Academic Decathlon Speech

A speech that must fall within 3minutes and 30seconds to 4minutes. The content must be appropriate for a formal setting. I did things a little differently... No a*s kissing here, no global warming nonesense and no acadamia nonesense. "All art is usel

While the original intent of my speech was to express a few mildly– one may say objective– views in verse, in the language of Shakespeare– regarding the art of the pen, I’ve since decided against it. Historically, it may have been very profitable to deliver such a speech with a well-trained– a well-versed– tongue, though at this point in our history it is now a means of the meek. Of the– unpaid artist. This is, my friends, the result of a diminishing society, and certainly not that of a growing society.
For perspective, I’ll again acknowledge Shakespeare, that daftly unoriginal and really rather boring playwright. He wrote for the common folk of his time, for the illiterate peasants. Now, we take full semester courses at Harvard and Oxford just to understand the man. If that’s not going downhill, then I don’t know what is, frankly. The point, you see, is that I fear we’d all have had to take a year’s worth of courses at some national leading school just to understand such a speech– in verse. So here I speak not even in prose, that lowly language reserved for those lower folk of the Elizabethan plays, and thus is the diminishing power of the pen.
The diminishing power of intellect in our world. Where Greece once thrived, we rot. Our capitol is a joke, decked with its Greek architecture. All hail the power of Democracy. Needless to say, the leaders of our– fragile– democracy are now chosen based on wealth as opposed to where their (surprise) political loyalties may actually lie while we, ironically, like to think and to dream that one day we may all become presidents, that the option will always be there for us. Alas, until we can each raise seventy million dollars in just three months’ time, strictly off of fund-raising, our campaigns won’t ever be acknowledged. But it’s okay, because our capitol has Greek walls, so we’re a very democratic country you see, and we love out intellects.
And that too is a common theme of where we live, of our time. We love the things we’re not a part of. We love models and finely-honed bodies, but such is the– well, I suppose one might say such is the flourishing– of America, we’re now the leading nation in obesity.
We love to say that we are America, the tolerant nation, while others– my own Ukrainian friend– come to America and reflect how they’ve never been so quickly judged until they’ve stepped foot on American soil. We love the things we’re not, love to say we are.
We’re no longer intellectuals. A good time no longer consists of an evening read of Thoreau or Whitman or Emerson. Joy doesn’t come from a Shakespearian comedy, because we hear the words, but lack the understanding.
And this too is the power of the pen.
Tell a kid to read, it’ great for them, and ten minutes later flash them an advertisement of how great it is to smoke and ditch school and to kick those other nerdy kids around. That’s the part that gets the glitter.
Where the pen once meant power, it now means nothing. Even in an Advanced Placement course the pen can lie and beguile an instructor into giving a grade.
But that’s what this speech is. It doesn’t have to mean anything, not really. Bu it’s a speech, and I’m here delivering it, and you will as you will, and we like the things we’re not and we pretend it even more, and it’s a sad thing, it really is, that we’ve managed to for so long ignore such obvious facades.
The pen once meant power, its ink couldn’t like. Now it’s the perfect instrument for creating vast facades, capable of cheating and hiding death and fooling entire nations. But who knows, perhaps some day it may even fool a judge...
-Langley