Judge tells LaGrange College graduates to be ‘ambassadors of kindness’

Speaking at a commencement ceremony at LaGrange College on Saturday, federal Judge Richard W. Story told the school’s graduates, “the sad truth is that we have lost our sense of civility.”

According to a report on the private school’s website, the U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of Georgia, told the college’s class of 2017, “We can no longer engage in meaningful discussions about substantive issues without having those discussions descend into bitter, personal attacks. We have lost the ability to listen to one another with an open mind, and are unwilling to consider that we could possibly be wrong about a matter.”

The judge, a 1975 LaGrange College graduate, encouraged the students to become “ambassadors of kindness.” He said they should choose to be kind.

According to the school’s article, Story said our dependence on digital communication has robbed us of the ability to meaningfully connect with each other.

“We don’t see the people with whom we are communicating or hear the inflections in their voices,” he said. “Thus, much of the emotion is missing.”

Even worse, the internet has allowed us to become anonymous.

“We can say anything, no matter how hateful or ridiculous, and expect never to be held accountable for it,” he said.

There is no magic solution to the problem, he said, but each of us has the power to make a difference, one person at a time.

“At the expense of being profoundly simplistic, I suggest to you that the early 20th-century author and critic, Henry James, offers a good point from which to begin. He said, ‘Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.’”

This story was originally published May 21, 2017 at 11:54 AM with the headline "Judge tells LaGrange College graduates to be ‘ambassadors of kindness’."