I started reading The Sea Wolf by Jack London and was struck on just the second page by a quote on specialization. Even over one hundred years ago he was remarking upon how specialization allows us the time to pursue our own specializations instead of having to constantly focus on obtaining the bare necessities for survival. Of course once you stop to think about it, there have been different specializations for millenia, but the explosive growth of technology in the past century has resulted in many sub-specializations or increasing numbers of specializations within what were previously considered specializations in their own right.
I remember thinking how comfortable it was, this division of labor which made it unnecessary for me to study fogs, winds, tides, and navigation in order to visit my friend who lived across an arm of the sea. It was good that men should be specialists, I mused. The peculiar knowledge of the pilot and captain sufficed for many thousands of people who knew no more of the sea and navigation than I knew. On the other hand, instead of having to devote my energy to the learning of a multitude of things, I concentrated it upon a few particular things, such as, for instance, the analysis of Poe’s place in American literature–an essay of mine, by the way, in the current Atlantic. Coming aboard, as I passed through the cabin, I had noticed with greedy eyes a stout gentleman reading the Atlantic, which was open at my very essay. And there it was again, the division of labor, the special knowledge of the pilot and the captain which permitted the stout gentleman to read my special knowledge on Poe while they carried him safely from Sausalito to San Francisco.
By having a specialization we free others to pursue their own specialization and advance the rate of human progress, by reducing the amount of general knowledge each of us must acquire in order to succeed within our given niche. Now it’s important to define what is meant by general knowledge, it consists of both what is generally taught in school, such as history, as well as the knowledge we acquire outside of school through society and the media. Once we have attained this basis we tend to then focus solely upon digging further into our niche and stop, or at least greatly slow building of this general store of knowledge. Which reminded of a quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig regarding the problem that specialization poses, especially for one seeking to switch or explore other specializations.
It’s a problem of our time. The range of human knowledge today is so great that we’re all specialists and the distance between specializations has become so great that anyone who seeks to wander freely among them almost has to forego closeness with the people around him.
Once one has selected their specialization and built up a store of knowledge about it, it becomes quite difficult to change specializations without expending a great amount of effort to learn everything that is required to be considered a specialist within the new specialization. If choosing to make this type of change though, this is where a broad general base of knowledge shows its true value, providing a strong root from which to branch off into the new specialization, or just to start exploring another area of interest. I was also reminded of what Pirsig had to say on the reason for growing one’s root of knowledge.
I’ve heard it said that the only real learning results from hang-ups, where instead of expanding the branches of what you already know, you have to stop and drift laterally for a while until you come across something that allows you to expand the roots of what you already know.
Once you have attained enough knowledge to be considered a specialist there is relatively little left to learn within that particular branch. Once we know enough to be proficient at our particular task we tend to stop learning for the most part, as there is nothing left to need to know to perform the task sufficiently. Thus to truly learn something new, we must look outside the branch of our specialization. It is this study outside of our particular discipline that can have the most profound effects on our everyday existence, as we come across new ways of thinking about or doing something we thought we already knew.
One benefit of having a broad base of knowledge is that it allows us to more easily communicate with and relate to others, the more you know, the more you can draw upon to find common ground with someone else, especially when meeting new people.
In this age of smaller and smaller specializations it remains important to have a strong general base to draw upon. In school I was surprised when I was able to draw connections between something I’d learned previously in one subject and was now learning about in a different subject. Most subjects do not exist in isolation, so the more you know, the more you can see these connections. For example, if studying literature, or even just in general reading for pleasure, you’re likely to come across references to history, philosophy and classic works of literature and without a broad base of general knowledge it is likely that these references will be missed or not understood. The more you know, the easier it becomes to learn, as you don’t have to spend as much time looking up references or things you don’t understand.
While both society and an individual stand to gain from the pursuit of a specialization, society by having someone with a particular set of knowledge or skills to fill what might have otherwise been a void and the individual being able to earn a higher income or achieve a higher status through the use of their particular skill set; it is more so the individual that stands to gain by expanding their general knowledge, rather than society, as there will always be a surplus of people with a general skill set and a need for people with specialized skills.