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Maybe it's a weird criticism because it isn't. How do you read my observation as criticism?

by hoodoof 10y ago

enraged_camel 10y ago
It definitely reads as veiled criticism, yes.
- hoodoof 10y ago
  OK well give your responses and time to think about it, yes I suppose in the back of my head I am thinking "what the?". If I was at MIT I would want the speech to be from someone respected for their achievement in the world of intellectual endeavor. It feels like it cheapens the institution to bring in an actor. Now I will say I like Matt Damon's acting, and as far as Hollywood stars go, he comes across to me as if not the smartest, then one of the smartest, and that is certainly something to offset the cheapening of the MIT address. My original observation remains the same though - actors are at the top of our society in terms of the amount of attention and adoration given by the community, sports stars a close second. And may I say "The Martian" ..... well no-one does onscreen intellect/science like Matt Damon. What a great movie. I think maybe somewhere deep down the thing that bothers me about this is that MIT is saying in an indirect way "if you can act really smart then you are on equal footing with people who are really smart". i.e. we value "the appearance of smart".
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    He dropped out of Harvard and wrote an Oscar-winning movie script. I'd say that's quite an "intellectual" achievement.
  - ScottBurson 10y ago
    As an MIT alumnus, I think this is an excellent commencement speech. Broadly, though, you're right -- we Americans do love our screen stars.
    - pen2l 10y ago
      It's also worth noting that he most likely didn't quite right the speech. He had helpers write the speech. Everyone gets helpers to write/help write speeches. My favorite example is Steve Jobs calling a lot of people to get help on writing the commencement speech from folks like Aaron Sorkin and others (yes, the same Sorkin that made the Steve Jobs movie which framed him not an entirely positive light).
scottLobster 10y ago
You really want it broken down? The story is about a celebrity giving a commencement speech at MIT. You then make a provocative observation that celebrities are "held in the highest esteem above all categories of occupation". Which is a clear over-generalization meant to spark conversation on the topic. The most likely trajectory (by far) of any conversation that would be spawned from such a statement would be the traditional criticism: "why do we listen to celebrities so much when they usually don't know what they're talking about?". Hence the inference is that you're trying to criticize Matt Damon's speech. Put more succinctly, the nature of the conversation a person is trying to start is typically a strong indicator of their perspective.
colordrops 10y ago
You have plausible deniability here, but would you say the same if this were a physicist or philanthropist or tech CEO? Can you explain what your meaning is in point out your observation? There are thousands of details we could have noticed about this commencement speech. Why was that the one thing you point out?

Maybe it's a weird criticism because it isn't. How do you read my observation as criticism?

by hoodoof 10y ago

Maybe it's a weird criticism because it isn't. How do you read my observation as criticism?

enraged_camel 10y ago

It definitely reads as veiled criticism, yes.

hoodoof 10y ago
OK well give your responses and time to think about it, yes I suppose in the back of my head I am thinking "what the?". If I was at MIT I would want the speech to be from someone respected for their achievement in the world of intellectual endeavor. It feels like it cheapens the institution to bring in an actor. Now I will say I like Matt Damon's acting, and as far as Hollywood stars go, he comes across to me as if not the smartest, then one of the smartest, and that is certainly something to offset the cheapening of the MIT address. My original observation remains the same though - actors are at the top of our society in terms of the amount of attention and adoration given by the community, sports stars a close second. And may I say "The Martian" ..... well no-one does onscreen intellect/science like Matt Damon. What a great movie. I think maybe somewhere deep down the thing that bothers me about this is that MIT is saying in an indirect way "if you can act really smart then you are on equal footing with people who are really smart". i.e. we value "the appearance of smart".
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  He dropped out of Harvard and wrote an Oscar-winning movie script. I'd say that's quite an "intellectual" achievement.
- ScottBurson 10y ago
  As an MIT alumnus, I think this is an excellent commencement speech. Broadly, though, you're right -- we Americans do love our screen stars.
  - pen2l 10y ago
    It's also worth noting that he most likely didn't quite right the speech. He had helpers write the speech. Everyone gets helpers to write/help write speeches. My favorite example is Steve Jobs calling a lot of people to get help on writing the commencement speech from folks like Aaron Sorkin and others (yes, the same Sorkin that made the Steve Jobs movie which framed him not an entirely positive light).

scottLobster 10y ago

You really want it broken down? The story is about a celebrity giving a commencement speech at MIT. You then make a provocative observation that celebrities are "held in the highest esteem above all categories of occupation". Which is a clear over-generalization meant to spark conversation on the topic. The most likely trajectory (by far) of any conversation that would be spawned from such a statement would be the traditional criticism: "why do we listen to celebrities so much when they usually don't know what they're talking about?". Hence the inference is that you're trying to criticize Matt Damon's speech. Put more succinctly, the nature of the conversation a person is trying to start is typically a strong indicator of their perspective.

colordrops 10y ago

You have plausible deniability here, but would you say the same if this were a physicist or philanthropist or tech CEO? Can you explain what your meaning is in point out your observation? There are thousands of details we could have noticed about this commencement speech. Why was that the one thing you point out?