by Utah State Senator John D. Johnson

President Jensen, esteemed faculty, proud families, and most importantly, the distinguished graduates of Mount Liberty College:

Today, we gather at the crossroads of memory and meaning—a moment suspended between what has been and what will be. This is not merely a ceremony of completion. It is a threshold. It is the parting of the curtain, the rising of the lamp, the moment when the years of study, struggle, and formation are no longer preparation—they are mission.

You are not just crossing a stage. You are stepping into a civilization in crisis—one in desperate need of light and desperate for wisdom.

Plato’s Cave: From Shadows to the Light of Truth

To grasp the meaning of your journey, we return to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. You know it well: prisoners chained in darkness, mistaking flickering shadows for truth. Only one escapes. And when he emerges into the sunlight—into truth itself—he is first blinded, then transformed. He returns, desperate to bring the others out. But they resist. They mock. They prefer their illusions to illumination.

Graduates, you are the ones who have emerged. You have ascended the steep, stony path toward the sunlight of understanding. And now, you are called to return—to step back into a shadowed world and hold high the lamp of truth.

The Battle for Civic Education

This year, I sponsored a bill—SB334—that seeks to restore civic education to our universities. Not as a nostalgic gesture, but as a necessary course correction.

Why? Because I spent years in the classroom. I’ve seen what’s been lost: students equipped with slogans, not substance; credentials, but not conviction. They can quote grievance, but not Lincoln. They can deconstruct, but they cannot defend.

One recent critic asked me, “Why fix something when you can reinvent a whole other concept?”

Here’s why: Because what’s broken is not just policy—it’s purpose. And sometimes, reinvention is the most responsible form of repair.

SB334 doesn’t dictate doctrine. It doesn’t ban ideas. It revives balance, it renews foundations, and it reminds us all that our republic cannot endure if it forgets its roots.

And yet, for daring to suggest that students should engage with The Constitution, The Federalist Papers, and the great thinkers of our tradition—from Augustine to Du Bois—I was accused of censorship, of cowardice, of control.

Some said the words in my op-ed were too polished to be real—must have been written by AI. Others insisted I feared Karl Marx, though I’ve spent more time teaching his work than most who defend him. For the record: I’m not afraid of Marx. I just know better than to treat him as scripture.

The Meaning Behind the Words: A Cultural Diagnosis

When I wrote that Americans are sick of the “neo-Marxist, nihilistic narcissism of the hard left,” it wasn’t a rhetorical flourish. It was a cultural diagnosis—a warning drawn not from ideology, but from experience.

Neo-Marxism has infiltrated too many corners of the academy—not as one voice among many, but as a dominating lens through which all of history, literature, and society must be interpreted. It teaches that everything is about power—race, gender, class—forever locked in a binary of oppressor and oppressed.

Nihilism soon follows, replacing wonder with suspicion, and turning the quest for truth into a campaign of endless deconstruction. If nothing is true, then everything is permissible—and everything is politicized.

And narcissism completes the triangle, elevating personal identity above shared reality, feelings above facts, grievance above gratitude. It replaces moral formation with moral performance—and turns education into a pageant of self-righteousness.

This is not education. This is theater, not thought.

     “The Communists openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”

—Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

     “The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness.”

—The German Ideology

This is the root system behind the weeds we now see growing.

The Virtue Tradition: Liberty Rooted in Reason

In contrast to the ideological chaos of grievance and guilt, the tradition you inherit today is grounded not in rebellion, but in reason—not in fragmentation, but in formation. It teaches self-rule, not mob rule. It teaches that happiness is found not in the hedonism of the moment, but in a life anchored to virtue, ordered liberty, and moral purpose.

     “Pleasure,” said Epicurus, “is rather sober reasoning… banishing those beliefs that lead to the tumult of the soul.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy reminded us that to the Founders:

     “Happiness meant that feeling of self-worth and dignity you acquire by contributing to your community and to its civic life.”

And then there is Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw far ahead—into our very moment:

     “Tyranny in democratic republics does not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul… You will remain among men, but you will forfeit your rights to humanity… Go in peace, I will not take your life, but the life I leave you with is worse than death.”

That, graduates, is the tyranny that awaits when liberty is divorced from moral clarity. When freedom is severed from formation. When truth is replaced by technocracy and virtue by virtual applause.

Before we go further, let me ask you directly: What will you carry forward from this place? Which truths will you champion when comfort tempts you toward silence? Because this is your moment—not to retreat, but to rise.

SB334, like your education here at Mount Liberty, is not about silencing opposition—it’s about ending the silence surrounding greatness. It’s about recovering the texts and traditions that shaped the world you now inherit—so that you can preserve them, question them, and if needed, improve them.

An Evening in Oxford: A Conversation with Buckley

Years ago, as a young academic, I found myself seated in an antebellum inn in Oxford, Mississippi. The fire cracked quietly in the hearth. Across from me sat William F. Buckley Jr.—founder of National Review, author of God and Man at Yale, and one of the great minds of our time.

We spoke at length about the decay of higher education. Buckley lamented that Yale had abandoned its soul. “They’ve kept the Latin,” he said with a wry smile, “but they’ve lost the light.” He was, of course, speaking of Yale’s motto: Lux et Veritas—Light and Truth.

I would add this: Yale’s seal doesn’t only include Latin. It also bears Hebrew script—Urim and Thummim—symbols drawn from biblical tradition, meaning “lights and perfections.” For Latter-day Saint students, those words carry sacred historical resonance. Some of you here will understand why. I won’t explain further—but the symbolism is profound.

When a university abandons Lux et Veritas, it doesn’t just lose tradition. It forfeits transcendence.

Buckley told me that universities were drifting not only from faith, but from intellectual seriousness, from moral purpose, from the courage to say some things are true and others are not. That night shaped me. It reminded me that ideas are not abstractions—they are anchors.

And now I say to you what Buckley said to me: We must bring back the light. We must not be ashamed to say that truth is not relative, that virtue is not obsolete, and that liberty requires more than license—it requires character.

A New Renaissance: Your Role in the Revival

Not long ago, I sat down with sculptor Sabin Howard—whose work on the National World War I Memorial has been called nothing short of a modern marvel. His bronzes don’t just commemorate; they communicate. They teach. They remind us that art, at its best, does not flatter our vanities but elevates our virtues.

Sabin and I spoke at length about something bigger than a statue—something deeper than nostalgia. We spoke about the need for a renaissance—not just of art, but of ideas. A revival of beauty, meaning, and moral imagination. A return to excellence.

He told me about his next great vision: The Grand Liberty Arch, a monumental sculpture installation coming to Salt Lake City—a tribute to freedom, courage, sacrifice, and the enduring American spirit. Not just metal and stone, but a declaration in form: Liberty still lives here.

Graduates, because of your education, you are uniquely equipped to be pioneers of this renaissance. You’ve studied the great texts. You’ve learned the architecture of liberty, the logic of justice, the anatomy of virtue. You are the heirs not only to a tradition—but to a task.

Let this be your charge: bring forth the new renaissance. In your writing, your service, your building, your teaching—make beauty again. Make meaning again. Make truth visible again. And where the world has grown cynical, build monuments—not just of stone, but of soul.

The Final Charge: Back to the Cave

Graduates, you are not stepping into ease. You are stepping into duty. You’ve left the cave. You’ve seen the light. And you’ve learned that it is beautiful—and it is blinding.

But now, like Plato’s liberated prisoner, you must go back. You must face a world that may scoff at truth, that may mock virtue, that may mistake liberty for selfishness.

Go anyway.

Because those still bound in the cave may one day look toward your voice, and by the grace of God and the strength of your example, they may turn—if only for a moment—toward the light.

     “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between political parties—but right through every human heart.”

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Congratulations, Class of 2025.

Now go—and lead the light.