This article presents an excerpt from a speech delivered by Dana Gioia, poet, critic, and chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, at the Stanford University commencement on June 17, 2007. In this speech, Gioia communicates his concerns about the diminished role of the arts in contemporary North American culture and the failure of school systems to recognize their importance in creating "complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society." He laments that it seems that almost everything in the national culture, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, or altogether eliminated. The loss of recognition for artists, thinkers, and scientists has impoverished the American culture in innumerable ways. According to Gioia, there are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child's imagination, and that imagination has been relinquished to the marketplace. The author contends that American culture has mostly become one vast infomercial, and that this has had enormous cultural, social, and political consequences.