I, on the other hand, am very concerned about how word choice will affect my readers. For instance, in the description of Genesis, I chose the term 'good and evil' instead of 'right and wrong', which are basically two same terms. I wanted to use 'right and wrong' because it definitely will ignite more controversies than 'good and evil', but I chose to use the latter because I was afraid of the social influence that can come from reading my book, and although there is no adult material at all in the book, I could risk getting my book banned.
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
“Dead men cannot take effective action; their power of influence on others lasts only till the grave. Deeds and actions that energise others belong only to the living. Well, then, look at the facts in this case. The Saviour is working mightily among men, every day He is invisibly persuading numbers of people all over the world, both within and beyond the Greek-speaking world, to accept His faith and be obedient to His teaching. Can anyone, in face of this, still doubt that He has risen and lives, or rather that He is Himself the Life? Does a dead man prick the consciences of men...?”
Education should aim at destroying free will so thatpupils thus schooled, will be incapable throughoutthe rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwisethan as their schoolmasters would have wished. . . .Influences of the home are obstructive; and in orderto condition students, verses set to music and repeatedlyintoned are very effective. . . . It is for afuture scientist to make these maxims precise andto discover exactly how much it costs per head tomake children believe that snow is black. When thetechnique has been perfected, every government thathas been in charge of education for more than onegeneration will be able to control its subjects securelywithout the need of armies or policemen.
The child tends to be stripped of all social influences but those of the market place, all sense of place, function and class is weakened, the characteristics of region and clan, neighborhood or kindred are attenuated. The individual is denuded of everything but appetities, desires and tastes, wrenched from any context of human obligation or commitment. It is a process of mutilation; and once this has been achieved, we are offered the consolation of reconstituting the abbreviated humanity out of the things and the goods around us, and the fantasies and vapors which they emit. A culture becomes the main determinant upon morality, beliefs and purposes, usurping more and more territory that formerly belonged to parents, teachers, community, priests and politics alike.
Your external circumstances may change, toil may take the place of rest, sickness of health, trials may thicken within and without. Externally, you are the prey of such circumstances; but if your heart is stayed on God, no changes or chances can touch it, and all that may befall you will but draw you closer to Him. Whatever the present moment may bring, your knowledge that it is His will, and that your future heavenly life will be influenced by it, will make all not only tolerable, but welcome to you, while no vicissitudes can affect you greatly, knowing that He who holds you in His powerful hand cannot change, but abideth forever.
This is our recurring temptation—to live within our camp’s caves, taking turns both as the shadow-puppeteers and the audience. We chant our camp’s mantras repeatedly so they continue reverberating in our skulls. When we stay entrenched within our belief-camps, we create the illusion of secure reality by reinforcing each other’s presuppositions and paradigms. We choose specific watering holes of information and evidence, and we influence each other in interpreting that data in accordance with the conclusions we desire. Our camps reinforce our existing cognitive biases, making cheating all the more common and easy.
The only way to heal yourself was to understand. Understand the love or the hate or the cowardice, or the impulsiveness, the lack of will of the one who hurt you--the circumstances that twisted them, the influences that warped them. And when you forgot yourself and saw the others with pitying comprehension, saw their tortured motives, a white, healing peace descended upon you. Your betrayal became an impersonal one, like a bridge giving way when you crossed it, lightning, a motor collision--you were in the way and you were damaged--that was all. It wasn't meant for you. When you understood, you were released into a new freedom and wisdom.
Sons, any man who is considered a success in life owes a lot to society. We have been very blessed, my dear sons. We have to show our appreciation to our society for making that possible. A time will come when you will meet other Kamerunians who share the same vision for this land. I am advising you to make them partners in our common goals when that time comes. We shouldn’t shy away from playing a formidable role in financing that political force that shall emerge. We must use our influence to ensure that it succeeds.
A strong, vague persuasion that it was better to go forward than backward, and that I could go forward— that a way, however narrow and difficult, would in time open— predominated over other feelings: its influence hushed them so far, that at last I became sufficiently tranquil to be able to say my prayers and seek my couch. I had just extinguished my candle and lain down, when a deep, low, mighty tone swung through the night. At first I knew it not; but it was uttered twelve times, and at the twelfth colossal hum and trembling knell, I said: “I lie in the shadow of St. Paul’s.