Where did I read this speech?

April 25, 2012 5:38 PM

Commencement Address Filter: Can you help me find a graduation speech (I think it was given by a celebrity, and I think at an Ivy League school) about how modern relationships have the problem of depending on one person to be all the people in someone's life. Other hints inside.

I read this commencement speech online a year or so ago. I bookmarked it, but that laptop is dead now. The speaker was talking about how humans are made to live in large communities. Our ancestors lived with grandparents, cousins, aunts, etc. Now we are isolated and in cities and we put all this stock on our significant others to be all these different people we need in our lives. The speaker was basically theorizing that this is a huge problem in many modern relationships and we need to not put that sort of weight on one single person.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? I'm dying to read it again but my keyword skills are failing me on all the search engines. Thanks!

posted by chocolatemilkshakes to Grab Bag (3 answers total)

Best answer: I know that Kurt Vonnegut has written about this in several places, but haven't been able to track down a commencement speech... I'll keep looking. Did the speech mention the "folk society"?
posted by Daily Alice at 5:52 PM on April 25, 2012

Best answer: Here's the bit that Daily Alice is referring to.
posted by punchtothehead at 6:13 PM on April 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you both! That's what I was looking for.
posted by chocolatemilkshakes at 6:26 PM on April 25, 2012