A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
- Robert A. Heinlein
An interesting article came across my twitterstream this morning. The Last Days of the Polymath chronicles what its author Edward Carr believes is a shift away from a culture which encouraged the development of polymathy to one that actively discourages it.
This is a subject near and dear to my heart. I consider myself an aspiring polymath. In addition to Heinlein’s list above (80% of which I’ve got covered – having been since age 8 assiduously working on getting it covered), I’d also like to be able to compose a symphony, play 3 or 4 instruments, speak 5 or 6 languages, publish 2 novels, tag lions for conservation in sub-saharan Africa, explore Antarctica, climb the 7 Summits, start up 2 or 3 more companies, and other things. Well… I have 60 or so years yet.
Carr’s Thesis
It is not only the explosion of knowledge that puts polymaths at a disadvantage, but also the vast increase in the number of specialists and experts in every field. This is because the learning that creates would-be polymaths creates monomaths too and in overwhelming numbers. If you have a multitude who give their lives to a specialism, their combined knowledge will drown out even a gifted generalist. And while the polymath tries to take possession of a second expertise in some distant discipline, his or her first expertise is being colonised by someone else.
- Edward Carr
The main thrust of Carr’s argument is that the number and quality of polymaths has declined precipitously since the heydays of the Renaissance and Enlightenment due to cultural influences. Britain and the US, he says, do not encourage public intellectuals, and the school systems of these and indeed most countries are designed to turn out “monomaths” – people who hyper-specialize in one subject or another.
Monomathy and the Internet
Carr’s argument can be extended – though he himself did not extend it – to the internet.
Think of just about any website you’ve ever visited. Is it a specialist site? Even those – Google, for instance – which you might initially think of as not specializing in anything, or of specializing in everything, really only specialize in one thing. Google.com? Search. Ittybiz? Marketing. Technorati? A portal – designed to funnel you into specialist blogs according to your interests.
Try to think of a truly polymathic site – one which covers in moderate depth and with moderate erudition a number of subjects.
Ok, maybe Chris Guillebeau‘s site. But even he admits he went against mainstream advice in focusing on his three topics – and even amongst those three there’s a strong unifying thread.
Prevailing Advice
The prevailing advice – that mainstream advice that Chris ignored – is to specialize. I can see the arguments both for and against.
For:
- Reader expectations are set from the get-go. A potential reader almost instantly knows if they’re one of your Right People, and stays or goes based on that.
- Marketing is easier – since a group of people coming to a site dedicated to that One Thing presumably will buy iterations of that One Thing when it’s offered for sale.
- If you hit on the One Thing that you and your readers agree on, there’s less chance of losing them based on all the stuff you don’t agree on.
- Number 3 pretty much just condenses 1 and 2, doesn’t it. Yeah, it does.
Against:
- The strong potential – if the blogger isn’t good enough – for content that becomes a rehash of a rehash after a certain point (newer readers won’t mind – older ones might).
- Humans are naturally polymathic. Most of us have more than just one interest. (So it’s harder for the blogger to keep focus, long-time readers may move on if they lose interest in the topic, etc.)
You can probably think of better arguments both for and against monomathic blogs/websites than I can. (If you can, do leave a comment – I’d love to know where I’ve gotten it wrong.)
The point is this: websites are, by their very nature, exercises in monomathy. The internet is a beehive. Everybody specializes.
Why do we actively discourage polymathy?
Depth is for monomaths—which is why experts so often seem to miss what really matters.
- Edward Carr
Everyone looks up to “experts.” Which is fine. Which is useful if – for example – the expert you’re looking up to is a medical doctor. Because he’s probably going to be able to cure you better than some random guy on the street.
The good thing about the internet is that almost anyone can become an “expert” in almost anything. That’s also the bad thing about the internet.
Why?
Because in a sea of experts, it becomes really hard to say “I don’t know.” It becomes really hard to say “Look, this is just one of my many interests. Eventually I’m going to get all I want from it, and move on.”
A question.
If you do the majority of your work online, can you see yourself continuing in this forever? If you have a current project – even if it’s really successful right now – can you see it winding down at any point? And if so, what will you do after it does?
Because that’s my main fear.
I see people locked into being “the marketing guy” or “the productivity blogger” or “the copywriter” or “the [x].”
Do you share that concern – the concern that you will (or that you’ll need to) box yourself in like that in order to gain “expert status” or even turn a profit?
I wonder how many natural polymaths out there are just a little worried. If you’re one (or especially if you’re a natural monomath and want to tell me that I’ve got a stick shoved up my ass about this), I’d love to know.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
One of the big things that stopped me from picking a business idea and starting it was the “Oh, but I’m not an expert! I know a bit about a lot of stuff, but that’s easy!”
Eventually I realised that this could be a strength. Sure, I don’t know everything about IIS, but I know enough to use it and explain it. And I know about business analysis and effective communication and a whooooooooole lot of other stuff, and I bet the guy who knows everything about IIS doesn’t.
There’s a science degree I heard about when I was in high school that sounds perfect: science communicator. They know enough about physics and biology and geology etc etc that when a biologist and a physicist need to work together, there exists someone to broach the huge jargon and knowledge gaps between the fields and get them to understand each other. That’s what polymaths do best.
My plan for my web coaching business is so be the equivalent of that, for as long as I want to do it.
As someone else who sucks at specializing (as my business name might indicate) I think there’s a lot of truth in this. Our culture right now really pushes people towards specialization… it makes for good little worker bees in factories and corporations, and makes it easier to stick in someone’s memory if you are going it alone. On the other hand, there’s a huge need for people who can cross disciplines, and they are likely even more valuable for their scarcity.
And I also think there are more successful polymaths out there than tend to be acknowledged. Some have found a way of ‘specializing’ by picking two or three things and focusing in on the overlap between those fields, which is still specialization but also requires them to stay involved in the overarching topics or fields, thus supporting their polymathy. Others just look for a thread, however tenuous, between the things they love and manage to pull together a lot of fairly disparate things that way. I’d point to Makezine as a great example of the latter… although everything it covers falls under the grand umbrella of “making stuff”, they draw from all sorts of disciplines – knitting, carpentry, gardening, computer programming, cooking, robotics, brewing, welding, and so on. I don’t know about you, but Id certainly consider anyone who could do all of that to be a polymath.
Oh, and If I had heard of the concept of science communicator as a job back when I was in school, I might very well have followed a different career path. That sounds really cool.
Shannon Henry´s last blog ..On Artists and Money
I have nothing to offer here but consensus. (And why in hell can I never spell that word? It’s like “awkward”. I always get it wrong.)
Anyway, yes. This is a VERY real concern for me. Here, I’ll give you the entire contents of my blog, right in your comments:
On marketing: Before you try to sell anything, think for a few minutes about what might actually make people want to buy it.
On business: Work your damn ass off, and try to make good personal connections.
I mean, how many times can you say that without slithering off to the desert and quietly blowing your brains out from the boredom?
Interestingly, I’m not worried about changing directions. I’m worried about changing directions and knowing damn well the new direction’s going to bore me senseless soon enough anyway. Feels weird.
Naomi Dunford´s last blog ..(Sorta) Live From Las Vegas, Part Three: Bicurious Edition
Nice article. Reminds me of this article on hedgehog vs. fox thinkers in financial forcasting:
Here’s a quotation:
To get famous/rich/etc., be a monomath. But you’ll probably be wrong about a lot of things because of lack of context.
To find out what’s really going on, search out the polymaths. But they will likely be harder to find and less entertaining.
Duff´s last blog ..The Dark Side of The Secret: Reading James Arthur Ray’s Sweat Lodge Disaster through a Magickal Lens
@ Catherine – Science communicator! Awesome. Kinda like what Richard Dawkins does, I guess. Very interesting.
@ Shannon – LOVE your business name.
@ Naomi – Short summary of everything you’ve ever said… but there’s a lot of meat in that. A lot to think about. Cheers.