Advice

Robert B. Lawton, S.J.
President’s Convocation Address 2004 – “What Shall We Do And How Shall We Live?” -
The Ethical Aim of Education
Lincy Auditorium, Conrad N. Hilton Center for Business October 5, 2004
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A scene in Alan Bennett’s recent play, The History Boys, makes my point. Irwin, a young teacher recently hired to help the students get into Oxford and Cambridge, is handing back some papers; the young men had not done well.
He gives them advice.

Irwin:

"The wrong end of the stick is the right one. A question has a front door and a back door. Go in the back, or better still, the side. Flee the crowd. Follow Orwell. Be perverse. And since I mention Orwell, take Stalin. Generally agreed to be a monster, and rightly. So dissent. Find something, anything, to say in his defence.
History nowadays is not a matter of conviction".

It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it so.