To learn anything, we must
first pay attention to the way things currently are rather than passively
accepting established traditions. To do nothing different and follow convention
is always the easiest course, in that it requires the least effort and
encounters the least resistance.
However, to undertake
exploration we require leisure. Those who
are struggling to survive cannot spare the time and energy to try something new
along with the risk that it may not work out.
It is no coincidence that the “golden ages” of invention, the arts, and
other intellectual activities have only been achieved in cultures where the
basic survival needs have been well met.
Discovery also requires
having knowledge of what is already done, to enable a person to arrive at a
conclusion that is truly novel rather than putting in the effort to “invent”
something that already exists or is known to be less effective than current
methods. To arrive at this point, a
person must know their craft – and ideally, he has learned it efficiently from
other practitioners rather than having to discover it for himself.
The requirement of
expertise is also a reason that creativity occurs in explosions, when there are
many creative minds benefitting form the same information, than in isolated
individuals in societies that are deprived of knowledge and hostile to
information. The culture must not only condone, but also
support, the development of knowledge.
As the amount of knowledge
grows, it becomes necessary to specialize by subdividing the various domains of
knowledge and innovate in a very well defined space. One can only be so good at “art” in every
form, but can develop great expertise by specializing in sculpting marble.
Being a “Renaissance Man”
was valued during the Renaissance, but today is merely a person who has very
shallow knowledge of a myriad of fields and is highly unlikely to contribute
anything meaningful to society. Where
little knowledge exists it is possible to know it all – and this is no longer
possible given the breadth to which human knowledge has grown. A person has to know “it all” within a very
well defined area.
Granted, the trend to specialize has its drawbacks. As knowledge becomes fragmented and the intellectuals become isolated from one another, delving into specialties of ever narrower scope, intellectuals become as the workers on the tower of Babel. Each one is too focused on his own specific domain, does not understand other domains, and there is no common language that allows them to communicate or work together.
Another drawback to this
specialization is that intellectuals become eccentric and withdrawn – the
subjects of their interest are too far removed from the experience of the
common person. This causes their work to
be ignored or dismissed by the culture whose acceptance is necessary for
discoveries to have an impact on traditions.
Ultimately, a distinction
must be drawn between knowledge and creativity – creativity must culminate in
creation and is not done for its own sake.
The “aloof and sequestered” scientists who never present their ideas to
culture for consumption are not producing a change in culture, and because of
that cannot be considered creativity because all their work effects no change
in culture until it is unearthed by someone else at a later time.
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