Graduation Ceremony 25
Monday 14 December 2015 at 1630hrs – Jesuits Church Valletta
Graduation Oration
Dr Sue Vella (Faculty for Social Wellbeing)
B.A. Hons (Melit.), Dip. SW (Melit.), M.Sc. (London), Ph.D. (York)
…the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts;
and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been,
is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life,
and rest in unvisited tombs.
George Eliot
Middlemarch
It’s an honour to be with you here this evening and to congratulate you on behalf of my colleagues on
the fruits of your hard work. Undoubtedly, there must have been moments when you wondered
whether all the stress was worth it – yes, it was! Through your effort, and the support of your loved
ones, you have achieved a high degree of personal fulfilment and the knowledge and skills that ensure
professional excellence.
You return to a world where your contribution is more relevant than ever. Your choice of studies is as
much a vocation as a career, and your skills are crucial in an era of rapid change which confronts us daily
with new challenges. We enjoy unprecedented levels of good health, material wellbeing, of democratic
and egalitarian aspirations. We must only move forward, and we all have a role to play in ensuring this.
Yet all is not well and you are to be at the coalface, called upon to be present and to minister to children
with challenging behaviour, to couples in difficulty, to isolated elderly people whose numbers are only
set to grow, to persons with problems of addiction, to migrants with nothing in the world but the
clothes they stand in.
Traditions have evolved, giving less form and continuity to our lives, leaving us with greater autonomy
but also greater anxiety amidst our uncertainties. In our different fields, we are all called upon to
support our people – be they pupils, parishioners or persons facing difficulties – to exercise their
autonomy in ways that allow them to flourish as authentic human beings. This brings me to five
reflections that I would like to share with you this evening, reflections that may sound somewhat
retrograde, but I will offer them nonetheless.
Happiness – the new policy goal?
My first reflection addresses an endless debate in my field of study. Social policy is essentially
concerned with the distribution of resources in line with welfare objectives, but what these objectives
should be remains a source of controversy. Loosely defined, social policy should promote wellbeing, but
the jury is still out as to whether wellbeing should refer to people’s needs, their preferences, their merit,
their virtue or, increasingly, their happiness.
To some extent, this controversy over goals mirrors a parallel debate among economists, some of whom
no longer believe that humans are simply calculating maximisers of self-interest. They also recognise
the limitations of using prosperity indicators, such as GDP, as proxies for wellbeing. The persistence of
social problems in the face of growing affluence has turned their attention to the determinants of
happiness. The World Happiness Surveys, for instance, have been conducted since 2012 to study the
state of happiness in the world and to promote happiness as a goal of public policy. Yes, they found
GDP to be important to happiness, but so too were having someone to count on, trust in the integrity of
institutions, personal freedom and the chance to be generous. Happiness was even found to increase
under conditions of austerity, on occasions when such austerity mobilised collaborative and supportive
behaviour.
Of course, this is not an argument for austerity but a call for us to listen closely to what really matters to
people. At the risk of sounding illiberal, a goal of happiness divorced from its object can only take us so
far. The measurement of subjective happiness has received its fair share of criticism, not least because
of its potential for deflecting attention away from matters of inequality and social justice, and from
debate over conceptions of the good life. In encouraging their readers to contemplate ‘how much is
enough?’, political economists Skidelsky and Skidelsky1 point out that a utilitarian approach to happiness
is not much different from the prosperity approach it replaces - all that has changed is the choice of
what to maximise. But more is not always better, and they contend, like many philosophers before
them, that happiness per se cannot be a policy goal, but only a product of living an authentic life in
pursuit of goals that matter.
Institutions are still important
My second reflection centres on the way that institutions are often seen to limit autonomy, to
disempower and undervalue the individual. A shallow notion of freedom would see individuals and
institutions as necessarily at odds. Yet we cannot escape the fact that we all form part of many
different institutions, which have their place in any complex society to guide individual behaviour and
coordinate people’s efforts. Institutions are significant to all our lives, and the quality of institutions
explains a good degree of difference in living standards across countries.
That said, institutions have fallen out of favour over the years, often with good cause. We have been
called upon to innovate, to re-engineer, to start-up and to spin-off. Of course, this is all good. But while
we should think outside the box, we must never forget that our boxes themselves also need tending to.
Institutions still matter – to democracy, to development, to wellbeing - and as they shaped our
generation, so they are shaping yours. Many of you will return, or take up new posts, in an organisation.
While a few of us may be called upon to be radical reformers, most of us may leave our mark in less
evident yet also long-lasting ways, through integrity, diligence, respect and a total commitment to
1
Skidelsky, Robert and Skidelsky, Edward (2012). How much is enough? Money and the good life. UK: Penguin.
quality. Make your institution one you can be proud of and be courageous in your efforts. As Brené
Brown2 puts it, “courage is contagious”, so be the best you can and others will eventually follow.
A need for stillness
My third reflection concerns a need for stillness and quiet in our noisy, networked world where, it
seems, we are always playing to an audience, often relinquishing much of the autonomy we hold so
dear. In his book ‘The Road to Character’, Brooks 3 speaks of a gradual shift over the twentieth century
where the desire for public acclaim – initially thought an obstacle to happiness – has become so
important for so many. He contends that the pressure for constant self-display limits our selfawareness, our chance for honest self-confrontation; and for richer relationships.
The shift from a celebration of character to that of personality is hardly a new observation, and has
recently been taken up by Susan Cain4 in her recent book ‘Quiet’. She notes that over the decades,
quiet has come to be associated with maladjustment, with passivity or weakness, with the inability to
lead effectively. This often prevents us from appreciating the rich inner lives, the talents and virtues of
those who are quiet. In particular, children of introvert temperament suffer because they feel that they
cannot measure up to the gregarious ideal achieved by their more extrovert peers. Too many times
students have told me, in private and in pain, that their shyness is also a source of shame and that they
have gone through school without ever feeling listened to - disregarded, they believed, because they
were quiet. Like Cain, I believe we need a fresh understanding and appreciation of the introvert, and
especially – as she puts it – we need to “actively cultivate quiet children in a world that cannot hear
them”.
The subject of quiet also brings to mind our need for sacred spaces. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks 5 has said,
somewhat tongue in cheek, that “if I ruled the world, I would resign immediately. It’s hard enough …to
rule ourselves let alone others. But if offered an hour before I resigned, I would enact one institution
that has the power to transform the world. It’s called the Sabbath.” Markets have their moral limits6.
We need our sacred spaces to reorder our hierarchies of the heart, and to nurture our relationships,
free from considerations of money, power and public display.
The power of gratitude
As I write this, my mum is gently slipping away to a better place. One of the hardest decisions I’ve ever
had to take has been to respect her wishes to end her days in the peace and comfort of her home.
Respecting people’s autonomy can be hard, but it is not this point I wish to dwell on, nor shall I dwell
upon the difficulty to be truly present, in our helplessness, to someone in pain. This you will already
know. What I do want to share with you is that, in one of her waking moments, mum said that all she
can remember are the kindnesses she has received from so many. I believe that this is the fruit of a
disciplined practice of gratitude over the years, a practice that I, for one, too often forget.
2
Brown, Brené (2015). Rising Strong. London: Vermilion.
Brooks, David (2015). The Road to Character. UK: Random House.
4
Cain, Susan (2012). Quiet. The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. UK: Penguin.
5
http://www.rabbisacks.org/if-I-ruled-the-world
6
Sandel, Michael (2013). Moral limits of markets. US: Farrel, Straus and Giroux.
3
Gratitude is, like happiness, becoming somewhat of a science and it remains to be seen how well it will
withstand the scrutiny of academia. Time will tell. For now, psychologist Robert Emmons 7 reminds us
that gratitude is important, as it is an affirmation of goodness in the world, and helps us to recognise
that goodness also exists outside of us, often irrespective of our merit. It affirms our interdependence,
bringing with it various physical, psychological and social benefits. It helps us to celebrate the present,
and to counter that insidious sense of entitlement that can rob our lives of joy.
Let life question you
My fifth and final reflection, perhaps, I am not too entitled to make. It has been hard to reconcile years
of training and practice in policy and planning, with the realisation that most of us cannot organise our
lives like efficient business plans, with goals and indicators, and strategies to achieve them. A dear
friend of ours, when celebrating our marriage, quoted John Lennon who said that ‘life is something that
happens to you when you’re busy making other plans’. My appreciation of this has only grown over the
years. To borrow from Victor Frankl 8, it is life that puts us to the test, and not vice versa. Each person,
he says, is questioned by life, and to life we must be responsible.
I wish you all the very best of luck. All the knowledge you have gained here will stand you in good stead,
though life must still be travelled, often on one’s own. Be good company for each other, be steadfast in
uncertainty and do the best you can. Remember, though, that in all of our areas of practice, the
messenger is often the message. It is who we are, more than what we do or say, that tends to make a
lasting impact upon those we serve. Be open to life when it summons you, and never ever forget to
count your blessings.
7
8
Emmons, Robert and McCollough, Michael (2004). The psychology of gratitude. UK: Oxford University Press.
Frankl, Victor (1992). Man’s Search for Meaning. US: Beacon Press.