Harvard And Oprah

Oprah Winfrey received an honorary degree from Harvard University and gave the commencement address.  As one expects from Ms. Winfrey, it was inspiring, as she called upon the audience to struggle and persevere, overcome doubts and obstacles, find their inner strength.  Her own life story is the great lesson that lies behind all her presentations.  A black child born into poverty, of dubious parentage, with none of the security financial, familial, or psychological, that middle class children so easily take for granted, Ms. Winfrey overcame these obstacles, and with a remarkable determination began to take control of her own life in her teens.  The story is well known.  She is now one of the richest women in the world, a major philanthropist in the United States, a celebrity of heroic proportions. an inspiration to all African-Americans, and as seems to be the case, not only a beautiful woman, but a lot of fun, too.  At least her Commencement Speech set a new standard for folksy, down home, direct speech from a platform where the standard has almost invariably been elevated, cerebral, and transcendent, or at least the speakers often seemed to set out for that, whether they made it or not in every instance was another story.  Ms. Winfrey is a professional celebrity, a category of person which now sets the tone and makes for the content of almost all television broadcasts of current events.  For someone of my age I found it disquieting, that upon this august occasion in that historic arena, what was being celebrated was pluck, personality, and intelligence when I really always expect to hear an encomium of one sort or another to learning.  That may sound terribly pretentious, but on that day the Yard was not only filled with men and women who have given their life over to the accumulation, assessment, and transmission of knowledge but has as its southern boundary the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, the second or third largest repository of books in the United States, the stored knowledge of the world’s civilizations, and a building I can never enter without experiencing a frisson of awe at what it represents.  It is a wonderful thing that Ms. Winfrey has turned the inspiration of her life story into a vehicle for others to overcome their doubts, hesitations, and feelings of inferiority, just as it is wonderful to think that this young woman has gone out there and made hundreds of millions, maybe billions of dollars. True enough, she has the same non stop aggressive drive which makes Harvard University what it is, and when it comes to money, Harvard is second to none in the overflowing coffers of its endowment.  And sometimes one does have the feeling that President Faust and her administration is very much caught up in the glamor that Harvard can exude, its very own fabulous celebrity and extraordinary material standard which one cannot help but note everywhere here, despite the University’s constant call for more money.  So in that sense Oprah Winfrey was the perfect speaker, and her down home delivery may have set a very agreeable template for commencement speakers down the years ahead.