BONO
BETRAY YOUR AGE TO SAVE IT
The following is excerpted from the Penn State Commencement Address made by Bono, co-founder of DATA (Debt AIDS Trade Africa), and lead singer of U2, on May 17, 2004:
The biggest obstacle to political and social progress isn't The Establishment, or the boot heel of whatever you consider 'the Man' to be. It's something much more subtle: a combination of our own indifference and the Kafkaesque labyrinth of 'no's you encounter as people vanish down the corridors of bureaucracy.
The truly great Irish poet, Brendan Kennelly, said, "If you want to serve the age, betray it."
What does that mean, "to betray the age"? Well, to me, it means exposing its conceits, it's foibles, its phony moral certitudes. It means telling the secrets of the age and facing harsher truths.
Every age has its massive moral blind spots. We might not see them, but our children will. Slavery was one of them and the people who best served that age were the ones who called it as it was-- ungodly and inhuman. Segregation was another one. America sees this now, but it took a civil rights movement to betray their age.
Fast forward 50 years. What are the ideas right now worth betraying? What are the lies we tell ourselves now? What are the blind spots of our age? What's worth spending your life trying to do or undo? It might be something simple. It might be something as simple as our deep down refusal to believe that every human life has equal worth. Could that be it? Could that be it? Each of you will probably have your own answer, but for me that is it.
How might you, or might you not, "betray your age"? Is that a good idea? A bad idea? Both? Povery in the "developing world"? Some other "betrayal" of "our age"? Explore these ideas in this blogsite posting. Use this opportunity to speak to what makes you passionate!
This blogsite posting will come due on Tuesday morning May 30, 2007 at 8:00 a.m. Good luck!
"It might be something as simple as our deep down refusal to believe
that every human life has equal worth."
