There is a Heinlein quote that often crops up in commentary by people around here. It comes from Time Enough For Love:
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.
Something about it always bothered me, though for the longest time I was unable to pin it down. On the face of it, there is nothing there but a statement of a philosophical ideal. One that was given the corollary of “Self-reliance is Liberty” during a debate.
Much like the philosophical ideal of a hermit in his cave giving up physical comforts for spiritual comforts, it is one few actually attain. So why did it bother me? I finally figured it out. The issue is the last part “Specialization is for insects.” The quote itself takes the general philosophy of being well-rounded and self-reliant to the reductio ad absurdum limit and derides specialization. That was the irritant, the bombast and derision the quote taken alone carries. I think I might finally be able to articulate the key problem.
A Saxon churl was a self-reliant generalist. If there was anything that needed to be done around his farm, he was the one to do it, he had no choice. So he could do pretty much any task needed well enough to survive, albeit in a precarious state of slightly above subsistence farming. In every task, he was limited to the capability of his own two hands, and in most tasks rarely went beyond ‘good enough’ because there was other work that needed doing and he didn’t have time to waste. The one thing he had to outsource because he could not reach ‘good enough’ without devoting far too much time to the matter was blacksmithing. The skills and tools required to reach just ‘good enough’ were quite an investment in time and capital and it was not the rational choice for most churls to invest in. Especially since one smith could supply a goodly number of farms with the ironmongery they needed. Thus you had specialists. It is just one example of a pattern that repeats every societal development starting from the birth of agriculture.
There is a very simple reason specialists emerge and proliferate. The market in of itself incentivizes specialization. A specialist will always be more efficient on a marginal basis than a generalist in performing the same task. So the specialist will produce for the same effort a higher quality output, and often in less time. Thus specialization proliferates, and people drift away from churldom towards their own niche in a larger society.
This does not invalidate the ideal of being capable of handling tasks normally handed off to specialists, but it does strain the “Specialization is for insects” assertion. I know the principles and procedures on how to process an animal carcass, but I’m terribly slow, so the rational choice is to let the slaughterhouse handle that most of the time. I have enough basic woodworking skill to frame and erect a simple building, but it would never be as plumb and square as one put up by a professional carpenter. I know enough to be able to build computers from parts and design my household network. This I do because it is a very basic task within my specialization.
Now I can see a counter-argument that the quote is more about being a well-rounded person and insect specialists are incapable of even knowing the principles of other specializations. But it does not sound that way to me. Also, I can see how it might sound as if I am looking down upon those who strive for self-reliance as a principle. This is not the case. If you are able to live by your principles on such matters, I respect that. But, much like the townsfolk walking past the hermit’s cave, I could not live that way. I am a specialist because rational choices led me down that path.
Comments
106 responses to “Philosophical Ideal Versus Market Forces”
Well, that’s pretty clearly what Heinlein means, to me. By specifically pointing out insects, and specifically by saying “should be able to” at the beginning of the passage, he is talking about specialization in a general sense, not an economic sense. Obviously individuals will be better at certain things than others, and the economics sense of the word is valid.
Indeed. One should be able to change a tire, but still go to a mechanic, without shame, when it is something worse than that.
It was not clear. Because it just as easily reads as “A human that can’t do all those things is no better than a bug”. So I ended up mulling it for far too long.
“Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best, he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear his shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house.”
Doer of all master of none.
so, a churl?
Such a person is a churl?
You didn’t read the article, did you?
The Churl was a social role in saxon briton and by necessity a jack of all trades but master of none
That was a bit churlish.
*ducks*
Do you get caught in a feedback loop if you *narrow gaze* yourself?
I avoid mirrors.
I read it. Don’t be so…churlish.
Switzy beat you to di.
*it
/narrows gaze.
Specialization is just and advance form of of division of labour and it is absolutely essential to the advancement of humans. That being said i take that quote as a on purpose exaggeration meant to say there should be a lot more to a human than the job he specialists in. Which I believe is true, and I have met many people very good at their job but clueless at a lot of things which make a well rounded person.
The spell checker keep telling me to take out the u in labour. I like that u there.
“Labour” is a party in Britain. “Labor” is work.
Call me old fashioned but I believe English should be spelled with as many unnecessary letter as possible.
Canadian, huh?
We learned last night that the correct enthonym is “Canukistani”
We prefer “Men of the North.” Trudeau’s still trying to get that changed.
Not even close 🙂
All the same.
Where’s the e at then end of old then, huh?
*snort laughs*
That’s a myth
Old E is usually in the cooler of most fine quick stop retail establishments.
+40 oz
+– 32oz. in Florida.PieInTheSKy, you’re one of the good ones. Not like the rest of this colonial rebel scum who think their scratchings are on par with The Queen’s English™. One of these days they’ll advance beyond measuring things with their foot and be close to civilized.
We rejected King George’s English when we rejected the monarchy.
Then we’ll we see you in court for over two hundred years of blatant copyright violation.
+1 Mark Twain’s quote on spelling.
“…people very good at their job but clueless at a lot of things which make a well rounded person.”
Doctors.
Academics.
Engineers.
Programmers.
This reminded me of Castiglione’s ‘The Book of the Courtier’ (i.e. Renaissance Man).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Courtier
Whenever anyone mentions the Duke of Urbino, I always think of Frederico III because he was quite a character. Though he died before that book was written.
Indeed he was.
There is the opposite conclusion: that specializing far too much leaves you myopic.
My philosophical working theory is based around the metaphors people employ for everything they learn. The brain cannot remember everything encountered verbatim, so it shortcuts by changing many things into metaphors or “variations on a theme.” The more metaphors you can comprehend, the better your grasp of anything. Understanding mathematics is, for example, a method of turning ideas into very abstract metaphors. What do gravity and electric force have to do with one another? The answer to that question is deep and unknown, but Newton’s equation for gravitation looks suspiciously close to the Coulomb’s law equation. If you know how the equation works, you can understand things about two very different things. Then it leaves your brain free to think about what is different about things.
We often use a joke about other people’s ideas where we invert expectations. Let’s instead look at a list of what UnCivilServant does like, because it’s the shorter list. But training ourselves to look at things like that helps us to grasp more – the short lists are much easier to remember than the long. Turn a handful of metaphors into a model for how something complicated works, and you can compare that complicated model to how other complicated things work.
Richard Feynman wasn’t just a brilliant physicist. He was a brilliant educator as well. He could lecture on chemistry or mathematics with the same unique way of modeling the world, and his imagery was so vivid that you could picture what he saw in his head too, and that helps you to grasp the idea and remember it much longer. He was multidisciplinary in a way that he probably wouldn’t cut it in any of those fields without specializing in them, but could have chosen to do so in any of them. It happened that he specialized in physics.
I think that’s what Heinlein is touching on here. Branch out, try to develop disparate tools for looking at the world. The greater your metaphorical vocabulary, the more ideas you can express, and the more models you can construct with them. Then you reap a greater capacity for apprehending anything new you encounter.
Anecdote: I spent a few years working in a startup that was owned by a prof at a major university in what was, for me, an entirely new research area. This prof was the prototypical academic specialist: AAAS fellow, hundreds of papers, always an invited speaker at conferences in his academic specialty. And he was a classic Aspy, had great difficulty with human interactions. We fought like cats and dogs the entire time I worked for him, but we were a great team when it came to publishing high impact papers and scoring seven figure research grants. In any case, during one of his blow-ups at me, he hissed what he considered to be the greatest insult he could think of. “Do you know what your problem is? You’re a general scientist!”
Did you slap him with a rubber glove and demand satisfaction?
“Protractors at dawn, sirrah!”
Guy was short, so it would have whizzed over his head.
Those exact types tend to have trouble relating their ideas outside of their very specialized field. That is why the need a “general scientist” to help them relate to non-specialists.
One might be a fantastic specialist, be published routinely in the top journal in their specialty, and never be noticed by anyone outside of that field.
That’s the key to getting published in Nature, Science , Cell, etc. You need someone who can transform your paper into something many more people can understand outside your specialty. Of course, you also have to have the right politics, which is itself a subtle and terrible flaw of the big journals.
It’s focusing on the mote in the other guy’s eye while ignoring the plank in one’s own. It’s funny how the left has specifically lost this concept. Diversity of ideas is the only diversity that matters. By focusing only on physical characteristics, they’ve missed the forest for the trees.
Think about both Asimov and Sagan. Both weren’t the best in their fields but by the way they could bring science alive to others they did much to keep science popular with the public. Science often needs the specialists and the “why this is important to you” people.
Something a colleague shared years ago, is that it’s not enough to just do your own job well, but you have to understand what other people are trying to accomplish and make sure that your work delivers to their needs as well.
Had it been me I would have not been able to burst into laughter.
I have gotten around that problem by specializing in being able to do many things.
The quote certainly invites the reading that Unciv lays out, but I’ve taken it a little differently. I read it to mean everyone should have a broad skillset, should be able to function as a generalist. That doesn’t preclude having specialized skills as well. I read “Specialization” in the quote to be a reference to people who have only specialized skills. Its ambiguous, though, which often happens when you really pare something down to being pithy (see, also, the Iron Laws). Ambiguity isn’t necessarily a bad thing in an aphorism, though – gets people to think about it a little more.
One of the goals I have in mind when I write a piece for Glib is to spark discussion. I don’t mean in the “it’s okay to lie about an event and hound someone who turned out to be falsely accused because it sparked discussion” way, but more like “Here’s an opinion that may not be universally shared and why I think that way, please lay out the your viewpoints” kind of way. I’m glad other people take it that way.
I read it to mean everyone should have a broad skillset, should be able to function as a generalist. That doesn’t preclude having specialized skills as well.
I agree with this interpretation. I’m also somewhat “skeptical” of the view I see espoused at time that specialization is the primary driver of an advanced economy. IMO, there is a huge chasm between acquiring advanced skills and acquiring those skills at the sacrifice of all other skills.
By training, I’m an (soon to be) attorney and a computer engineer. It was quite a shock to see how many of my classmates and coworkers were so intelligent when it came to law and software, but didn’t know the difference between an oil filter and a muffler, and had never soldered copper pipe before.
Specialization is great for achieving and maintaining complex systems. You (the general you) are doing yourself a disservice if you are so specialized that you don’t know how to flip a circuit breaker or change a flat tire.
Advanced skills* are great for . . .
I tend to read it in the alternative way you suggest. I think part of the problem is that “specialization” has two different technical meanings in economics and entomology. In the former it refers to becoming proficient in a certain economic role to increase productivity and therefore the value one is able to generate. It really means becoming an expert or master of a trade or a particulate kind of trade. It doesn’t preclude knowing how to do other things, or even do them well. The later of course means specializing to the point where one can do one task and one task only. I think it’s also interesting that the two different meanings conflict in that the impetus for the economic specialization is on improving the lot of the individual while incidentally making the group better off, but the latter insect specialization is almost exclusively a benefit to the group as the individual insect doesn’t really gain any increased benefit from it.
I’d add further that the list of things one should be able to do isn’t necessarily a checklist of specific things, but are rather examples of kinds of things that nearly every human is capable of doing at least moderately well and a recommendation not to limit oneself. It does relate to the liberty is self-reliance in the sense that one /can/ do things if one needs to as it makes one less dependent. He does point out that cooperation is one of the things a human should be able to do.
The quote is an important one to me, one I’ve integrated into my personal philosophy. And I’ve always taken it to mean, learn to do as many things as you can learn to do so that you have them in your back pocket. But it certainly doesn’t mean don’t become an expert. I think there also may be a bit of Dunning-Krueger Effect going on. RAH was one of those incredibly competent people, based on his biography, that had the ability to master lots of different skills and he sort of assumes that if he can do it others can too. As I say, I think it is an encouragement to maximize your own potential and not pigeon-hole yourself. Adaptability and flexibility are good traits to have and will serve one far better than monomaniacal pursuit of just one thing.
Samantha Bee makes fun of person’s “Nazi” haircut. Turns out he has brain cancer.
Scarlett Johannson: back on the market.
So you’re saying I have chance?
“Better wear a rubber, dude.”
Some notes on the history of derpetology:
The first derpetologist was the Greek philosopher Theophrastus whose treatise “The Stupid Man” is history’s first major derpetological study.
From a literary perspective, Alexander Pope’s “The Dunciad” was the first in depth treatment of derpetology in English.
That sounds like my kind of book, I will check it out
That was enjoyable
the name of the link there was derived from a word that was the subject of a lecture in my first day of “ancient philosophy” in college. which basically meant “life lived intentionally well”
(*the actual definition is far more complex which is why it took a freaking lecture)
Derp, if you’ve never seen it, you should look up Carlo M. Cippola “The Power of Stupidity” and pieces written about it. I would link, except link-limit, also its very easily googled.
anyone interested in the subject of Eudaimonism (which is actually very much connected to the theme of the OG post above)…. more here.
Oh, and here’s the essay ABOUT Carlo Cipolla’s piece, which is really the thing worth reading. It also has follow-ups (linked at the bottom)
Tulpa has to be registered here under several handles by now, right?
Here’s something for all 5 of them:
https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/17264889_1610410525641425_1901982840219787883_n.jpg?oh=433d6f69265d5b4c6559e8e39ebf093e&oe=592652FC
Is it the Jew kind?
That’s what the yellow top means.
Hmm, that’s supposed to reflect the yellow star patches?
Duh!
3 for $5? Then you have to pay CRV and tax.
Jesus, is that Ralph’s located in Auschwitz?
I’m not a soda drinker, but last place i was in they were $1 (or $.99) per 2l.
Which, given that i used to actually pay attention to those numbers in a prior life, was noted as unusually low. Even earlier, I did consulting w/ KO and we did studies showing that deep-discounting in supermarkets actually hurt the sales @ vending machines. Your brain says, “Why am i paying @*(&$@* $2 for something that costs a $1 at 4 times the size?” and you remember. Basically, they needed to get their bottlers to commit to some basic pricing floor.
I think this is a special case. They stock this in areas with Jews (read: nice neighborhoods). 2 bucks a bottle or 3 for 5. After Passover, I’ll be able to get them for .79 (If there are any left over).
Oh, jew coke probably does cost more (to make at least). You say its common in places where the chosen people reside, yet i don’t actually recall it being highly touted in NYC when i was a kid. (tho i caught on years later) Maybe it was a 1990s invention.
Apparently not
When I lived in NYC in the mid 2000 naughts you could get kosher coke year round in some neighborhoods and around the high holidays across the boroughs.
Oh, i’m sure it was available. its just that despite shopping in lots of Zabars-ish places i never recall seeing *signs* highlighting it. someone had to point it out to me.
Specialization clearly enriches a society on the whole. As far as whether you can MacGyver a jet engine from duct tape and rubber bands while braiding your daughter’s hair, I don’t really care.
Point being, a person can live quite comfortably in society knowing little more than their trade. Pay someone else to do the things you don’t care to learn. Nothing wrong with that
That said, WTSHTF, you’ll likely be the first to die. The only time one needs to be well rounded is in times of crisis. Since life and death crises happen so infrequently, you can probably justify rolling the dice and betting on the come.
I, personally like being prepared for the worst, but as long as you understand the consequences of your choice…c’est la vie.
Point being, a person can live quite comfortably in society knowing little more than their trade. Pay someone else to do the things you don’t care to learn. Nothing wrong with that
Disagreed. You’re much more economically fragile as a pure specialist. It’s not just about WTSHTF, it’s about when your skills become outmoded and you have to find a way to adapt. It’s about when you get laid off and can’t afford to pay for your car to get fixed. It’s about being able to move beyond a paycheck-to-paycheck existence.
Being a pure specialist may be “better for society” but it’s a really risky proposition for the individual.
To my point, getting laid off IS a crisis, albeit a smaller crisis. Same point applies. Being a jack of all trades is risk mitigation.
If you choose not to mitigate, I don’t care. But don’t come looking for me to save you.
Well, some specializations fall out of favor over time. Making high-end buggy whips is a much less lucrative occupation than it was 150 years ago. Even in something like law, a lot of jobs are being lost to software that can do basic things like wills, which used to be the bread and butter for most starting lawyers. If you’re smart, you will have some back up skills, so even if the bottom falls out of a particular job market, you can get a job doing something else, even if you have to start at the bottom you will still have a job.
“The 3-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.”
Now I feel totally stupid. Or churlish.
OK, I have a great knowledge of history, and I have managed to learn a few languages, and…. *falls into dung*
Darnit… I’m monolingual – I only know history and mathematics!
I read it more as a challenge to society rather than to individuals. And I think he delved more deeply into the premise in Starship Troopers.
IMO, what he was saying was that society should not sort people into specialties and compel them to do only one thing. That people should have a broad skill set and the ability to determine what they will do rather than have them “specialized” by a government or society or whatever controlling force exists at any given time and forced to do something.
I also think Huxley hints at the same idea in Brave New World by bemoaning the sorting and specialization imposed on the people.
So he’s saying men and women should shower together?
+2 pairs of pancake titties.
There’s a pretty strong case to be made that the late Roman Empire’s policy of enforced hereditary specialisation was a major factor in its collapse.
You have a source on where they did that?
It’s covered fairly well in Michael Grant’s quickie “The Fall of the Roman Empire”, which presents the full range of explanations for the post-Crisis decline. (Though note that he focuses on the social & political ramifications of the policy – ie, alienation from the state, erosion of loyalty etc – and doesn’t get into the economic costs, which in my opinion were equally devastating.)
I’ve always found the list rather hilarious.
Yeah, the “why did it fall?” game can get pretty silly. Grant’s book is pretty good, though – he condenses all of the candidates generally accepted into thirteen categories, and makes a solid case that it was all thirteen.
Excuse me?
That’s a list of “all” the explanations anyone has proposed in print, where anyone includes plenty of loons. That’s not a list of explanations that actual scholars of the period have proposed.
It’s a list of every random theory, it’s not meant to be coherent.
I note that ‘income inequality’, which is the shitty argument by hacks de jour, is not on there yet.
34. climatic deterioration
I am looking at that list. An iron law comes to mind.
If everything is a priority then nothing is.
I’m no expert (interested amateur at best), but when a state goes under it’s usually a combination of external pressure, natural disasters (plague/crop failure etc) and political instability. Those then precipitate second order economic and financial problems, which in turn make it harder to deal with the first order problems. (It’s tough to kill barbarians & stomp on rebels when you can’t pay the troops.)
Honestly, the interesting question isn’t why (Western) Rome fell in the fifth century… it’s how the hell it didn’t fall in the third.
peachy, its always the same cause, every every time. The character of the citizenry deteriorates. That is the foundation of every society and without it everything else falls.
Heinlein just exaggerated each position to make a stark contrast. The principle is sound. I can do anything if I have to, everything on his list, yet there are many things there I would prefer to hire a specialist to do, especially the dying gig. If one is too specialized then any slight change in environment is a death sentence. I know a petroleum engineer who was put out of work by the recent oil glut. He manages a Burger King now.
*He claims he loves it. I accused him of screwing the cashier chicks. He didn’t answer, he just blushed.
Yeah, I could probably set my own leg if I could keep from passing out but geez. Is there a doctor in the house?
there are many things there I would prefer to hire a specialist to do, especially the dying gig.
So you were a big fan of the Enrollment Act of 1863?
Are you stepping up for me Sloopy? Better consult with Banjos first.
*Digs out wallet and starts counting*
Me? I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover.
Why is that an “accusation”? It’s pretty much the only reason why I would open a BK franchise.
One night in BK makes a hard man humble
Did you once get busy in a Burger King bathroom?
Actually it was a restaurant called The Plantation Manor. It billed itself as a high end place but was really about third tier. The food wasn’t bad either.
Mick Jagger understands.
Heinlein was a fan of Old Spice, natch.
Hmmm…naked chicks.
Anyway, something about specialization?