Sarah mentioned Heinlein flame wars in her recent post. So I’m cross posting this piece (with some additions) to see if I can get one going.
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Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking.
R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1963
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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
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Buckminster Fuller Stuff
Robert Heinlein Books
Sarah Hoyt Books
Cross Posted (more or less) at Power and Control
Specialization
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15 responses to “Specialization”
that last quote by Heinlein
was drilled into my kids.. I read it as a teen and never forgot it.
Heinlein flame wars? Here? The closest you’ll get is an argument over just how much he believed in the Social Credit system when he wrote “To Us The Living”.
Captain,
You THINK. I have experience in this. If I post anywhere that Heinlein did NOT in fact eat babies, I immediately start getting attacks over how I hate women because I don’t think Heinlein ate babies… it’s uncanny. I think I’m one of the world’s curiosities: bearded ladies, talking horses, and the woman who loves Heinlein. Eh.
And for the record, I don’t hate women. I do, rather, hate group-think, though.
At the same time, “specialization” is required for many things.
Really cutting-edge science, for instance, requires so much background knowledge that you have to specialize to get there, at least given the human brains and lifespans we possess now.
It’s easy (and, as Heinlein noted, good) to be barely-to-reasonably competent in a wide range of tasks and areas.
But exceptional results and skill are the result of specialization, necessarily and unavoidably. We can’t all be polymaths (indeed, even polymaths aren’t universal ones).
I’m sure Heinlein knew that, too, and was really referring to “overspecialization” or something like it – but his quote is easy to misunderstand, if one doesn’t examine it closely.
Sigivald — I’m sure he was talking about people who “know only one trade.” I am mostly specialized in writing, but I strive for competence on the rest.
I always thought of it as “know how to do the basic stuff first” … now i have to go find “no knowledge is ever wasted” source, drat
Sigivald,
I can get up to productive in a “specialty” in two weeks. My career as a contractor was based on that.
Oh. Yeah. I did it without benefit of a degree.
It is not hard. You just have to focus.
Kind of depends on the specialty. I could do the same in many areas, but… not concert pianist – sorry – I’ve not even got an octave stretch – at best.
Glassblower? Nope. Oh, I know some basics – and could learn a few more, but productive? Only if you want glass beads.
You can just forget brain surgeon right off the bat. Though I could probably handle rocket scientist in a few months.
Most of Heinlein’s list I can handle. (Setting a bone, not likely unless I had drugs – I don’t have the physical strength.)
P.S.
Heinlein did NOT eat babies. And he’s one of my favorite authors. I think you’ve just found at least a couple of other female fans (Shannon is usually a female name).
P.P.S – at Simon.
The one, and only, way to head off a flamewar is to announce you are trying to start one…
Trying to start a flamewar? Isn’t that exactly what Hitler did?
There, that ought to strangle it stillborn.
Anyway, I decided long ago that most science fiction fans who profess a hatred for Heinlein are mere sheep, trying to establish themselves as Bold! Original! Thinkers! by putting down what nearly everyone else agrees are works of genius. W.S. Gilbert had them pegged over a century and a quarter ago:
“If that’s not good enough for him, which is good enough for me,
Why what a very cultivated kind of youth this kind of youth must be!”
Kathy,
Yeah, this blog is a great comfort to me sometimes 😉
Unfortunately my starting flame wars will have to wait, as I’m still trying to finish the current book, which is harder to put an end to than Rasputin!
Excuse me Kathy, but didn’t you just say “Heinlein did NOT eat babies”?
Can you prove that?
The reason I’m asking is that these days, if you can’t prove that something didn’t happen, the rule is that it did!
I love Heinlein. I’m a woman.
I’m also middle-aged. Does anyone know young female Heinlein fans?
Marja,
I doubt it. They get told VERY early that he’s anti-woman. Sigh. Eh. Maybe I can get them on the margins. I don’t think so, but people say my sf echoes him. And, heck, he raised me (through his books. I never knew him, though I did correspond with and “meet” Ginny on line) so at least the values should. And I seem to be selling well not just to sf fans but to young women who read romance (Grin)