Or ever? You might bet tempted to cite Kurt Vonnegut’s “Wear sunscreen” speech, but he didn’t give it and it was written as an essay by Mary Schmich. I’ve never heard one that I would want to hear twice.
But this year has suffered through some truly bad commencement speeches. I’ve already mentioned Chris Pan’s Bitcoin spam at Ohio State. But did you know that speech went through multiple public revisions? Pan worked through it on social media, got all kinds of criticism, and he went ahead and delivered it anyway. Why did he bother asking for criticism if he was going to ignore it anyway? There’s a special kind obtuse confidence on display there.
Pan was topped, though! Harrison Butker, a place kicker in the NFL, was invited to speak at Benedictine College, a small Catholic liberal arts (but not liberal!) college in Kansas, and he delivered a remarkably regressive pronouncement about how men and women should live…like 12th century Catholics, apparently.
In front of the crowd of about 485 male and female graduates, Butker suggested that a woman’s accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic or professional goals.
“I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” he said.
“How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
Butker also praised his wife Isabelle, saying she “would be the first to say her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
I don’t recommend it, but you can suffer through this speech, too. He isn’t shy about declaring his deeply conservative, crude opinions.
The smugness. The obliviousness. The absolute lack of empathy for half the human beings on the planet. He’s awful.
What worried me most, though, is that no one walked out on him. Jerry Seinfield did a commencement speech full of banalities, and people walked out. This crowd at Benedictine College applauded and cheered at the end of that paean to neo-Nazi values, which tells me…don’t trust Benedictine College graduates. What are they teaching there?
I heard somewhere that Butker’s mom is/was a physicist. Has he ever criticized her for that?
Butker also praised his wife Isabelle, saying she “would be the first to say her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
So he’s PUBLICLY saying his own wife had nothing to live for or care about until he made her his? What an asshole. There’s other people with the same mindset who at least try to sound more tactful about it.
You can bet that if Taylor Swift ever breaks up with Kelce, Butker will be among the first to gloat over them in public and brag about how his marriage to his tradwife is SOOOO much godlier and happier.
It was worth hearing so people know what is wrong with Harrison Butker, the trad Catholic Benedictine college, and the US Catholic church.
Butker did a lot more than insult women. He went after the gays and trans, reproductive medicine, and birth control.
Their ugliness was on full display.
And widely condemned.
Even the NFL, Butkers indirect employer and not known for being liberal, condemned his speech.
I guess insulting most of their paying customers didn’t go over too well.
Even 12th century Catholic women didn’t live according to his ideas. He needs to learn about Eleanor of Acquitaine.
Cthulhu, What a condescending slime mold.
Butker is claiming here that women aren’t capable of thinking things through about their own hopes, dreams, and life plans.
So, they do things like go to college, avoid sexist MRA idiots like Butker, have careers, and live their own lives the way they want to.
Because some unnamed “them” lied to them and told them to do that.
Women aren’t people with minds to him. They are inferior baby makers, maids, and cooks.
@1 Raging Bee – good point.
Sports Illustrated did a whole series on how much it sucks to be an “NFL Wife:”
https://www.si.com/author/rachel-terrill
re commencement addresses, Helen Mirren gave a corker at Tulane:
Nice message from the college to the female graduates–“Thanks for the money. Now go find a husband and start flat backin’ it.”
Of course they didn’t walk out on him. Because if there’s one position on the football field that automatically garners respect from everybody, it’s the kicker.
Butker went wide right on this one.
His mother is a physicist who works in radiation oncology at Emory. I’d like to overhear the next conversation between them.
A good commencement speech? I would suggest the one given by Tim Minchin at the University of Western Australia:
I think advices like “Respect people with less power than you”, “Define yourself by what you love” and “Remember it’s all luck” are much more useful than “Girls, behave like it is still 1800 and be happy about it”.
American Dads: We love that because of Taylor Swift we’re bonding with our daughters over football.
Harrison Butker: Hold up
In reality, these trad marriages tend to have very high levels of domestic abuse, child abuse, and child sexual abuse.
They are miserable and sometimes end in ugly divorces.
And yes, there is data on this point. A lot of data.
This is from a trad Catholic website.
They are well aware that their cuckoo fantasy of what traditional Catholic wives should be like is resulting in high levels of domestic abuse.
This is the good old days fallacy.
Even back many decades and centuries, Catholic women weren’t all like this.
AFAICT, trad Catholics are a recent modern invention of a few twisted priests and a few MRAs.
“I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who
have hadare about to have the most diabolical lies told to you,” he said. Fixed it for him.raven @4: Slime mold exhibits some degree of intelligence. Butker not so much.
What advice can a kicker provide? I’m not one who thinks athletics are useless, or sports are bad, but unless this guy faced some sort of hardship, what advice can be garnered from someone who excels at an incredibly limited skill?
I will never not be amazed how so many athletes in team sports are willing to light their reputation on fire. Your employment is based on getting along with and forming bonds with others, being an extremist cannot be helpful. And because you are in such a collective environment, you have to know how gross your ideas are. Otherwise you would air them to teammates, not a selective audience of captive listeners, and likely be shown the door ASAP.
My mother was in one of those marriages. I’m pretty sure she was a dyke. In an era in which women’s decisions were made for them by men, she was pushed into a marriage with my father, who was an abusive drunk. He died, leaving her with six small children and no real job skills. The last two were conceived after he had been diagnosed with cancer, but their religion taught that having children was a moral imperative, so you had a duty to keep procreating and trust God for the results. And there were times when we went hungry because what money she did have went into tuition at a Christian school so we could get a Christian education. She never did understand why all of her kids but one left the church as soon as they could.
I get that her story isn’t typical. I get that there are women who really are happy in marriages such as the ones Butker describes, and if they’re happy, I’m happy for them. Just don’t pretend that there aren’t lots of women who have made other choices and their choices are every bit as valid. If Frau Butker finds fulfillment in being a wife and mother, good for her. Not every woman does, and good for them too.
There have been plenty of good commencement speeches this year. But, they don’t generate clicks so you didn’t hear about them. The only time you hear about good commencement speeches is when they’re great speeches given by gifted orators. If the average person wants some attention for speaking to graduates, they’re gong to have to say something horrible. I wonder how much Benedictine paid him for all this free publicity? What people get paid to make commencement speeches is a very under reported scandal. Back in my day you could make $30K, plus an honorary degree. I imagine it’s far worse today.
I liked this address. It is blatantly about military challenges, but the generalities are accurate (in my opinion). Admiral McRaven seems to have his head on straight.
Even the Benedictine nuns who founded the school are condemning his address.
https://ground.news/article/benedictine-college-nuns-say-harrison-butkers-speech-did-not-represent-schools-values-fostered-division
There is more creepy idiocy to Butker’s speech.
He is a generic far right wingnut.
He is also just plain old stupid.
He thinks we did too much to defend ourselves from the Covid-19 pandemic, while 1.4 million Americans died and tens of millions ended up with long Covid syndromes.
This makes no sense whatsover.
It is cosmically stupid.
.1. Yes, there have been great pandemics in the past that killed tens of millions.
So what?
What relevance does that have to how we fight pandemics today?
None whatsoever.
Up until the start of the 20th century the average lifespans of people ran around a maximum of 49 years. Further back during the great pandemics it was more like 30-40 years.
During the Black Death of 1349, something like 25% of the European population died of the Bubonic plague.
.2. These days, we have far more advanced science and medicine.
Smallpox is extinct.
The Black Death kills a few people a year rather than a few million.
The Covid-19 virus vaccines saved the lives of 3.2 million Americans.
.3. The priests and ministers did what they could to fight the ancient pandemics.
Which was about nothing. They also died along with everyone else.
Some scholars put the start of the ending of the Catholic hegemony over Europe to the Black Death. The RCC did what they could which wasn’t much.
The Black Death called a lot of church teachings into question.
It took a few centuries more, but the Reformation ended a lot of Catholic church power.
.4. “… church leaders leaned into their vocations and ensured that their people received the sacraments.”
This makes no sense.
Even today, if someone is sick and dying of Covid-19 virus or anything, they can still receive the sacraments from the priests.
It will do nothing to cure anyone but if people want to play let’s pretend, go for it.
Chances are if they have an infectious disease, that priest will be vaccinated and wearing a mask.
Guy isn’t very bright. No surprise.
He also hates DEI and plays on a team with many black players, including the quarterback.
@19 raven
Not only had kicker Butker gone wide right (field goal joke) his kickoff went out of bounds which deserves a yellow flag.
As for his stance on COVID response his teammate Kelce famously advertized for receiving the shot. They both play for a culturally backwards team that exploits Native Americans by name and fan chants.
Here’s the references this Bozo made about COVID:
https://www.ncregister.com/news/harrison-butker-speech-at-benedictine?amp
The rest of his rancid commencement is there if you have a barf bag handy. Just one more reason for me to get back to despising the “Chiefs”.
Co-incidentally, just seen via ABC news site :
Source : https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-18/birthrates-women-fertiliy-rates-children-population-growth/103849978
Of course it should be bloody okay.
There’s actually too many people on the planet especially in the developed world that already uses up more than its fair share of the planet’s respources.. Environmental reality rules out infinite economic growth which is unsustainable and ultimately catastrophic and likely to lead to a severe crash – in physical not just monetary terms.
Harrison Butker is not just a douche but ignorant – probly willfully of scientific reality in clearly many ways.
@21. Hemidactylus : “They both play for a culturally backwards team that exploits Native Americans by name and fan chants.”
Didn’t they change the name? I thought they had?
StevoR @23
You are thinking of the Washington DC team now called the Commanders who previously had a very derogatory name I will not repeat here.
BTW in other sports news I’m happy to see Lando Norris beat Verstappen finally. It was so exciting toward the end in Miami I didn’t even care much what Checo was doing. More of that upseating.
Back in ye middle ages that big dumb oaf would toil from sunrise to sundown in the fields, have most of his produce taken away by grabby nobles or fat monks and never live to see his children grow up thanks to the constant back-breaking labor, lack of medical support and malnutrition making his body age thrice as fast.
Those who pine for the good ol’ times always imagine themselves as kings and rulers but most likely they’d just grovel in the dirt together with all the other peons.
@Hemidactylus : Ah, yes. That’s right. Thanks. Forgot there are several teams that have offensive Native American name sand only one has been changed so far that I know of.
Also great to see someone else win a race this year especially seeing someone new get their first win. I do wish and hope it will be the other McLaren’driver’s turn to win soon!
Even the nuns hate him: https://www.salon.com/2024/05/17/harrison-butker-benedictine-college-nuns-statement/
Speeches written by people that were rejected from art school:
General Hux speech with alterations
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=hzgC1lBKXG8
SWe3: Chancellor Palpatine’s speech in German
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=ViwOPrYEgDA
“As Catholics, we can look to so many examples of heroic shepherds who gave their lives for their people, and ultimately, the Church”
The good part about the Black death was, it killed nearly all the priests (they had to give last rites).
@ ^ birgerjohansson : Bad part was it was only nearly.
(Too early?)
Or not soon enough?
A Better Speech:
Dr. Hannibal Lecter Responds to Trump
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=UwVvmKA6GNE
birgerjohansson @29:
And a lot of the monks and nuns who ran the earliest hospitals. Er, yay atheism?
Rob Grigjanis, I do not literally claim the Black death was a great moment in history. That would be downright Trumpean.
It is regressive worldwiew of the church upper hierarchy and this Butger fellow that makes me angry. I would encourage them to travel to the next Ebola outbreak to pray away the virus, preferably while standing close to the hospital beds.
After some digging I found Putin’s speech from the new Russian VE Day parade (mostly the same as the 2023 speech).
VICTORY DAY DEBACLE 2: FAKE FLYBY BOOGALOO – Reaction by milbloggers.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=DtmWQVoiJgc
At 33 minutes P starts a speech. Summary: We totally won the war against Germany on our own without any help from others. The western countries have forgotten the lessons of the war but we have not. It continues like this, then there is a minute of silence for the fallen.
At 1 hour 1 minute the one (1) tank of the whole parade turns up, because the other working tanks have been sent to Ukraine. It is a T-34 (to connect to the glorious past) but not a genuine WWII model.
The milbloggers are laughing their arses off.
There is now a repeat of the driveby of military vehicles from last year, including footage from a rotating drive shaft (shaftcam?) because… nothing says ‘power’ like a driveshaft. One blogger had committed to a drinking game where he pronised to take a drink if stupid stuff like the driveshaft turned up again this year. Cheers!
At 1 hour 7 minutes the flyby begins.
It is a group of Sukhoi-25s, but suddenly a clip with MiG 29s -under a different, clear blue sky on a different day- is spliced in.
The milbloggers are now rolling on the floor, laughing.
birgerjohansson @34:
I know. You said it was good that so many clerics died. As regressive and oppressive as the church could be, it was also responsible, either directly or through patronage, for the preservation and advancement of knowledge for centuries. Funny how hardcase antitheists seem to forget that. It’s just “church bad, priests bad”.
Rob, always careful to balance things. Let me try, too.
It was similarly responsible for the destruction and impeding the advancement of knowledge for centuries.
Basically, anyone who taught differently to or independently from the Church was heretical in those happy times.
(And we know how heretics were treated, no?)
Of course there were no other centers of learning — it was basically a monopoly.
Creationists are impeding the advancement of knowledge to this day.
Call a spade a spade. I am shocked that a Catholic school is teaching Christianity.
beholder #39
I doubt that you are shocked.
@ 33 Grigjanis
https://www.salon.com/2016/01/03/the_wests_big_lie_about_mother_teresa_her_glorification_of_suffering_instead_of_relieving_it_has_had_little_impact_on_her_glowing_reputation/
Yeah, I think I’d rather atheist hospitals is that’s alright bud
@41: Don’t think she was around in the 14th century, dumbass. Maybe your version of ‘reasoning’ is: “MT was a horrible person and a nun, therefore all nuns have always been horrible”. So, up to your usual standards.
Talking about commencement speeches – I thought this one was pretty good.
Interestingly, this was last year’s commencement address at Smith college – which is Harrison Butker’s mother’s alma mater.
Commencement speaker gives UMass Dartmouth grads $1K from two duffle bags full of cash