
This is Water is a speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in the year of 2005.  In this speech the speaker uses his ability to predict the audience’s assumptions, narration of short stories, and his ability to give meaning to cliché’s as a method to help the audience break out of their natural way of thinking and view the world from a different perspective.

There are several instances in “This is Water” where David Foster Wallace knows exactly what the audience is assuming in regards to a statement he just made. I feel as though he uses this ability to show them how they are currently operating on their “default setting” or natural way of thinking he consistently refers to. To him, the natural way of thinking is the obvious way of thinking. A great example is when he tells the story of the two young fish and the older wise fish. After telling this story he says “if you’re worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise, old fish… please don’t be” (Wallace). He knew by telling this story the audience was going to automatically assume he was about to portray himself as the older fish. Him accurately stating what the audience was assuming about the story, was his attempt to make them of aware of how they are thinking on the default setting. Another instance is when he states the cliché’ “liberal arts education... is about teaching you how to think.” He then follows it up with “If you’re like me as a student, you’ve never liked hearing this, and you tend to feel a bit insulted by the claim that you needed anybody to teach you how to think, since the fact that you even got admitted to a college this good seems like proof that you already know how to think.”  With this statement David Foster Wallace knows how offensive the audience have taken the cliché’. But how does he know you’re offended without seeing any indicators? It’s the default setting mentality he knows you’re operating on. Once again, he intentionally states how you’re feeling as an attempt to make you aware of the fact you’re operating on the default setting mentality. This was a nifty trick by the speaker to make you aware of your own default setting mentality which he then follows it up with didactic stories, which contains examples of characters operating on their default setting.

During this speech David Foster Wallace told three different stories that was essential to the motive of the speech. Each story contains a character operating on their default setting. The first story, as I spoke of earlier, was the fish story. The second story was about the religious man and the atheist. The speaker uses this story as an example of how an event can generate two different perspectives amongst two people. This is also the speaker way of showing the audience how stubborn you can be in your default setting. See how the atheist viewed the Eskimos walking by as mere luck, look at how narrow-minded he was by not even considering that the Eskimos walking by could have stimulated from his prayer to God. Now think about the religious man. When the David Foster Wallace narrates the part of the story where the atheist says “Oh, God, if there is a God, I’m lost in this blizzard, and I’m gonna die if you don’t help me.” Why is the religious man shocked that the atheist didn’t credit God for his survival of the blizzard? Neither point of view can be proven right or wrong. Neither the atheist nor the religious man were open to take into consideration the others point of view and can assumed to have “agreed to disagree.”  This helps the speaker show the audience how being confined to your natural way of thinking hinders the ability to view a perspective different than your original one. Now let’s take a closer look at the final story. In this story he makes you the character and he discusses your experience at a supermarket after a tired and stressed out day of work. This is the most significant story because he tells it with you on your default setting. Then he breaks it down and gives you different perspectives you may have not consider being stuck on your default setting. With this technique he shows you how being open minded can make life’s simplest experiences not as bad or understandable. Another move to help break you out of your default setting. A great example in the story is when he stated

 “if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made up lady who just screamed at her kid in the checkout line. Maybe she’s not usually like this. Maybe she’s been up three straight nights holding the hand of a husband who is dying of bone cancer. Or maybe this very lady is the lowwage clerk at the motor vehicle department, who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a horrific, infuriating, red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness.’

Now he has you open to considering different perspectives no matter how unrealistic they may be. He’s chipping away at your natural way of thinking and is persuading you to look deeper into a situation and give reasons to actions.

Another way the speaker attempts to lure you off your default setting is by his utilization of clichés. The speaker doesn’t want you to view the clichés as just “clichés” but instead pay close attention to them and really find a meaning for them. He uses the liberal art cliché to predict your way of thinking, but not only does he accomplish that, but he also uses it to really lay down the ground work for his entire speech. “Teach you how to think” is the subject of the entire speech. Being able to operate off your default setting is you knowing how to think.  Let’s take a look at another cliché he uses “the mind is a terrible master but an excellent slave.” I took this quote as meaning, don’t work for your mind but let your mind work for you. This was an excellent way for the speaker to tell you, in order to break out your natural way of thinking you must have mind control. 

Mr. Wallace wants his audience to be more open-minded and more sensitive to other people in the world. You are not the center of the universe, which at times you can feel like you are, you’re just a part of it. We all have issues and sometimes you can feel as though your problems are more important than anybody else’s. Try to give reason for actions and not just think somebody’s doing something just to intentionally be rude. Take the guy cutting you of in traffic for example, he could have very well been cutting you off because he’s daughter is sick and just because he wants to rush home for no reason.

The speaker wants you to be more conscious of life and be able to operate off of your natural way of thinking. With his ability to predict your assumptions, deployment of didactic stores and utilization of cliché’s the speaker goes through a transition of showing you that you’re operating on your default setting, showing you examples of others operating on their default setting and how thinking unnatural can help you better understand life and the world we live in. All in all, that is the true value of a liberal arts education.
