Education depends fundamentally on our ability to generate optimism and find reasonable (defensible) ways to sustain it. When our faith in the future is shaken, whether it be by technologies we don’t understand, economic competition that undermines job security, or cultural forms that challenge our sense of identity, we often criticize education as having failed to prepare us for our current predicaments.

– from chapter one, “Taking in the world, Transforming the Self” in Beyond the University: Why Liberal Education Matters by Michael S. Roth