Among all the big names sharing their sagacity with America's freshly minted college grads this week (President Obama, Mitt Romney, Michelle Obama, Colin Powell et al.) was award-harvesting film/TV writer Aaron Sorkin, who spoke at his alma mater, Syracuse, yesterday.
For anyone weary of the usual commencement if-you-can-dream-it-you-can-do-it uplift, Mr. Sorkin's remarks will come as a welcome antidote:
"Make no mistake about it, you are dumb. You're a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people. I was there. We were all there, you're barely functional.
"There are some screw-ups headed your way. I wish I could tell you there was a way avoid the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they're a-comin' for ya. It’s a combination of life being unpredictable and you being super dumb."
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There is no one so stupid as someone with a little information... just look at the GOP.
You're stupid :P
The GOP has all the same information as the bleeding-heart-gimme-more Libs, the GOP just choose to interpret it correctly. Just saying...
"GOP just choose to interpret it correctly." oh man thanks for such a good laugh, we all suffer from whats called confirmation bias , but the GOP supporters have elevated it to a art forum.
The GOP has all the same info, yes, but chooses to ignore grand swathes of it when it's inconvenient. They are low-information by choice, and the worst kind of ignorance is willful ignorance.
By the way, nice schoolyard ad hominem; most of the rest of us have grown past that kind of thing, you might want to keep up.
It's always hilarious when Republicans, who are wrong about everything from the economy, to foreign policy, to social policy, to tax policy, to environmental policy ... essentially everything that's important to being a policy maker, come out and say "oh, it's just you libs interpreting the facts wrong."
Nah, it's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. More intelligent people tend towards the left, but they also tend to doubt their own ideas more because they assume that other people are also intelligent and have the same information. Meanwhile, less intelligent people tend to be conservative, and less intelligent people tend to vastly overestimate how intelligent they are.
The sad effect is that you have a bunch of "dittohead" foot-soldiers making billions of idiotic blog posts and inundating the ether with their stupidity, because they're being used and abused by intelligent, evil @!$%#s, such as the people who run the oil industry, the financial sector, yadda yadda, you know the drill.
At first I read this as "fart form". Much better that way, IMO. LOL
I can't stand to look or listen to those idiots! They are dumber than dumb and just don't know it.
I'm actually afraid the most ignorant of us will drag us down as a nation. I'm hoping the majority of us are smarter, that we have the numbers to keep president Obama in office, so we have a chance against the powerful rich. Unchecked, the rich will run America into the ground, then jump ship to a different country. They are like parasites - a human virus on the earth. Of course, they don't realize that they are but what they are aware of has very little to do with the truth.
It is great to see the passion here. Maybe everyone has a point - we all clearly love our country and want the best for the most. It could well be that dems are right on some things, and republicans are right on others. We may be wasting time bashing parties rather than discussing specific ideas.
@Mishy C ...................."just saying................"-is the most over-used, idiot phrase that serves only to fill space when you have nothing more intelligent to offer.
Dear Balance for the Future, please enlighten us about those things that "republicans are right on" this is not Teddy Roosevelt's Republican Party, or even Richard Nixon's Republican Party, this is Grover Norquist's Republican Party with no policy other than transferring wealth to the power elite in any way they can.
Alas, Fred Wilder, making the rich richer isn't the only GOP policy, but it has its place. They speak jobs, but act wealth accumulation and social regression. They seem to want all of the "good old days" when everyone knew her place (kitchen, children, church), except for the income tax rates at that time.
Okay, I get the point he's making here. He's preparing them for real life. Although I agree that they should know how hard it is to succede, especially in this country at this time. However, I'm not sure how phrasing it this way helps anyone.
comedic relief?
By misspelling "succeed"?
see he is right, and why shouldn't he show them, what he means! Lead by example at its best
I thought his point was to get them to realize as smart as they think they are, they aren't that smart. It is far better to think from a place of respect and uncertainty then from arrogance and ignorance.
The Democrats tend think from the former position while Republicans prefer the latter. There is nothing more dangerous to this country than to produce even more arrogantly ignorant people. We very much need the smart ones - the ones who are a little unsure of how smart they actually are! It's only those people who will honestly question their thinking before they act.
I think his point was what he said it was, these young folks are going to make some incredibly stupid mistakes in their lives, simply because they honestly think they know more than they actually know. No more difficult than that.
And it is from those mistakes that they will learn. They will learn about life, and they will learn not to make that mistake again !
I think they were smart enough to cotton on to what he was implying.
Didnt hear the whole speech but I agree for the following reasons. In life you will be tested to do the right thing and whether its greed, malice, selfishness, idiocy, we have all made the wrong choices at some point. There will be attempts to change the rules on us for the gain of a few, and if we remain stagnant in our thoughts, beliesf and the beliefs of others we will make mistakes. Book learning(formal education) provides us with the knowledge of the current rules of engagements and provides others with the lingo they are accustomed to, but streets smarts keeps us guarded, skeptical, and it is up to us to learn to listen, and question the norms, we must also venture a guess of whats in it for the other guy, whats in it for you, and if you go down a particular road can you live with the consequences.
Nothing like encouragement to start a young life into the dog eat dog world.
Better than blowing smoke up their butts and letting them hurt all the more from the fall into reality. The world after school sucks, 95% of the time, and pretending otherwise is cruel.
Much better than "follow your dream" crap. That sht is harmful -- the reason so many kids live back at home after graduation.
Geeze, people. It's called having a sense of humor. Get over yourselves.
It sound suspiciously like the oft repeated attitude credited to Republicans. 'I've got mine, good f'n luck.
The entire CONservative mantra is "I got mine, you get yours, and if you can't, the @!$%# you!"
I think the mantra is more like " I got mine. Now I want yours ".
actually damn good advice. Many college students make the mistake of assuming that what they learn in college is applicable to the real world. For the most part, it's not. What's valuable is the ability to learn that college gives you. The idea of recommending to students "Know you are dumb" on the job means that the student will go in and learn about the needs of the real world instead of making assumptions.
I made the mistake of majoring in something i was already good at, in a field i'd been in for 10 years, i dropped out shortly thereafter because the lessons in the classroom were contradictory to years of personal experience in the workplace, far more years than the professor.
A friend of mine graduated summa cum laude from an accounting program a few years back; she immediately got a job at a local firm who said, "It's great that you did so well, but now we're going to have to completely retrain you, because what you learned is near worthless." College as preparation is a joke.
Colleges and Universities are using data and information that is fifty to sixty years old, like it is cutting edge technology. The Industries are suffering, billions of dollars are lost to basic inefficiencies, and the world is catching up in scientific research. The lead that we once had in technology is gone and this will become apparent in higher food prices, lost jobs, and trade imbalances. Getting a college graduate that can be trained is almost impossible. I am the Director of Research for three Institutes and we train our own employees. Discharged military soldiers are excellent candidates.
I so love that man's brain.
Well, I can remember graduating from college, and being surrounded by people who still harbored some kind of notion that resembled the concept that LIFE IS FAIR. That's about as dumb as it gets. Today, I know people in mid-life who STILL haven't figured it out. They think there's actually KARMA and someone is keeping score, and that it all comes out even, eventually. LMFAO I think human beings will always be super dumb, in some respects.
I asked my boot camp instructor once why she wasn't into all the boot camp indoctrination that was pretty normal for boot camp. Her reply was that boot camp, while serving a distinct purpose, was nothing like the "real world" of the fleet, and what we needed to know to survive would be apparent pretty damn quick once we got out there.
She was right, of course. That helped me get thru college after I got out. When my kids went to college, I was able to tell them that at least half of what they needed to learn in college was not in the classroom, it was in navigating the college system.
In reality what make it ,is the deploma It will get you in the door ,then you will have to get some OJT(on the job training) then you will be smarter if you listen to your training instructor!
Y'know what? I applaud this. I think we're in the process of producing an entire generation of kids who think everything is owed them; and their reliance on technology has exacerbated the usual superiority complex youth historically demonstrate towards their elders.
Yes, we thought we knew better/knew more than our parents. But kids today are growing up without proper communication skills because 1- fewer write anymore (everyone types), 2- fewer talk to each other anymore (they either text or chat online), 3- fewer go out & interacts face to face anymore (because games and social networks and blogs are anonymously electronic via the internet) and 4- fewer can complete a thought or make a coherent statement (because "tweeting" in 40 characters or less is about the length of their attention span). And any time we--as experienced adults--recognize problems stemming from this and try to coach them, we are dinosaurs who lack perspective because we don't understand it's better that "stuff" is just "easier" for them. Well, we're the ones who made it easier, so we can recognize some of the shortcomings.
The reality check starts with those Syracuse grads- the world's a lot tougher than you might think... and a college diploma doesn't actually guarantee you a job or minimum salary, regardless of whatever responsibilities you now find yourself faced with. Welcome to adulthood.
You know what's really odd: as tech-saavy as many millennials are, some of them are still remarkably thick when it comes to computer technology. And I say this as a millennial myself. I work in a grad school and it's rather appalling how often I have to literally navigate students--click by click--through the school's website to register for classes, or find exam schedules and what have you. For the lowest common denominator, if it ain't a top hit on google, they'll never figure it out. But the internet's a tool, and just that. It will do no one any good if he doesn't know what he's doing in the first place.
If more people had this attitude, the world would be a better place. One of the world's biggest problem is people who think they've got all the answers, that they don't have to listen to anyone else, and because they're sooooo damn smart, the world owes them.
Look around you. There are plenty of educated dumb people in the world. It's filled with them.
Yes and a lot of them end up running for office.
I think you;re all missing the point, because you've been trained to. The point is this: modern colleges teach you what to think, the no longer teach the 'how to think' that was the hallmark of a pre-industrial college or university education, the world that gave birth to the enlightenment. Instead, when you emerge from 4 years of college you discover that, really, you don't know all that much because all you were taught was how to answer tests, and not how to question the questions. It's no wonder that the top innovators of the last 40 years have been college drop-outs: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the guys who created Google, Mark Zuckerberg, thank god all of these guys dropped out before they had the creativity and curiosity educated out of them; thank god they dropped out instead of sitting in classrooms being told how things are done instead of being out in the real world creating new uses for computers their professors couldn't have dreamed of. My deepest, most heartfelt, thanks to the innovators, those who wouldn't take no for an answer and knew when to walk away from those whose job it is to say 'no, you're doing it wrong', but instead say, 'just get out of my way and prepare to be amazed'.
He's a dick. He wrote that stupid Facebook screenplay and swaggered around the awards show circuit acting as if he had his finger on the pulse of "now," his well-lubed ego bubbling up like bile whenever he spoke, and all the while it was just a run-of-the-mill Hollywood biopic.
thus proving Mr. Sorkin's point...only perhaps it should be amended to "and some of you will stay arrogantly dumb, thinking your reaction to a film constitutes truth."
Who are you responding to here?
Probably you. You do realize he's known for FAR more than just that abortion of a FB movie, right? His dialog has been winning awards for decades. The West Wing is all him.
Yes, I'm aware. I've always found his dialogue turgid and unnatural, but that's really beside the point. He strikes me as an elitist ass.
Not sure though how I was proving Sorkin's point that college students are dumb.
'Cause they use words like "turgid."
It's kind of difficult to make a profit on quality education, and life in 21st century America is about profit above all else. As long as the tiny apex of the crapitalist pyramid have their material obscenity reinvigorated, the lives of the masses don't matter, so why bother to pursue excellence, you can't make money on it.
Damskippy and Howland2, I'm not a college student. In fact, I never went to college, so I'm somewhat at a loss as to why you two have implied that I am one. Just giving my honest assessment of Sorkin's strut thing. And I really don't appreciate being called "arrogantly dumb."
LMAO@Dan Rosenberg....who thinks he "gets" it, and everyone else is "missing the point." The only "innovators" he mentions are people who invented better toys. Could you be any more shallow, or clueless? College became mediocre when society decided the mediocre should be highly educated. No education system destroys brilliance. And the whole world isn't subject to the American education system. Also, not everyone in the world with brilliance to share focuses it on making a buck.
Addendum - If you have to be taught how to think, you're mediocre. It isn't possible for people who think inside the box to teach anyone any way to think but inside the box.
Karen, Wrong! We do it all the time.
Well, out in the world about 1/3 of the people who you meet will like you, 1/3 won't like or dislike you and the last 1/3 will hate you for reasons of their own. If you think you can just go in, do a good, and be rewarded you are naive. That might have been a way to express what he meant without calling them dumb, which puts him into the last 1/3.
His speech puts him in the border between the last 2/3 of people for me. In one way he is preparing them for the real world where your family and educators aren't there to help you. He's telling them that while they have "book learning" they also need to learn to read people and you need common sense and you need to decide about where you want to work. I made a list of companies I would not work for and gave the list to my headhunter when I was looking for a job. For example, no tobacco companies or no companies that make weapons.
Despite what you think you may deserve, you will NOT get a giant raise and corner office after six (6) months on the job. There are other people with the same educational background as you AND they have years of practicle experience. They will be getting the corner office.
Be prepared to work extra hours on projects. Be prepared to fail sometimes. Everyone does. When you fail accept responsibility and learn from it.
Have a Plan B. And maybe even a plan C, D, E, etc. Also have a plan in case the worst thing happens. Have these written down on paper somewhere, don't have them in your work pc, or laptop, where someone can watch you key in your password and steal your ideas (remember the last 1/3 of people you meet). Does it happen? Yes, there are people who will steal your ideas and take credit for your work. Pretend that you are Seamus and everyone else around you is Willard "Mittens" Romney and never tell co-workers your entire plan unless it's necessary for your plan that they need the information.
I have a relative who went to FIT in New York. She showed some drawings to a "friend" who promptly stole her ideas and used them for garments she "created".
So welcome to the new world where sometimes you're the lion and sometimes you're the lunch.
Good luck, and remember the republicans want to change the interest rate on your school loans from 3% to over 6%.
My dad once told me that about 1/2 the people I would meet in my life would be a**holes, and that the trick to happiness was just ignoring them when they weren't doing anything that affected your life and fighting them when they were. He was right about that, except that he underestimated the percentage.
Love this! I wish I could get more of my college students to accept this. Perfectionism is alive and well with many of them today.
While it's nice to know what you do know, it's probably just as good to know what you don't know. Making a complete a$$ of yourself in the real world isn't 100% inevitable, but you might just reduce the incidences of stupidity if you're willing to acknowledge when you don't know as much as you think you do. And you'll find yourself in the know a lot sooner, too.
FWIW, I work in a grad school (public policy professional degrees, of course!), and, yes, I've seen my fair share of door nails (or just full of themselves), eager to be released on the masses via the many think tanks and government-sector policy-making outfits. Be afwaid, be vewy afwaid...
I think yours is the best interpretation. Many college grads think they are smarter than everyone else, but they are not. It is a lesson that they should learn early rather than later.
The most valuable thing to learn in college isn't the textbooks or the lectures. The best thing to learn in college is how to ask the right questions of your employers and co-workers once you've graduated.
I have to agree with Sorkin. When I graduated from law school and took my first position as a law clerk I thought I was smarter than nearly every lawyer and many of the judges I encountered. Up to that point I had rarely experienced defeat. Now 38 years on I have experienced victory, defeat and everything in between. The smart ass kid I was probably did have more pure "knowledge" than I do today, but I am a much, much better lawyer (and hopefully person) now than I was in 1974. Now I listen and now I realize everybody is smarter than me in at least one way, and some, like my wife, in nearly every way. Life teaches humility. From humility comes something akin to wisdom.
My scientist father, who had 150 patents in his name, including the one that created the way to insure that pre-stressed concrete is solid without breaking it open, which underlies why you drive on freeway overpasses and never think twice that it might fall apart under you (too bad he was working for the government on how to insure dams were solid - had it been private, my financial situation would be vastly different from what it is, but as he said, had it been private, no one would have ever asked the question), used to have a sign over his desk at work:
"the truly intelligent man is the one who knows where he is stupid."
I was at the graduation ceremony and heard him speak. My son graduated. Our entire family enjoyed the speech. It was very honest. The students graduating have earned a degree but that does not prepare a person for everything they will encounter in the world. I thank Mr. Sorkin for sharing his insight with the graduating class.
There are none so blind, deaf or mentally constipated as those who CHOOSE not to see, hear or understand.
Now THAT is something the GOP has raised to an art form.
thats a fact
Stupidity is expected but to reward it by voting Republicans into office?
Stupid people are fine it's the ones who are too dumb to know they are that bug me.
Don't be haters! Am I the only one that wants to read the rest of the speech? He's being realistic. Even now, any time I think I know everything, life hands me a reminder.