George Saunders teaches creative writing at Syracuse University. He has published
several collections of stories and as such is no stranger to the rhetorical writing. 'This speech,
delivered to the Class of 2013 at Syracuse University addresses 'the need for kindness and all
the things working against our actually achieving it,' according to Joel Lovell, who published the
speech at his New York Times blog titled 'The 6th Floor'.'

Immediately you see that Saunders is taking the audience into account with comments
like 'Some old fart, his best years behind him,' and 'one useful thing you can do with an old
person, in addition to borrowing money from them'. His playful humor about the age gap
between him and the graduates is successfully used to gain their attention. He then goes into
telling a story as a means to answer a common question that his young audience has been
asking: 'looking back, what do you regret?'. One can assume that the frequency of the
usage of this question would rise during periods of major life changing events. George Saunders
himself maybe wondered this very question when he was sitting in one of the chairs in front of
the podium dressed in his graduation cap and gown. Whether the latter be true or false, he
sees being kind as having enough importance and relevance to announce it to a large assembly
of people.

As he starts his story he begins by comparing events. In this way he defines what his
definition of truly regretting something is. He makes his way to an event in seventh grade
involving a small, shy girl who becomes the new kid in his class. Utilizing the pathos of the
situation he goes into detail about her and events involving the two of them. You can easily
infer that he is depicting these connections to hone in on another topic of interest to the
audience: bullying. Saunders planned this inductive reasoning for the audience. Bullying is not
the subject of this speech but it does provide him the opportunity to state his claim to be kind
to listening ears. As the attention of the audience is captured by Saunders, he makes the story
end with the small, shy girl moving away in an unassuming manner, and then he answers the
initial question: 'What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness'. It's a simple and
complex concept all rolled into one, due to its own kairos dependency. He emphasizes his
answer as: 'Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering,
and I responded ' sensibly.' Saunders effectively uses the logos of inductive reasoning and the
pathos of the emotional connection to the small, shy girl in a tricky manner to deliver his argument
nicely.

Saunders moves on to ask why we aren't kinder. He states the reasons are: 'we're
central to the universe, we're separate from the universe, and we're permanent'. The
quality of these three answers are summed into one simple connection: humans are selfish.
Once again, with his understanding of his audience he provides a more casual simplistic
recapping of the message to the three answers. He uses the extrinsic proof of the normal
American life and the intrinsic proof of his personal growth of kindness thorough his life time to
prove his point, and this makes it easier for the graduates to relate to the topic at hand. Next,
he questions how we could be kinder to one another. Saunders states we already know how to
be kind. He utilizes some of the commonplace knowledge held within the average American life
and constructs a hypothesis to the reason we already know how to be kind. His explanation is
that, throughout their experience, in life the graduates have been through periods he calls
'High Kindness' and 'Low Kindness'. 'High Kindness' are times when you were
exceptionally kind or the beneficiary of such kindness, and 'Low Kindness' are the times when
you were less than kind or treated unkindly. Saunders describes kindness as a high and a low to
show that kindness is an always-present action, even during times that people don't associate it
with the action. These examples help picture to the audience the importance of his argument
to be kind.

Lastly, Saunders introduces the notion that people get nicer the more they age. He says
'we come to see how useless it is to be selfish. ' We come to love other people and are
thereby counter-instructed in our own centrality'. This allows for him to turn the funny
opening liner about his age into a more relevant subject that contributes to his knowledge of
the topic. He is equipped with a 50 year lifetime of logos and ethos to show how most people
become less selfish and more loving. He is adamant that the audience presumably will face the
same fate. He does not want this speech to be like any other but stand out and produce kinder
people. He is clear in his message when he states: 'And so, a prediction, and my heartfelt wish
for you: As you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be
replaced by LOVE'.

Yet still, Saunders is not finished. With time looming over him, his last bit of advice is
delivered after a 'Congratulations, by the way'. He looks at success and its meaning in mass
society. With the graduates recent accomplishment he can tell that success is a term on
everybody's mind, but Saunders speaks of success in a negative tone. He describes it like a
mountain that keeps growing ahead of you as you hike it. He is not saying that success is a
mentally insane complex but he does want the graduates to realize that success should not take
up to much focus of what life should be. Life is big, with many mysteries, and he wants the
graduates to not get lost in one idea and forget to see the bigger picture. So now that the
graduates see the part kindness plays in life, he ends his speech with a challenge: 'Since,
according to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving:
Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now'.

I believe that Saunders provides a compelling argument to the importance of being kind.
I've been to multiple graduations, and this article makes me wish I was there. His casual tone
didn't come off as lame or misunderstanding of the younger generation, but on the contrary,
helped move his speech along. I like that he differentiates between the thought of what
kindness looks like from the actual actions of kindness. Different people have different
viewpoints. The thoughts of an individual aren't hindered by differences such as culture,
religion, or society; it is dependent on that one person to do or not to do. He provides easily
relatable situations to prove that we know what kindness is and that people grow kinder as
they grow older. I enjoyed his metaphor of success and I used my personal life journeys to help
picture his claim. His focus on the audience was noticed throughout the entire speech. Even so
much, that he ends his speech with: 'I wish you great happiness, all the luck in the world, and a
beautiful summer'. The graduates are moments away from experiencing their final
summer, and I can visualize how Saunders ending words delivers a sense of the summer has
officially begun. Saunders use of rhetorical writing in his speech to the Class of 2013 at Syracuse
University is evident throughout and makes this work an enjoyable read.

