In an unusually candid tenor, Ben Sasse delivered an online commencement address for Nebraska’s Fremont High School that managed to enrage most everyone. Sasse’s speech, which was one part stand-up and another a critique of China, stoked ire from state senators and online critics, going viral with the descriptor that it was the “worst graduation speech of all time.”
But here’s the thing: It might just be the best. The backlash to it just goes to show how broken our societal understanding of education has become.
Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse just gave the worst graduation speech of all time pic.twitter.com/nCYe7ruOl4
— ? (@haunttamale) May 17, 2020
I loved high school, and contrary to Sasse’s assertion, I think most people actually liked high school. But nobody cares about actual graduation ceremonies. Graduations are for parents. It’s a shame that they don’t get to celebrate them in person, but for most students, graduation is just the long, boring, uncomfortably sunny ceremony that precedes the parties.
Yet of course, graduating amid a global pandemic is a little different. The rest of the media clearly thought it called for solemnity. Sasse thought it called for a reality check with a side of levity. Contrary to his detractors, I think he’s right.
A slightly disheveled-looking Sasse began his address by immediately poking fun at the inanity of congratulating students for celebrating the culmination of their high school educations by walking down their parents’ stairs, parents for giving up on homeschooling their children during the shutdown, and his own father for being a gym teacher. He saved any seriousness to blame bitingly the Chinese Communist Party for lying about the coronavirus and unleashing it upon the world.
“We’re gonna have to have a serious reckoning with the thugs in China who let this mess spiral out of control by lying about it,” Sasse said. “You’re gonna say stuff at your high school reunion service ceremonies, ‘Remember that time that China started a big global pandemic that created the worst public health crisis in over a century and brought the economy to its knees and we had to stay at home and everybody was hoarding toilet paper and we all watched this documentary about some weirdo dude who raised tigers?””
For the most part, Sasse’s wholly warranted excoriation of China was a gritty aside — more reassuring than self-indulgent. As he said, remembering that this is China’s fault serves as a small comfort that it isn’t ours. But it seems as though the real source of the Sasse outrage is the senator’s willingness to acknowledge a simple fact: A canceled graduation just isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Consider, more than 30 million people have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic. Countless businesses and industries will close their doors for good. That’s not to mention the nearly 100,000 people in the United States who have lost their lives and lord knows how many who have suffered domestic violence, relapses from or worsening substance abuse, or a deterioration of mental health.
“You’re stuck at home for graduation, and that’s not even a top-100 problem,” Sasse reminded. Maybe it’s not the most flattering thing to say, but not only is it true, in the long run, it’s also comforting.
The point of finishing school is not the moment of finishing school. It’s everything that comes before and after. Before you graduate, the value is your education, your friendships, your mentorships, and the development of your passions. After, it’s the career your education has allowed you to embark on, whether it starts with college as an interlude or right away. But our culture can’t fathom that education as a virtue unto itself and its utilitarian value are the only two stratified rewards of the process, not some performative walk that most students dread and most parents tolerate. Sasse inherently understands this, and that the backlash to his speech was so great goes to show that few others do.
