Inside Higher Ed
A conversation with an old friend last week got me thinking about the phrases I fall back on when in doubt. We all have them, from sources high and low. I’ll share a few of my favorites, in hopes of inspiring my wise and worldly readers to chime in with some of theirs.
“It’s hard to just sit there and watch other people suck.”
The Boy coined this one when he was about 12, having been benched for most of a Little League game that his team lost badly. It struck me as a fundamental truth. Think your college administration sucks? Step up and try it yourself. Think your political leaders suck? Run for something, or volunteer for a campaign. Think the larger discourse around higher ed sucks? Grab a keyboard or a microphone and jump in. You might or might not succeed, but honest failure doesn’t gnaw at the soul like riding the bench does.
“Just because someone is angry doesn’t mean they’re right.”
Origin unknown, but again, it’s the truth. Often, in fact, the ones who think they might be wrong are the angriest of all when questioned or confronted precisely because they’re working so hard to hold the story together.
This is one of those truths that’s easy to say and tough to live, but it matters. One of the most emotionally satisfying moments of my career came years ago at a previous institution: A half dozen or so people were at a meeting that I was chairing. At one point, a senior member of the group declared that he was gravely offended by what a colleague had said, stood up and said he’d walk out. After a brief silence, I shrugged and resumed the discussion. A few seconds later, he sat down. Successfully calling a bluff is a great feeling.
“Don’t just do something; stand there.”
Origin unknown. In the frantic whack-a-mole of solving a cascading series of problems, it’s sometimes more useful to stop, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. If people keep shortcutting a process, maybe the process itself is the problem. Leaders set a tone whether they mean to or not; if they’re frantic and nervous, that becomes the background noise of the culture. Sometimes the right play is to call a timeout.
“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever forged.”
Originally Immanuel Kant, though I came to it via Isaiah Berlin. It’s a helpful reminder.
“Nothing is too good for the proletariat.”
Stephen Bronner, a former professor at Rutgers. I’d substitute another term for “proletariat,” but the point still stands. It’s why I’m glad that community colleges teach art and philosophy as well as more vocational subjects. Talent is much more evenly distributed than resources are; reserving the finer things only for those with resources is both unfair and a way of shortchanging the future. You never know where the next breakthrough will come from, so it’s best to cast the net wide.
“The inner life is frequently stupid.”
Annie Dillard. I choose to read this as a useful admonition to get over oneself.
“You’re either on the bus or off the bus.”
Ken Kesey, via Tom Wolfe. Sometimes you just need to commit one way or the other and live with what happens. Even the wrong decision can be less bad than indecision. As a mentor once told me, focus less on making the right decision and more on making the decision right.
Wise and worldly readers, what lines do you fall back on when in doubt? Let me know at deandad (at) gmail (dot) com. I’ll share some good ones.
