Bono quoted the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly, explaining that betraying the age means exposing its conceits, its phony moral certitudes, and facing harsher truths. Every age has its massive moral blind spots, he said — slavery was one, segregation another, and the people who best served those ages were the ones who called them out. He challenged the graduates to ask what their generation's blind spot was, suggesting it was the deep-down refusal to believe that every human life has equal worth.