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Warren Wilson College
Asheville, NC 28815-9000
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As We Begin
Remarks by Philip Otterness
First Year Student Academic Convocation, Fall 2010
Let me start by saying that I'm glad that you weren't here three months ago when the author and Warren Wilson graduate Tony Early gave one of the most memorable commencement speeches I've ever heard. I wouldn't want you to compare me to him. His talk was profound; it was funny; it was inspiring. I can't capture its essence in a few words, but the line that sticks with me most was one allegedly from Mark Twain: "Most men approach the future with trepidation, but what really scares me is a full bottle of ketchup."
I'm afraid my talk today can't compare to that small masterpiece. I will, however, claim that our talks both have one thing in common: they are both commencement speeches-speeches given at the beginning. And here I would claim, even before I deliver it, that my talk is, at least in one sense, the better of the two speeches. This claim is not based on content, but on occasion. Despite what graduation speakers say about young people starting out on a new life, what students are actually doing at graduation is celebrating that they are done . . . finished . . . out of here. Just as clearly, what you are doing today is starting . . . beginning . . . commencing. Perhaps I should do the same.
Ars longa, vita brevis. What better way to start your college career than with a Latin phrase. First of all, Latin impresses. You're paying a lot to come here and you need something to show for it. So this is a start. When you call or text your parents and friends this evening, tell them about your day-your ups, your downs-and then end it with: "oh well, ars longa, vita brevis." They will be so impressed. "Work, service, academics, and Latin, too. Damn, what can't that college do!" Believe me, you'll never have to bug your parents about paying your tuition again.
Of course, if you're going to use this phrase, it might help to know what you're talking about. The phrase actually comes to us from the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates who lived around 400 B.C. This, of course, is a bit odd since Hippocrates was Greek and ars longa, vita brevis is Latin, a language that Hippocrates would not have known. But, although it was Greek to him, it has come down in Latin to us. Perhaps it just sounds better that way.
Regardless, whether in Greek or in Latin, it is helpful to know what it means. I'm sure most of you have already figured it out. "Art is long, and life is short." Here "art" is not meant to be paintings and sculptures and so forth, but art as a craft. For example, the art of writing, the art of physics, the art of history. It is art as a way of knowing or, simply, knowledge. So let me translate the phrase more freely and in reverse order as "While life is short, art (that is, knowledge) remains." We will not be around forever, but much of the knowledge passed down to us has been around a long time, has been judged useful, and is worth passing on. We will engage with these arts; we will add to them; and we will trust later generations to do the same. This is the work of the academy, and you see before you a stage full of professors for whom this art is their lives' passion. We hope it becomes your passion as well. After all, life is short. We need someone to follow us.
When the English landscape painter John Constable heard a young artist boasting that he never studied the art of other painters, Constable was moved to remark, "A self-taught artist is one taught by a very ignorant person." Just as I am not a self-taught convocation speaker and am, in fact, drawing several ideas here from a speech I once heard by the wise English scholar of art and history, Ernst Gombrich, you, too, by investing in four years of college, have committed yourself to take ideas from others, grapple with them, make them your own, and then pass them on to those who follow. I hope you will do so eagerly.
Let me give you an example to show you what I mean. When I was a student studying in England, I used to eat on Sunday evenings in a dining hall that was frequented by Stephen Hawking, the renowned mathematician and physicist and author of the popular book A Brief History of Time-a book that I'm sure many of you have read or, at least, started. As you know, Hawking suffers from a debilitating neurological disease and can no longer walk, speak, or care for himself. Back in the late 1970s, when I often saw him sitting the next table over, he was already stricken with this disease. He could still speak but his speech was garbled and difficult to understand. He sat surrounded by a half dozen of his graduate students, one of whom would actually feed him, one slow spoonful at a time, while another would lean in closely to catch his words and then repeat them, really translate them, to the other students. In one way, this scene was a hard reminder of the fragility of life-vita brevis. A great professor so physically helpless that he had to be spoon-fed by his students. But in another way, it was remarkably inspiring. As I sat there slurping down the delicacies of English cafeteria food-graying, twice-boiled brussels sprouts and bits of kidney swimming in grease-at the next table over, students were instead intent on gulping down the art of a great thinker. I often wished that I were sitting with them.
You may not get to sit with Stephen Hawking either, but I can assure you that you will find plenty to fill your intellectual appetite at Warren Wilson. And, remember, you will not just be drawing from the knowledge of those sitting here on the stage. Life may be short, but we are linked from one generation back to another by the art that survives. Sometimes, when you think of art in this way-this linking of generations-Hippocrates perhaps doesn't seem so distant. Let me give you a personal example from my own ruminations on history. The American Civil War began 150 years ago; sometimes it seems impossibly distant. It is difficult for us to look at the blurry, black-and-white photographs of Civil War soldiers and to imagine ourselves living in their world. Yet my mother has told me stories about that war that she heard from her grandfather, who had witnessed the end of the war and Northern troops returning home to their farms in Iowa. In other words, my mother (who, by the way, is still alive) is the only intermediary between me and somebody who was living when the Civil War came to an end.
Let me extend this example by doing some academic genealogy. Let's pretend we invite Stephen Hawking here as an adjunct professor of physics. So you could have Stephen Hawking as a teacher, who as a young child could have learned from Albert Einstein, who could have somewhat improbably sat at the knee of Karl Marx, who might have, even more improbably, received a letter of advice from Abigail Adams, who could have been tutored by Voltaire, who, no doubt, would have enjoyed hanging out with Isaac Newton, who could have studied with Rene Descartes, who might have taken a few painting lessons from El Greco, who probably would have enjoyed having a few beers with Jean Calvin. Count them. Just nine generations of learned men and women and we've already gone back 500 years.
My point is that, although art may be long, it isn't that long, and in many ways it remains vibrant, exciting, close-up, and in your face. I discover this daily in the classes I teach. Some semesters I teach a 9:30 a.m. Western Civilization class that covers the ancient Greeks and then go to my 11 a.m. class on modern international relations. The two courses deal with worlds separated by well over two thousand years, yet they share some of the same readings. One reading in particular-Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War -is as relevant to American foreign policy today as it was to Athenian foreign policy in the fifth century B.C. The speeches that Thucydides records of the Athenian general Pericles simply stop you in your tracks. Here is a man talking about democracy and empire in a way that teaches you as much about American aspirations and disappointments in Iraq and Afghanistan as it does about Athens' resolve in the face of a powerful Spartan enemy. And art's long reach is not limited to politics and international relations. You will be hard pressed to find a single course at Warren Wilson, no matter how up-to-date or hip, that does not draw from the art of long-ago ages.
This is not to say, however, that what you learn here is not up-to-date and sometimes even hip. Warren Wilson, like most other American colleges, may draw a great deal from the traditions of medieval universities, but in at least one important respect we differ from them. They saw their mission as ascertaining the indisputable truths of the world, and students would literally have to swear to uphold the dogma of their professors. Now, I'm not saying that this isn't bad advice when you're taking your midterms and finals, but I want to make it clear that, although we respect the knowledge of past ages, we do not ask that you treat it with reverence. Instead, you must fight with it and play with it. Feel free to alter it and add to it. Toss it out, or make it your friend. The classroom is the romper room where this all takes place. Make sure you take advantage of it. Art may be long and our lives short, but art's long life depends on our nurturing and promoting it. I can think of few more congenial places to do this than in the college classroom.
Before I finish, let me focus very briefly on the vita brevis part of ars longa, vita brevis. Despite what anybody says here today, I imagine that your vita brevis will be your greatest concern for the rest of this week and on into the semester. Can I stand my roommate? Can I live a year without a car? Is my first work assignment really cleaning the Jensen bathrooms? Geez, why did I teach my mother how to text? Oh my god, is that a full bottle of ketchup sitting on the table? These are the questions of our daily lives. I'm not asking you to ignore them. I'm just saying that when you step into the classroom, try to set aside the concerns of your short lives and remember how lucky you are to be able to have four years when you have at least a few hours each day to focus on the long arts.
One final point. Four years from now, you will be receiving your bachelor's degrees. Perhaps you wonder why we use this odd term "bachelor". Like so much else that is part of modern college life, its origins are in the medieval university. It appears the word bachelor derives from the Latin baccalarius, which itself is derived from the word vacca, meaning cow. A bachelor was in essence, then, a cowboy-a clear step below the medieval knight, who of course wasn't stuck tending cattle but instead rode his horse into warfare and glory. Thus the conferring of a bachelor's degree was an indication that a student was just taking the first step to bigger and better things. The same is true for you. You've got a long and adventurous trail ahead of you. So, saddle up, cowboys and cowgirls. It's time to get this wagon train moving.