A few months ago, I started a mission to learn all about
polymathy. One of the first things I did was to look up the term ‘polymath’,
one of the first things that popped up in Google was the web site for this book:
The Polymath by Waqa Ahmed. I approached it with a certain amount of cynicism,
just because I am uneasy with this kind of serendipity. I read through the
description, felt a bit better, then found it on Amazon, and read through the
blurb on Amazon. I decided to buy it on a whim, partly because I was very
curious about the topic and partly because I realized that I didn’t know much
about the topic of the polymath, even though I have used the term freely to
identify myself. The writeup piqued my interest and I figured that it was a
worthwhile investment, even if the book wasn’t any good. I am quite pleased I
did put forth the investment.
This book is not just another nonfiction book geared towards
the general readership. Ahmed had a purpose, a certain evangelical quality to
his voice and to his writing. He was proselytizing to the populace regarding
the bill of goods we had been sold as members of this culture. He is adamant
about the duplicity foisted upon us by the powers that be: that specialization
is the sole path toward intellectual fulfillment and excellence, that the only
way to be successful is to drill a deep and narrow tunnel towards a blindered
vision of the multifaceted world.
The author took a very disciplined and structured plan of attack.
The book is written in the form of an argument. The first three chapters were
written as an introduction as well a primer to define who Polymaths are, their
peculiar qualities and the way they have led their lives. There is an extensive
section on the many people from history that the author considers to be polymaths.
The author does name drop - the authors drops into this mode quite often in his
continuing narrative - this is name
dropping in the very best sense of the phrase. He lists a vast array of people
from history who, in his mind, are polymaths. Fortunately for us, due to his
cultural background, the author attempts to be multi-cultural and
multi-religious in selecting the names that he mentions in this chapter. There
are many that I knew or had heard of, there are even more whose name are a
total mystery to me. Unfortunately, there are so many that he could not give us
a full accounting of their deeds and polymathic prowess. If he did, the book
would be a couple of order of magnitude heavier. He does provide an appendix at
the end of the book to give a brief synopsis of these polymaths. Perhaps a follow-up
tome just relaying the histories of these extraordinary people is in order.
The author then jumps into his main argument, a cogent and
systematic attack on the cult of specialization that has pervaded our society,
the spell that this mythology has cast over our global culture, and the harm
that it has caused our civilization.
He makes some excellent points but at this point of the
book, he was preaching to the choir as I was already convinced of his salient
arguments.
What follows are two critical chapters to this intellectual
call to arms. The chapter on reconditioning the mind and the chapter on
building an alternative education system which seek to reverse the cult of
specialization and tries to give us a blueprint to establishing a polymathic
educational pedagogy.
Regarding the chapter on reconditioning the mind, it is an unqualified
success in my humble opinion. The author methodically and systematically laid
out the qualities that must pervade our ethos and our thought process for us to
change our thinking regarding ourselves and the way we see the world. It was
quite inspiring and did cause me to think in completely different terms about
my life, my approach to a career and it helped to explain my own ambivalence and
uneasiness about what I have done so far. I am someone who blindly followed the
specialization route until very recently when I was overwhelmed with the
feeling that I had not followed my interests nor lived an optimized life. This
chapter was a call to arms, a shot of courage, a needed kick in the pants to go
pursue my polymath nature.
The chapter on the alternative system however was less successful,
mainly because when speaking of reconditioning of my mind, I had full control over
everything; whereas when speaking of creating an alternative system, we were speaking
of a complex social movement involving changing the status quo and most
importantly changing a lot of minds. While this book is a great start, it was
still going to be a struggle, a struggle involving a galaxy of unknown
variables. Part of the disappointment I felt reading the chapter on alternative
system is that while the ideas for systematic changes were well articulated,
they were not relayed in enough reality. Perhaps I am looking for a blueprint
where a blueprint wasn’t what was called for, but my expectations were not met
in full in this regard.
The last two chapters were yet another listing of smart and
accomplished polymaths, except these polymaths are in the present, living and
breathing examples of what the author has been trying to describe. Some are
well known, celebrity polymaths to some degree, others were less so. Regardless
of their fame or accomplishments, their stories once again left a need for a
continuation of their biographies and stories in another volume. Even though
the author intended the chapter to be akin to an intimate conversation with the
subjects, the chapter itself fell short of that, as it was obvious that the
stories were compendium of third source knowledge. No worries though, they were
still quite fascinating.
The last chapter was the
summary of this call to arm, and it’s brevity was much appreciated as the
author already laid out his theses ad infinitum through out the rest of the
book, so there was no need to restate the salient points.
One note regarding the name-dropping and the credential
waving in the book. I was initially put off and bothered by this; as I believe
polymaths do what they do to advance their own intrinsic need to attain an understanding
of our world and sating their curiosity about the vast stores of knowledge, not
for creating a litany of credentials. My understanding of the author’s reason
for doing this grew as I dove deeper into the book: it is a part of our
culture, credentials are a badge of identification for the capable in a
specialization dominant world, it is a token of accomplishment to identify the persons
of gravitas, as such it is a convenient tool to communicate to the general
audience.
As for my recommendation. For those of us who have been searching
for something that would explain our ambivalence and uneasiness when it comes
to our lifelong path in the specialized world, this book is required reading.
For those who have never questioned their role in this hegemony of
specialization, maybe it is time for them to start questioning and this book is
an ideal starting point.
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