    As accurate and correct an exposition of the reasons for a liberal education as I have heard. The dearth of such training is why we live with climate change, and Trumpism, and unregulated AI, and so many other consequences caused by persons who live unexamined lives but who plow blindly forward in pursuit of a future that is both unseeable and deeply predictable. We all suffer, at an accelerated rate, the consequences of this failure to teach and to learn.

  • @garyhambleton2374

    @garyhambleton2374

    6 ай бұрын

    Well-spoken and insightfully (brutally) accurate.

  • @arlenerubenstein6762

    @arlenerubenstein6762

    6 ай бұрын

    Great guy indeed

  • @cynthiahansen9395

    @cynthiahansen9395

    6 ай бұрын

    Perfect assessment of our current circumstances!

  • @rmichaelcassidy1338

    @rmichaelcassidy1338

    6 ай бұрын

    😢

  • @hasanmcwhorter3968

    @hasanmcwhorter3968

    6 ай бұрын

    Damn!

  • @LivinginCentralNewJersey-ep4bq
    @LivinginCentralNewJersey-ep4bq4 ай бұрын

    A powerful conversation about the TELOS crisis ....

  • @justinxu3986
    @justinxu39864 ай бұрын

    I like his comments on PBS Newshour.

  • @user-rn5vb2qx4m
    @user-rn5vb2qx4m5 ай бұрын

    Preaching to the intelligentsia of society about things that the majority cannot grasp.

  • @paulnugent9937
    @paulnugent99378 ай бұрын

    30 seconds of comments saved me 30 minutes of this speech.

  • @hdndragon

    @hdndragon

    7 ай бұрын

    This seems worse than judging a book by its cover. :-) You don’t even know what the speech is about.

  • @paulnugent9937

    @paulnugent9937

    7 ай бұрын

    @@hdndragon Sometimes the cover tells you all you need to know, or at least the blurb on the back.

  • @davidlofthusenterprisesllc5993
    @davidlofthusenterprisesllc59938 ай бұрын

    The emperor was naked long before Trump came along, Mr. Brooks.

  • @jazzfan7491
    @jazzfan74915 ай бұрын

    That's one beautiful woman behind him

  • @janbehrends5196
    @janbehrends51966 ай бұрын

    Nietzsche never wrote "The death of tragedy." He wrote "The _birth_ of tragedy out of the spirit of music" (1872).

  • @janbehrends5196

    @janbehrends5196

    6 ай бұрын

    But that is not imrportant.The description of the wonderful experience of bing immersed in reading is powerful and valuable. I hope that this is still possible to achieve it today, but I doubt it.

  • @xiangalan

    @xiangalan

    6 ай бұрын

    "The birth of tragedy" is just the title. The book really talks about the trend that the mainstream philosophical tradition since Plato actually precipitates the death of tragic spirit of Greek, embodied in Dionysus, the god of wine and emotional energy. So Brooks at the end suggest the students not open the book (Because they would argue that the title is "birth" rather than "death", forgetting it is an opportunity to fool around as graduate of UChicago). This echos the speech's emphasis on Dionysian spirit, cultivating intimate relations in the university setting, over the over-intellectualizing of Platonian metaphysics.

  • @paulhilvert5705

    @paulhilvert5705

    5 ай бұрын

    I think it is important. I think it is Nietzsche's topic and whole point. Immersed in reading is powerful and valuable. Indeed. Maryanne Wolf has done a great job of acknowledging the science of that as well as the current movements that make it less and less achievable for each of us.

  • @paulhilvert5705

    @paulhilvert5705

    5 ай бұрын

    I disagree about what the book "really talks about." I do not think a close reading of the book would conclude that Nietzsche saw Dionysian as embodying the "tragic spirit." I would enjoy hearing you defend the thesis that there is an emphasis in the speech on cultivating the Dionysian spirit. I hear his urging the planning, defining, choosing, articulating goals as more Apollonian. @@xiangalan

  • @streaklight
    @streaklight2 ай бұрын

    where's this "death despair desolation and the futility of human existence" speech? as an admitted student that's the only thing I wanna hear

  • @christopherbowen2547
    @christopherbowen25478 ай бұрын

    So Brooks Brothers.

  • @anahirsch-toth7807
    @anahirsch-toth78076 ай бұрын

    How True. Thank you. 0:17

  • @paulhilvert5705
    @paulhilvert57055 ай бұрын

    The Death of Tragedy by Nietzsche??? So intense, I do not remember the title.

  • @jamesphelan5066
    @jamesphelan50664 ай бұрын

    If you need Mr. Brooks to be your mentor, your developmentally delayed. He;s the chaf that is separated from the wheat. A man who equivocates and equivocates.

  • @user-ej5gx7ph7q
    @user-ej5gx7ph7q8 ай бұрын

    I feel sorry for the graduating class

  • @eveningstarnm3107
    @eveningstarnm31078 ай бұрын

    If this “blew your mind”, you didn’t have much of a mind to blow.

  • @leilagomulka5690
    @leilagomulka56906 ай бұрын

    Go Betty Friedan - a Smith college alum

  • @barbarabonanno1879
    @barbarabonanno18796 ай бұрын

    So the message is....have more sex? A college education is not meant to be a blueprint for your entire life! Despite my lack of agreement with of some of his main points, I did enjoy his point of view and sense of humor.

  • @nickigonzales5544
    @nickigonzales55445 ай бұрын

    An argument for the best of Jesuit liberal arts education.

  • @drjzzz
    @drjzzz6 ай бұрын

    Clever/funny start, good name/idea dropping, but it fails to coalesce. I used to like Brooks even though he usually argued against my preferred politics. But his uninformed support of the war against Iraq (the weakness of the case was self-evident), and his excruciatingly slow grasp of that error (blaming the 'way' it was fought instead of the 'why'), changed my opinion. He is clearly a very smart man, very talented. But I wonder if he understands how much such lies desensitized so many citizens, to the extent that too many now accept moron's lies as typical, acceptable, almost welcomed.

  • @jim6798
    @jim67988 ай бұрын

    Wasn’t Brooks the guy who was impressed with the crease inObama’s pants

  • @kalena26
    @kalena266 ай бұрын

    Not sure why the need to bring up the Trump presidency and get political.

  • @user-pt2nw8je4b
    @user-pt2nw8je4b6 ай бұрын

    Too long and boring speech.

  • @liamstacey419

    @liamstacey419

    6 ай бұрын

    You joined KZread yesterday just to make that comment?

  • @randycrist6839
    @randycrist68398 ай бұрын

    The emptiest of empty suits. If you want a good graduation speech, try David Foster Wallace.

  • @acedrumminman

    @acedrumminman

    7 ай бұрын

    Or Rodney Dangerfield.

  • @personnelente
    @personnelente8 ай бұрын

    Sorry, you lost me at David Brooks...

  • @swisskiwi1478

    @swisskiwi1478

    7 ай бұрын

    Your loss.

  • @philipbuckley759
    @philipbuckley7594 ай бұрын

    these speeches are not all the most wonderful......

  • @johnpapadopoulos9057
    @johnpapadopoulos90578 ай бұрын

    This sugary guy should recuse himself from public discourse. … whose lobbyist?

  • @jjhpor
    @jjhpor7 ай бұрын

    I watch David Brooks every Friday night on the PBS News Hour and truly enjoy his insights and his slow walk away from the Republican party. I never imagined he could be such an awful public speaker.

  • @garyhambleton2374

    @garyhambleton2374

    6 ай бұрын

    Yes, painfully true. He has such great thoughts but due to nervousness he speaks too quickly and many times butchers his words.

  • @zdk1099
    @zdk10998 ай бұрын

    David Brooks has an inflated sense of himself! He believes that he is one of the world's great intellectuals! Actually, he's just another average talking head! He's not the sharpest crayon in the box!

  • @wayneeckerson4417

    @wayneeckerson4417

    7 ай бұрын

    Crayons aren’t meant to be sharp. I think you mean pencils or tools (in the drawer).

  • @zdk1099

    @zdk1099

    7 ай бұрын

    @@wayneeckerson4417 You're correct! Crayons aren't meant to be sharp! That fits Brooks exactly!