This Commencement Speech Will Blow Your Mind: David Brooks at UChicago

I finished this video. For what it's worth, for me, I realize how good his final advice was.

Beautiful: from an 80 year old reader and intense intellectual.

Am so glad I came across this. I've been listening to David Brooks for going on ten years now; his segment on PBS mostly. In all that time am sure if you ask him he'll insist he's a "Conservative" and I would have to tell him he is not. For too many reasons, too many to address here, I would have to confront him with the honesty he so often speaks of. His manner of Conservancy might have been center-Right in say maybe the late nineteen sixties, but I appreciate Mr. Brooks and would have to ask he be honest too. He is by far and away the most independent, politically speaking, as well as spiritually plus psychologically. He is his own man, hands down!

Just a wonderful speech - way, way unexpected. Brooks gets to the bone and deeper. I didn't realise how hungry I am for more conversations like this. Thank you, and a tip of the hat, David Brooks.

Impressive and relatable speech..

Thank you, David Brooks. You have given these likely graduates a few, critical, clues. I am truly grateful.

Brooks always good

It’s the need to be conscious of truth, beauty and goodness.

I am so glad, that you graced my life with your knowledge.

Brilliant! Thank you.

Great exposition of the value of deep thought and the beauty of our western tradition: the waves of profound thinkers and profound livers of meaningful lives in our tradition. The folks ignorant of the western tradition-the critics below- are alienated by his namedropping, thinking that he is pompous or superficial because they don't share the same context and background as do folks who have sincerely explored our spiritual thought tradition. David Brooks is always thoughtful. Whether you agree or not with him politically, only the superficial would think that he is a thinker who is superficial. Nice speech.

Truthful and touching speech, always enjoy your views deeply

I was one of The Abandoned Overseas Children of American Servicemen...WW11...down in Oz. My rascal father...a Psychiatrist in the U.S. Medical Corp attended the University of Illinois.

Good speech by Mr. Brooks. Earnest, heartfelt, amusing and wise.

Why do I have the feeling the critics here missed the plot. Did they not hear the part about ‘willingness to put your ideas out there and argue and listen.’ It appears cancel culture behind the keyboard is alive and well.

I just plain LOVE this man.

Unusual in that he touches on new ground, describing the experience of getting lost in time, space and thought--better than most science fiction and quite moving, and a real ideal for what a college education might be, at the highest level. Of course, he is talking about the humanities, not the experience of engineering or premedical students, but this is one speech actually worth the time to listen to it.

I am 11 minutes into the speech and I took a pause to read the comments. I graduated from Chicago in '85 with a Ph.D. in chemistry, and realized only just now hearing this speech (which I will go back to after writing this message) that I had experienced this same transcendence of thought at Chicago and how important that has been my whole adult life. Thank you. PS. To the person who wrote the critic, ``if this ``blew your mind'', you didn't have much of a mind'' I actually think my mind is OK.

My grandson is considering this university. I sent this video to my daughter.

For anyone who knows the title of the book "The Birth of Tragedy", which is just a title. The book really talks about the trend that the mainstream philosophical tradition since Plato actually precipitates the death of tragic spirit of Greek, embodied in Dionysus, the god of wine and emotional energy. So Brooks at the end suggest the students not open the book (Because they would argue that the title is "birth" rather than "death", forgetting it is an opportunity to fool around as graduate of UChicago). This echos the speech's emphasis on Dionysian spirit, cultivating intimate relations in the university setting, over the over-intellectualizing of Platonian metaphysics.