The Monday Essay

Specialists, Generalists and Both

Integrated knowledge is badly needed

Most specialists are -- nowadays -- highly demanded and well paid for by the market. In the last 40 years increasingly they are highly regarded and demanded. But we have lost touch with trends, whole systems and this is also badly needed. It is unwise to discuss the “this or that” is false paradox. Weather the hen or the egg was first.

We need both. It is a language or logic trap and an endless discussion. Let’s forget it and not waste any time. Why? Wee need good specialist to measure, quantify and advice us on specific issues: how to repair a Volvo engine of 1987. We also need good generalists to present the big picture, trends that act slowly, over years and decades or centuries and are very difficult to see.

The current world species collapse and global warming,  have been going on for decades if not centuries, that are not the making of some “evil” one country, industry or organization. A collective responsibility –and leadership --for the “mess” or challenges ahead are hard to swallow.

Why should the next generation care or burden itself with two world wars, a spoiled planet and diminishing resources and a big would scale financial collapse? Well because otherwise they will—we—will perish. It is as simple and stark as that. So we need specialists and generalist, or integral thinking. We cannot afford anymore not to see the whole and its parts or specifics.  

We cannot afford to miss the details either. Most challenges—or problems—have both. It is the same thing with competition and cooperation. We need an era of integrating extremes, dichotomies or however you might call them.

If humans can learn anything from millions o years of life evolution on earth is says beyond dispute that overspecialization id certain death in the long run. But also no specialization leads to extinction. The 1950 cars that ran one gallon a mile are no longer with us.

At that time –before the  1973 Arab oil embargo ; today it is some US$ 100 a barrel and as coal, oil ---as energy source--is on the way out. If the barrel of oil ever reaches US$ 200 all world economy would collapse: overspecialization. Governments, companies, corporations know this. We need to avoid extremes. All life is so fragile-

There were great mathematicians who were also great generalists like I. Newton, A Einstein and recently the great cosmologist and physicists , Steven Hawking He is  in spite of being a great college professor, is also a great writer for the general public. His editorial successes are published in many books. He attempts to deal with difficult subject almost with no math.

In ancient times the great Pythagoras stated his famous geometry theorem in which he generalized for all rectangles his now classic formula: a2+b2 = c2. Pythagoras was also the founder of a secret mystic school in the Mediterranean, for a long time.

Religions were the belief of many and main orientation for daily life for all mankind for centuries. They have all a general view of things, we could now call “holistic”. A somewhat modified version of religions-- for this way of thinking (synthesis) --were: Marxism in the 1800s and Psychoanalysis in the 1900s. Marxism seemed to have a “fallacy and fanatic answer” to most societal ills; while psychoanalysis seemed to “answer” most social ills as personal defects or shortcomings.

On the generalist and specialist view sometimes come together and blend- Recently studies of different diets at American universities have indicated that the “Mediterranean” diet seems to be very healthy

 Because of its balanced components, the Mediterranean diet, has among them a “star ingredient”: olive oil. Some 1500 years ago, the founder of the Benedictine monks, stated many rules of behavior for the cloistered monks. On of them was to eat 9 olives a day, he is credited as saying. “Nine olives a day can cure almost any catastrophe”.

Machines –and computers--are mostly of the digital type: on off, yes or no. All life including human life is not, its analog. One can be converted into another. So in the last decades “fuzzy logic” was invented and is now being used in washing machines to account for “so-so” state in laundry. A Yoga teacher said: the human brain is a whishing machine. He is right, humans dream and remember almost anything, and these are part of our problems-

Humanity has now millions of specialist. We need balance; a good deal more of good generalists.