Graduates, I am not here to tell you what bright future is in store for us, nor how pivotal this event is in your life. Most of you I’ve never met, and so I am not going to pretend that I know any of that stuff. Surely you do not need me to tell you what graduation means to you. So, with my remaining time, I would like to share a thought with you that I feel is worth our consideration.

The most exciting moments when studying history are when you learn something about some ancient civilization that sheds light on your own. I have a good example of this for you: Military historians claim that hand-to-hand combat in ancient warfare was just a bit more dangerous than a really aggressive game of tackle football without pads. Forget what you’ve seen in the movies, it used to be the case, that on the battle field, few people were actually interested in killing others, even as a form of defense. You can call this instinct; you can call this compassion. Whatever it is, it an aversion to harming others. Most people naturally just do not want to kill; and it takes sophisticated military training to get most of your soldiers to be willing to kill.

You can call this cowardice; you can call it compassion; you can all it anything you want. The point is, the vast majority of humanity has a strong aversion to inflicting pain on others.

Would you like to wager a guess of who it was that did most of the killing in these ancient battles? It was the archers. But why them? What makes an archer so much different from the swordsmen? Psychologists say it is the distance. They were so far away from those they were shooting, that they never really had to look their enemy in the eye. The distance between them took away the conscience. Indeed, things affect us a lot less when they are off in the distance. For the archer, that man out there is merely a target; not a father, or a son, or a person with hopes and dreams. The distance made it easy to ignore the pain of others.

I think that sometimes, we mid-westerners, living in our bubble here in La Crosse, have too much distance between us and the rest of the world. Now, in the case of the archer, it was his action, his shooting of the arrow that brought pain and suffering to the other. In our case, it seems it is our lack of action, our choice to relish in the comforts of mid-western life which allow pain and suffering to continue. I say this to you, I say this to myself, that we are rich, educated, powerful people who have let the distance between us and those in need take away our sense of compassion for our fellow human beings.

Take, for example, what is called the American dream. I know I don’t have to go into detail of what this would entail. Just imagine any evening sitcom that depicts an upper-middle class life, surrounded by friends and family; where kids are raised comfortably, and the greatest tragedies in life usually deal with lost love in one form or another. Growing up with these images surrounding us, in the comfort of our bubble of La Crosse, we have come to expect this life in the future for ourselves. After graduating, many of us hope to live in comfort, maybe raise a family, own a house, a car or two, retire at 60, then golf a lot.

But to live this life, “the American dream,” is to sleep through the world’s cries for help. Our distance makes it easy to overlook the tragedies that characterize other people’s lives everyday. Our brothers and sisters in Darfur, in Baghdad, in New Orleans—these people have lost their comforts, and many have never even seen them. These people need our help. If we choose to chase the American dream, we will have slept through the dying gasps of the world… turned our backs on all of them, turned our backs on the outstretched hands grasping for a glimpse of hope that someone out there cares enough to put their petty personal problems and desires aside and do what is right—to sacrifice your comfort and just go help.

With your degree, with your citizenship in the most powerful country in the world—and may I add, a country that is required to listen to its citizens—with all of this power at your finger tips, it would be criminal to ignore the heroic feats that are within your power.

Indeed, given our daily silence and tolerance, history may judge us as accomplices to the tragedies around us, much like it judged the citizens of Nazi Germany who turned a blind eye to the horrors around them.

This country has a secret but proud history of those who have had the courage to step out of their comfortable lives. And everyday forward for the rest of your life, you will have the freedom to choose to do the same. I am not speaking of something as simple as voting. While regular voting is indeed a civic duty, regular acts of compassion and devotion to something beyond ourselves is essential to our humanity. We are not condemned to live a life that won’t ever amount to more than fulfilling personal desires. We can choose to live greater than that. Loans can wait; jobs can wait; families can wait. The starving, the poverty stricken, the war-torn… they cannot wait. They are dying. They are waiting for us. They are waiting for you to realize the power you have to help, and the freedom you have to use it.

Thank you for your consideration, and congratulations on your accomplishments.