What's more important breadth of knowledge or depth of knowledge?

Question

In a world overrun by specialists, do generalists have any value? While specialized knowledge can certainly be useful at times is it over-rated? Are we out of balance here?

Can we go deep by going wide?

Mar - Actually I see the world as getting more specialized not less.

Sure certain technologies become obsolete but the majority of jobs seem to be getting more and more specific all the time, requiring little thought and only training.

(sometimes jobs require complex training but rarely does this involve complex decision making and rarely transferable to other situations)

I could be wrong. I'm gonna think about it some more.

burning - bulls eye! ...but I think you're confusing the concept of 'education' with 'job training' - these are different things but that is at least that is the center of the issue.

Answer 1

There used to be a phrase people used, "A mile wide and an inch deep" do describe a particular kind of person, project, concept. The term probably never found usage in the context of praise.

But times have changed. Television has expanded the breadth of knowledge almost beyond imagining, while leaving depth somewhere back there in the dust.

There does appear to be a lack of balance, but not in precisely the way you've suggested.

But that's just an old guy's opinion from time when people still thought a deep knowledge of a subject was a necessary ingredient to understanding. Today there are plenty of folk out there who'll oblige by telling us what to think.

However, a breadth of knowledge of the names of those people and what they wish us to think doesn't provide us with a corresponding perception of their depth.

A snake swallowing its own tail.

Answer 2

I believe the deeper one goes into a certain field the more narrowed their field of vision (perspective) gets- not a profound statement or realization, nor is it an original one. I think that specifically from my point of view in the medical profession, due to my recent run ins and problems with general practitioners, specialists and surgeons that knowledge should always be reviewed from the broad perspective first, all the time, and lastly before any decisions are made which are permanent.
I enjoy the company and ideas of generalists more so than specialists in any field of discussion. Particularly comparative religion and mythology which I think is a field in which it may be bragged that one is a jack of all trades and master of none.
Then again, maybe I lack the fortitude to specialize in any one thing. I have never enjoyed anything which made me think I would like to build the rest of my life or philosophy around.

Answer 3

Interesting question!

Actually I think both are important. A specialist concentrates on a small area, and we need people like that to be experts in certain things. If you needed surgery on your brain, for instance, would you rather have a general surgeon who does all kinds of surgery or one that specialized on brain surgery?

On the other hand a generalist has the 'big picture' and is able to relate one thing to another better. And we need people like that too. This is why you see a 'general practitioner' to help decide whether you needed that brain surgery in the first place--maybe it was something else!

I think most jobs in the real world are a combination of both. Everyone needs some general knowledge and some special knowledge, so a college or university education contains both.

Answer 4

Breadth of knowledge always is better than depth. Ask the railroad business. They forgot they were in the TRANSPORT business, not the rail business. Every specialist in the world has been replaced by a generalist. Ask a sword maker.
Ask a Shoe repairman.

Answer 5

It may be very important to have a broad knowledge about the World in order to have one's own personal kind of reassuring understanding about what is going on around oneself and at large, therefore generalists are of great value,

but it may also be necessary for one's survival, or for one's own professional affirmation, to have a deep immediate knowledge about something, a very specialized knowledge about that which matters contingently, therefore it may be necessary to have a deep insight into something that can save one's life or just make one earn one's necessary money.

Life's strategies towards survival and success may need to be quite detailed, therefore one's knowledge about some particular subject, some phenomenon, must be quite detailed, quite specialized, and therefore pragmatically deep.

Even in our well-organized society we live in a ferocious competitive world, and that may require "big" eyes and a "large" brain in order to see a lot of things and in order to understand a lot of various things in the generalist's way.

Therefore we may be compelled to go deep, even very deep, while also going wide, as far as possible.

Answer 6

The drawback to specializing is tunnel vision ...... we need those who go wide to view the bigger picture and pull back the tunnelers when they go way off on a meaningless or dangerous tangent that can only be noted by the bigger view.

Answer 7

Look at the millions of teenagers. Do you think they need more direction? Perhaps depth of knowledge has become too scarce and too far away from our everyday lives.

Answer 8

intelligence and education are two different things... if you take an educated man out of his field he's useless