I agree with everything Eli Amdur wrote in the above
quote except for the verb in the first sentence; I would replace “are” with
“should be.”
The reality is that the business world these days
stresses tech skills—many of which can be learned on the job—but doesn’t
particularly care about the critical skills he mentions, which are only
mastered after years of education.
All of this is part of the relative devaluation of the
liberal arts that has taken place over the last several decades. The American educational
system has responded to cues from the business world by de-emphasizing the
liberal arts, to such a point that headlines now talk about the “crisis” in the
liberal arts or even their “gutting.”
No matter what the causes of this change in
educational priorities, they are inevitably rotting away our commercial and
civic life. Wim Wiewel, former president of Lewis and Clark College, summed up
the stakes four years ago in this New Republic article:
“The liberal arts also enable us to navigate other
core challenges arising from our embattled civic order—such as climate change,
inequality, mass incarceration, and immigration—while exploring broader, more
inclusive conceptions of the common good.”
The “crisis” referenced by Wiewel back then was the
COVID-19 pandemic. These days, it is what he called more generally “our
embattled social order.”
Without the skills Amdur identified, the business world will be unable to find workers to meet unforeseen challenges; our civic institutions will crumble amid rampant, unquestioned; and even our personal lives will suffer as we fall prey to those offering easy answers to our pressing daily questions.
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