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Author Wendell Berry challenges LWC Class of 2005 to help end human violence
Photos with this article COLUMBIA, KY. (MAY 14, 2005) Lindsey Wilson College graduates were challenged to help end the destructive cycle of human violence this morning by Kentucky author Wendell Berry. "The issue of human violence is not one you are going to be able to escape," Berry told the Lindsey Wilson Class of 2005 and more than 2,000 guests gathered this morning in Biggers Sports Center for the college's spring commencement. "You are going to suffer it, whether you try to ignore it or try to do something about it. I hope you will try to do something about it." This morning's commencement also marked the completion of the largest graduating class in Lindsey Wilson's 102-year history. Lindsey Wilson awarded 172 undergraduate and graduate degrees at this morning's ceremony. Because of space limitations, Lindsey Wilson awarded 207 undergraduate and graduate degrees at the college's first winter commencement, held last December. The 379 total degrees awarded this academic year are the most in school history -- and 44 more total degrees that were awarded in the 2003-04 school year. Berry calls violence 'the great moral issue of our time' Berry -- who was awarded a doctorate of letters, honoris causa, from the college's faculty and board of trustees -- told the Class of 2005 that "the great moral issue of our time, too much ignored by both sides of our present political division, is violence." "Violence, in short, is the norm of our economic life and our national security," said Berry, a Kentucky native and the author of more than 40 books of nonfiction, fiction and poetry. "The line that connects the bombing of civilian populations to the mountain removed by strip mining ... to the tortured prisoner seems to run pretty straight. We're living, it seems, in the culmination of a long warfare -- warfare against human beings, other creatures and the Earth itself." Berry told the graduates of the perilous ecological, economic and political consequences of an economy based on war and violence. "We make war, we are told, for the love of peace. We subvert our Bill of Rights and impose our will abroad for the sake of freedom and the rule of law," he said. "We honor greed and waste with the name of economy. We allow ever greater wealth and power to accumulate in the hands of a privileged few only to provide jobs for working people and charity to the poor. And we sanctify all this as Christian, though the Gospels support none of it by so much as a line or a word." Berry included a searing critique of war's corrosive effect on public life. "War depresses public dialogue and debate, it enlarges executive power, diminishes citizens' rights, encourages governmental secrecy and deception, and deforms the outlines of human decency," he said in his 19-minute address. "Thus a government making war for the sake of peace, freedom and human dignity -- as it will never cease to declare -- will curtail the rights of prisoners, resort to torture, deny its errors, exaggerate its virtues, demonize the enemy, and, as is inevitable in modern war, kill many innocent people, including, of course, many children. "And we should never forget that it is easy for older people, doing their solemn duty, in the dignity and comfort of high office, to send young soldiers into combat. Nor should we forget, that the war industries never offer, and they are never asked to sacrifice, any fraction of their profits to further a cause to which others are expected to sacrifice their lives." Berry also told the graduates of the disastrous affect an industrial economy has on society. "As we now have it, the industrial economy operates as if like an army in battle it is in a perpetual state of emergency, requiring violence as the first resort, and the sacrifice of precious, irreplaceable things," he said. Berry said the United States should take the world lead in trying to end violence. "Since somebody has to stop it, if it is ever going to be stopped, why don't we, the world's mightiest nation, stop it?" he asked. "Why don't we at least give some public attention and support to those means by which some potentially deadly conflicts have been solved without violence." Author calls for more just and less destructive economy at home At home, Berry said people must re-evaluate their values and help build a more just and less destructive economy. "Competitiveness, covetousness, ruthlessness and greed are not economic virtues," he said. "The economic virtues are neighborliness, generosity, trust, good workmanship, thrift and care." Also receiving a doctorate from Lindsey Wilson was Lucretia Chilton Begley of Columbia. Begley was the college's first lady when her husband, John, served as the college's sixth president from 1978-97. She received a doctorate of fine arts, honoris causa. On Friday, May 13, the college held its annual Senior Banquet in the Roberta D. Cranmer Dining & Conference Center. Lindsey Wilson 2004-05 Teacher of the Year Mark Dunphy, a professor of English, gave the keynote address. The Senior Banquet was followed by the annual baccalaureate service in Biggers Sports Center. This year's speaker was the Rev. Terry Swan, dean of the chapel. Story courtesy Duane Bonifer, Lindsey Wilson College This story was posted on 2005-05-14 18:51:22
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