Would you rather know a lot about one subject or a little about a lot of subjects?’
This question has been posed by others at times. It’s easy to say that it’s beneficial to know a lot about at least one subject and a little about many more. What if you had to make a choice though?
For myself, I find it mostly economically beneficial to know a lot about one subject. Suppose though that you had to make a choice at a young age before achieving great in depth knowledge in any area, and your life would turn out at least as good as it is now, certainly not significantly worse no matter your decision.
I tend toward thinking I’d prefer to know a little about a lot of subjects because my curiosity has more breadth than depth. I do like the idea of understanding what it means to know a lot about one subject, it provides perspective on the complexity of the world and helps in understanding other matters. But still, forced to make a choice that wouldn’t otherwise affect my life I’d rather be the Jack of All Trades and Master of None.
On one hand, I think the job market is such that you’ve gotta be nerdy about your field. There’s always someone out there who is trying to eat your lunch, so you can’t afford to let your skills grow stale or your knowledge get outdated.
But on the other hand, there is such a thing as over specialization. A person has to keep their skills and knowledge base growing, or else they paint themselves into a small niche. That makes for a precarious existence.
In my line of work (gubmint), the jack-of-all-trades approach has the advantage. We usually contract-out when we’re faced with super technical problems that only true nerds can fix. We are rewarded for knowing our shit, of course, but the folks who can understand all the moving parts in the process, not just a few, are the ones who get the most respect.
When I worked in both journalism and communications, the advantage to knowing a little about a lot of things was the versatility to talk about many things well enough to get the story across.
I should point out that the people I was interviewing really knew their shit, though. And they all earned more than journalism/communication professionals.
I’d really prefer some kind of histogram that is “lumpy.” I’d like to know a little about a hell of a lot of things and rather a lot about a few of them.
If absolutely forced to play the game – no questioning the hypothesis – then I’m with the fox. I want to know many things, even if only at a somewhat shallow level. I’d like to know how to make a fire, if not a complete camp; how to tie one very secure knot, if not a whole Boy Scout’s manual of knots; how to change a tire, if not how to replace a head gasket; a few useful words of Spanish, if not full fluency; etc.
ETA: Robert Heinlein said, “Specialization is for insects.”
You don’t need to know about a lot of specialized things. You just need to know the fundamentals of basic disciplines (mathematics, history, logic, economics, natural sciences, theology, etc.) and you can follow along with people who know a lot more than you do about their own field. Without knowing such fundamentals, your conversation and socialization will be severely limited, along with your capacity to learn more. Most of what you really need to know is taught in high school, but then depends on your willingness to continue your informal education on your own time. A person can be a recognized expert in a very specialized field, and still have the basic grounding allowing broad-based knowledge. I know many people who meet that test
I like to be a Renaissance woman, knowing at least a little about a lot of things. The main benefit I receive is the ability to recognize that I have seen something before and have a fairly good idea of how to find it again. It also keeps me from proposing theories that make perfect sense in a specialized environment but that don’t relate well at all to more widely-based information and observations.