Lexicon for Kenyon Commencement Speech
1. banal platitudes and lame clichés: are important truths that are pounded into our heads so that we’re numb and can no longer embrace their importance.
2. Didactic and didacticism: with the intent to give a lesson, a teaching, or convince a particular worldview or philosophy: “my view of the world is right; now follow me.”
3. Moral relativism: there is no objective truth; we just have opinions and we have to respect each other’s opinions no matter the differences.
4. Individual templates: hardwired codes implanted in our brains that determine our beliefs: we’re slaves to these codes through genetics and upbringing. My wife thought she didn’t like spicy foods like Indian and Thai but after being with me for seven years she broke her inhibitions and now loves those foods. She was terrified of sushi but now she loves it.
5. Default setting or brain loop: ongoing cycle of behavior reinforced by habit that makes us a slave to our thoughts. Think of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day
6. Solipsism: an extreme form of self-centeredness where we become the only reality and cannot connect or empathize with other people.
7. Empathy and empathize: to feel and respond to other people’s needs from a position of strength.
8. Snake-bit—permanent psychological trauma
9. Chanel No. 5 Moment: fantasy of being the center of attention as a result of your perceived glamour and bling bling; it becomes an expensive obsession which often puts people into debt.
10. Unconscious Man—Homer Simpson
11. Misanthropic, misanthrope, hating all humans and having a cynical, bitter disposition toward the human race.
12. Visceral, from the gut, immediate, strong reaction; rancid crab example
Study Questions for “Kenyon Commencement Speech” by David Foster Wallace page
355
One: What is Wallace’s purpose of telling the story about the atheist and the God believer? 356
People interpret things however they want in order to make external events conform to their preconceived notions of life.
EXAMPLE: A guy broke up with his girlfriend after she got him cheating with another woman; she just went crazy.
Two: What forces limit our choice to think for ourselves? 357: Hard-wiring, upbringing, past traumas, we get “snake-bit” by someone and we generalize; arrogance, the need for comfort, the fear of change, arrogance, we get locked into our “default setting.”
1. biological hardwiring
2. family influence
3. economic and social class
4. trauma or being “snake-bit”
5. fear of change and the preference for safety and comfort even if those result in mediocrity
6. fear of taking personal responsibility but instead blaming others for one’s woes
Three: What common default setting imprisons us all? 357, 358: self-centeredness, solipsism; the idea of Ache, which is based on 3 things: we’re no longer the center of the world and the knowledge that our desires will always outstrip our capacity to satisfy them: concupiscence; always in a state of desire.
A philosopher once said “We can never get enough of what we don’t really want.”
Four: Explain Wallace’s quote about “the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.” 358
It’s easy to be a slave to one’s appetites and fears but it’s harder to go against the current and have it together, to be in control, to be in charge of your destiny and not some punk at the mercy of Madison Avenue, public opinion, loser hanger-ons, and parasites who are always telling you what to do as if they had your best interests at heart when in fact they have their own interests.
Five: How close do you match Wallace’s portrait of the pissed-off shopper on page 360?
Six: What is Wallace’s criticism of the pissed-off shopper? 361: Self-fulfilling prophesy, you treat people like cattle and morons and they’ll react in kind.
Seven: How convincing is Wallace’s claim on page 362 that none of us are atheists because we all worship something?
We worship a variety of gods: power, family, Lexus, G-star jeans
Eight: What is Wallace’s definition of freedom? 363: Being able to resist your default setting.
Nine: What tragedy of the mind is Wallace helping his audience avoid? 363, 364: Homer Simpson is unconscious man
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