Quote of the Day (Sheryl Lee Ralph, on Busting Rocks to ‘Create My Road’)

“I had to bust rocks to create my road. And now that road is there for my kids and other people's kids to travel. They might look at those broken rocks by the side of the road and say, ‘Wait a minute. If we melt that rock, we’ll have four more lanes.’” —Emmy-winning actress-singer Sheryl Lee Ralph quoted by Harriette Cole, “Nothing But Class,” AARP: The Magazine, August/September 2023

The image accompanying this post, showing Sheryl Lee Ralph at the pre-Oscar party held by Black Enterprise, was taken Feb. 23, 2008, by eternalconceptspr.

Quote of the Day (Eli Amdur, on the ‘Most Important Career and Life Skills’)

“Your three most important career and life skills are critical reading, critical listening and critical thinking. When everything else is stripped away, that’s all you’ve got.”—Career coach and journalist Eli Amdur, “Parting Advice As Financial Columnist Takes a Bow,” The Record (Bergen County, NJ), July 7, 2024

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. 

Quote of the Day (Oprah Winfrey, on Knowing ‘All the Right Moves’)

“You don’t have to know all the right moves, you just need to know the next one.”— American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor Oprah Winfrey quoted in “Oprah Winfrey Laments ‘Death of Civility,’ Lauds ‘Two Justins’ in Woke TSU Commencement Speech,” The Tennessee Star, May 8, 2023

The image accompanying this post, showing Oprah Winfrey at a pre-inaugural reception gathering hosted by Governor Elect Wes Moore at the Government House and the State House, was taken Jan. 18, 2023, by Maryland GovPics.