Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles - Actualites Yearbook (Los Angeles, CA)

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Discours d ' usage a 1 ' occasion de la distribution solennelle des prix Juin 1977 There is a custom in graduation speeches to exhort graduation classes to continue their education, to strive for success in a world that is highly competitive. You will forgive me if I break tradition a second time and not only not speak in French, but also avoid the typical outlining of a career which, if pursued, will lead to health, wealth and happiness. Instead of telling you what you ought to do to get advanced education or find a job, I would like to offer some reflections on what is going on around us and how I react to it. For the last three years, public opinion polls have been telling us that people think things were better in the past than they are now and that things are better now than they will be in the future. This pessimism is not surprising. In the last decade, we have had Viet-Nam and Watergate. We have had inflation and high unemployment. We have become conscious that we are running out of oil and natural gas and we wonder if we will find substitutes which will enable us to keep our standard of living. We have found that the wastes from nuclear plants cannot be 100 percent safely stored and in fact, could be used by international outlaws to make atomic bombs. We have seen the health of the world ' s population threatened by the pollution of the rivers, the sea, the air and our foods. We have witnessed war and revolution in the Middle East, South Africa and Asia. Americans have lost their innocence and some of their confidence and they don ' t like it. Political, social and economic institutions are under attack. It used to be that doctors and lawyers were highly respected — now less than a majority of people have esteem for these professionals. Congressmen weigh in with 12 percent popular approval — just above used car salesmen. In some quarters, the free enterprise system is scorned as a means of economic exploitation and profit is equated with rip off. Even the institution of parenthood is under attack, although I somehow have a feeling this is one institution that will survive. Amongst many young people today, there is a coolness and detachment which covers up rage and insecurity. Numbers is one way to avoid the consequences of emotion. Another is to perform and not to feel — to acquire sensory experiences without emotional involvement. The lack of emotional commitment has many manifestations. In friendship and romance, it can be the covering up of feelings — an attitude that life is controlled by the invisible hand of fate. It really doesn ' t make any difference what one does in life as long as one protects oneself from getting hurt. Therefore, never let your friend or your loved one get too close — protect yourself from being ravaged. Avoid the ego wounds of a highly competitive culture by taking drugs or drinking or side-stepping work in school or out. If you never give yourself emotionally to another person, or if the things you do in life have no emotional attachment, you are free, spaced out, above it all. Kurt N ' onnegut, Jr. mirrors this detachment so prevalent in our culture in his books. In SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, Billy Pilgrim is the innocent hero who says. The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies, he only appears to die . . . when a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is So it goes. At another point in the same book, V ' onnegut writes, Some days we Tralfamadorians have wars as horrible as any you have seen or read about. There isn ' t anything we can do about them, so we simply don ' t look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments — like today at the zoo. Isn ' t this a nice moment. The unwillingness that so many people in our society have to confront their emotions — to love, and to hate, to laugh and to cry, to face reality — has led to a thirst for sensation as an antidote to pleasurelessness and deadness. Experience for the sake of experience is the gospel for these persons. The means of getting the sensation varies. It can c? a car, a motorcycle, a bottle of booze, drugs, sex, T.V ' ., or whatever. Reality becomes fantasy and fantasy is the only ' .-. ' iiity I SIP not saying that experience is equal to deadness. The point that I am trying to make is that when the sensation .-■ trie exDenence is an escape from genuine emotion, it represents an unwillingness to make a real commitment to • cr ideal.

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Annual Commencement and Awards Ceremonies - June 9 and June 10, 1977 Welcoming Remarks Dr. Raymond Kabbaz President, Le Lycee Francais Address by the Honorary Chairman, Board of Trustees M. Michel Rougagnou Consul General of France Commencement Address (June 9th) M. Jean-Michel Cousteau Commencement Address (June 10th) Senator John Tunney The Lycee: New Beginnings Dr. Raymond Kabbaz Remarks Honorable M. John Ferraro Los Angeles City Councilman, 4th District Remarks Mr. Luther Marr Vice President, Lycee Board of Trustees Presentation of Honors and Awards Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles Remarks by Valedictorians Debbie Katz (English) Camille Peterson (French) Le Lycee Francais de Los Angeles is pleased to honor both its graduating and continuing students this morning, as well as the many friends and parents of Le Lycee. Le Lycee is fully accredited by both the French Ministry of National Education and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, Congratulations to the Class of ' T?! Ce programme est offert par le restaurant New Moon, 912 South San Pedro, Los Angeles - la cuisine Chinoise par excellence. Tin; wurn: hoisk V ■ASHINGTO ■ May 16, 1977 TO THE 19 77 GRADUATES OF LE LYCEE FRANCAIS DE LOS ANGELES Congratulations to each of you at this important milestone in your lives. I would like to thank you for your kind request for a Presidential message and encourage you to explore the many choices open to you. America needs your full involvement to meet the new challenges of an ever-changing era. My prayers and best wishes go with you for lives of happiness and fulfillment.

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A lot of people cannot believe in anything today except what is in it for themselves. Success is getting ahead even if one has to cheat, lie and steal to do so. What really counts is making it. They say everyone knows politicians are dishonest, businessmen greedy and auto mechanics rip off artists. If you can take care of yourself, the devil can take the hindmost. I submit this type of thinking is highly destructive and dead wrong. I have been convinced for a long time that the process of living life is what gives meaning to life itself. It is the investment of emotional energy in another person or in an ideal that gives value to that person or ideal. When you commit yourself, you are risking a lot. You can be hurt if the other person rejects you, or if your ideal for human behavior is unreachable because people are not perfect. Without the commitment, however, you cannot truly live. I would rather reach for the stars and fail than keep my eves on my feet. At least when you are reaching, you can hope and when you are hoping, you have a chance to be fulfilled. I remember the night I won my senate seat six and one half years ago. Two years of extreme effort paid off. I had worked sixteen hours a day, seven days a week and I had stated my goals and ideals during the campaign and they were accepted by the poeple. I couldn ' t wait to translate my beliefs into action in the senate. I also remember the night I lost my senate seat six months ago. I was crushed. I felt rejected, but as the days passed and the smarting wound became a dull ache, I began to realize that I was richly rewarded. I was living because I was feeling. The true test of me as a person was to take the blows to my pride and fight back and overcome. I thought, I want to live and to laugh. I want to listen to life ' s music and see the foolishness in myself and the world around me. I want through my own will to grasp my destiny. A man called William Hazelitt after spending a lot of time reflecting on the human condition wrote, Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps because man is the only animal that knows the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. If we become emotional zombies we have lost our ability to tell the difference between what things are and what they ought to be. Life is then without meaning. Friends are replaceable and sex is stripped of romance and tenderness. I went the other night to see the movie STAR WARS. As I was preparing my remarks for today, I reflected on the immense popularity of the film and why I liked it so much myself. Aside from the fact that is a wonderful fantasy that totally captures the imagination, if is the story of how good triumphs over evil. The mindless, unemotional brutality of the empire, a brutality that can wipe out a planet and all its inhabitants without a speck of remorse, is defeated by human beings and human-like animals and machines that care about freedom, friendship and love. When the film first started, I found myself attaching very little emotional value to the robots and computers that were serving and in some instances controlling the humans. But in the end the machines had lifelike qualities. I identified with them because of their courage, loyalty, honor and compassion. The film makers executed a brilliant switch from that story line to which we are accustomed. Instead of making people appear like cool, detached machines, they made machines act like involved, committed human beings. There is a craving amongst people to realize what emotional possibilities they have — to let it all hang out. Each of you is going to have to make a decision for yourself. As you arrange the thousands of pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of your life, will you share yourself with others or will you withdraw? Will you feel or will you hide your emotions? Will you seek self-knowledge or will you keep shifting your self-image and keep playing different roles as a defense against self-knowledge? I hope that no matter what else you do for the rest of your lives, you will glory in your humanity and welcome the risks that are a necessary part of being human. Connect emotionally with others and yourselves because the currents of energy you release will play back through the system of your being, illuminating your self-worth and worthiness. Senator John Tunney