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David Foster Wallace on the True Value of Liberal Arts Education

David Foster Wallace on the True Value of Liberal Arts Education
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Maria Popova May 21, 2015

The beloved author on what "the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about."

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On May 21, 2005, David Foster Wallace delivered his legendary Kenyon College commencement address – the only public talk he ever gave on his views of life – in which he argues:

I submit that this is what the real, no-bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out.

Read more, and listen to the original recording, here.

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