When The Moon Sings - May 24, 2025

What does Admiral McRaven have in common with Tim Cook, Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Lee Iacocca, and Matt Damon?  I could go on – the rest of the list consists of national movers and shakers since the 1980’s.  Presidents, Chairs of the Federal Reserve, the CEO’s of major corporations. government administrators, actors who persistently release hit movies, Governors, Senators - each of them gave a commencement address at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Admiral McRaven’s address to the graduates of the University of Texas went viral, with 20 million hits on that media platform; his MIT address fell below that, but his presence there signified his importance.

I looked up that list because I watched a recording of one of those addresses this week.  The 1999 speakers (there were two) were Thomas F. Magliozzi and Raymond L. Magliozzi.  Even if you were around in the ‘90s, those names might not resonate.  If I shortened that to Tom and Ray, you might get a glimmer.  If I called them by their radio names, Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers, you might make the connection.  They ran a radio show called Car Talk.

In 1977, WBUR in Boston started the show as a local broadcast.  People trying to fix their cars would call in for advice or help with diagnosing the problem.  The Magliozzis offered that advice, peppered with humor and thoughts that had nothing to do with auto mechanics.  The show struck a nerve, and in 1986, NPR decided to distribute it nationally.  The show lasted until 2012, garnering awards and recognition along the way, including coverage on a segment of Sixty Minutes.

The Magliozzis presented themselves as typical Boston grease monkeys, with a humorous cynicism about the auto industry, auto mechanics, the value of their advice, and each other.  They did run a garage, but they were scarcely typical.  Both brothers had graduated from MIT, and Tom had gone on to get a doctorate in business.  Their advice on non-auto problems became scripts for a TV sitcom, and their presentation was always in character, because what listeners heard was exactly who they were, told in broad Boston accents.

Before I ever thought of broadcasting, I loved radio, and Car Talk was an ornament of the 90’s and 2000’s.  The station I listened to had them on late Saturday morning, usually while I ran weekend errands.  I cannot count the parking lots I dawdled in while Tom and Ray gave their opinion on some matter, automotive or otherwise.

They expanded their empire to include newspaper columns, personal appearances, and even a book, under their corporate umbrella name of Dewey, Cheetham, and Howe.  Everything they did was a combination of humor (sometimes low), experience, and sass.  As it turned out, they could usually solve actual car problems that listeners described to them.

They were not typical MIT graduates and their address wasn’t typical either.  Stripped of the jokes and snarks at each other, their profession, MIT, and the people around them, it was a daring intellectual journey.

People whose left brain dominates are logical, analytical, and detail-oriented.  The brothers suspected the graduates of being mostly that sort of person.  Right-brainers, on the other hand, are creative, intuitive, and big-picture thinkers.  However, according to the brothers, right-brainers are also happier, by a factor of ten.  So in order to be truly happy, one must abandon logic, analysis, and detail.  They urged the graduates to become, and it’s their Latin, not mine, non impediti ratione cogitatonis, or unencumbered by the thought process.

They did not limit their research to humans however.  They found that above right-brained humans, the happier beings were golden retrievers, and beyond that, cows, worms, and finally grass.  From that, they developed the Magliozzi Theorem of Reverse Evolution, stating that deserving humans who die become golden retrievers, retrievers become cows, and so forth.  While some of these ideas border on Hindu beliefs, the Magliozzi Theorem stands on its own.

1999 ended some twenty-six years ago, and the world has obviously changed in the interval.  Tom Magliozzi is no longer with us, and the program ended in 2012.  If you are interested in their other thoughts, NPR has a channel on Sirius that broadcasts recordings of their shows (in chronological order) and individual episodes also appear on the computer-based video thingy.  More and more commencement speakers come from the entertainment field rather than other pursuits – for example, Kermit The Frog gave this year’s address at the University of Maryland.

But commencement addresses, whatever the source, usually address persistent human themes, rather than temporary fancies and interests.  Time tells us how well they do that.  Graduates may count on entertainers to entertain, but entertainers like the Magliozzis slip truths in amongst the merriment.  Time seems to have validated the Magliozzis’ happiness theory, though reverse evolution still awaits testing.

Some segments of society seem to have adopted non impediti ratione cogitatonis as a battle-cry.  Some have always used that, but the present has seen an increase, and the idea has filtered into key portions of industry, economics, and governance, especially governance.  Appeals to the visceral and emotional, which have always been the hallmark of entertainment, have become standard in places where logic and analysis might better serve society.

If actions unencumbered by the thought process drive national policy in any field, consequences will go beyond the happiness of the policy makers.  Policy makers have always been better capitalized than policy followers, and what appears as an inconvenience may be a catastrophe to a follower.  Unintended consequence follow, whether the source is logic and analysis or emotion and intuition.  While logic has its failures, illogic has a much greater percentage of them.

The Magliozzi brothers, like most clever entertainers, knew their audience.  They spoke to predominantly left-brain thinkers, and they spoke at the personal level.  Like many other matters, things that may nourish an individual at a personal level become toxic when applied to groups and especially group leadership.  Non impediti ratione cogitatonis as a leadership trait, seemly popular now, can lead only to regret.