I appreciate you might be trying to be funny. But this deference to authority goes vastly beyond just appeal to authority. What did you make of the argument?
Opinions are like noses… everyone has one, but most are unremarkable.
In the age of digital soapboxes, everyone feels their opinions are relevant - and many people try to leverage virtue signaling to get audience appeal, as followership has become a metric for quality.
This feels the case. I think that if we look hard enough we could be offended by everything and anything. And I think the heightened sensibility to be offended these days correlates negatively with overall societal intelligence.
Intelligent people have flexible mindsets to discuss and hence not so open to sensibility. People who follow others people mantras, not so flexible and reject what they doesn’t fit in their views.
Deference to authority is a mantra. General complaints about the prevalence of opinion is a mantra, general complaints that everyone is looking for offence is a mantra.
It might not have been at a commencement speech, but didn’t Feynman say, “Have no respect whatsoever for authority; forget who said it and instead look at what he starts with, where he ends up, and ask yourself, 'Is it reasonable?“. You are doing your hero a great disservice. Or perhaps you have a specific opinion on the article.
If you want to know the full picture: neither Feynman is a hero of mine (I personally think he was a bright prick), neither the original piece stirred any important ideas rather than “wow, this guy is full of self importance”.
To further complete the picture, I wrote this while sitting in the toilet, passing gas, while smoking my morning cig. Hardly the pinnacle of my day (but an adequate context for the articles quality)
I respect your views, we all have noses, I don’t care much for yours and you probably should not care much about mine either.
1 - Become as relevant as Mr Feynman
2 - Get invited to CalTech to give a commencement speech
3 - Share your personal opinions there.