/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18122413]

Why are there no more polymaths or Renaissance men? Gone are the days of Ibn Khaldun, Da Vinci, Liebniz, and even Benjamin Franklin. Modern academics seem to be intensely focused on obscure subjects such as French tax laws of the 14th century. Any books about this phenomenon?

[Anonymous No.18122420]

We had this thread several times

[Anonymous No.18122428]

>>18122413
People smart enough to be polymaths are forced into hyper specialization because that's how the system works now.

[Anonymous No.18122432]

>>18122428
Thi and getting cancelled if you point somethig out what some subhuman doesn't appreciate.

[Anonymous No.18122443]

Contemporary polymaths are not gone. Most exist outside of the public eye or are forced to be very specialised for their day jobs.

[Anonymous No.18122446]

There are polymaths, this world doesn't reward them or promote them. Think of the "artists" you see or hear today and understand the power structure of the world isn't served by bringing enlightening individuals to the forefront. They are served by propping up imbeciles to keep society in a barely human state of mind.

[Anonymous No.18122462]

>>18122428
Bullshit. People who gladly accept hyper specialization are exactly the less intelligent ones. Most people on /lit/ are smarter than the average academic professor.

[Anonymous No.18122477]

>>18122462
>Most people on /lit/ are smarter than the average academic professor.
Yeah, no

[Anonymous No.18122490]

>>18122413
we are out there, just silent for now; waiting for the right moment to jump out and fix some things

[Anonymous No.18122491]

>>18122413
>Ibn Khaldun,
not a polymath, also a retarded nigger
> Da Vinci,
nobody calls him "da vinci". he is called leonardo.
> Liebniz,
who?
> and even Benjamin Franklin.
lol

[Anonymous No.18122529]

>>18122477
You can think what you want, it doesn't change the fact that if you devote yourself to hyper specialization you're most probably a brainlet.

[Anonymous No.18122535]

>>18122462
>Most people on /lit/ are smarter than the average academic professor
kekd hard

[Anonymous No.18122537]

>>18122491
>hasn't heard of Leibniz
>has an opinion
stfu

[Anonymous No.18122552]

>>18122462
>Most people on /lit/ are smarter than the average academic professor.
Lmao

[Anonymous No.18122563]

>>18122537
>Leibniz
oh i see you checked the name on google, nigger. good. now please go back reading comics / the quran and leave the european masters alone.

[Anonymous No.18122568]

>>18122477
>>18122552
>>18122535
Would not discount that tbdesu. The average academic is fairly complacent. There are a lot who just chose that path because they do not know what else to do.

[Anonymous No.18122569]

>>18122529
Or someone just trying to make a living using their brain. The renaissance ideal is dead and erudition for eruditions sake is no longer respected like it once was. Maybe it's up to /lit/ aspies to revive it

[Anonymous No.18122585]

>>18122568
The average /lit/ poster is an absolute cretin

[Anonymous No.18122597]

>>18122413
What is a polymath by today's standards? To really get to know a subject to it's completion, you'll have to study for years and years. Back then anyone with free time and enough money for books and a bit of autism was a polymath.

Some modern subjects are increasingly reliant on a more general understanding of the world, like entertainment, or programming, subjects that are by their nature not something that you can ever max out, but are instead a continual stream of education.

[Anonymous No.18122599]

>>18122585
So is the average professor. I have been in academia long enough (make it end) to know that.

[Anonymous No.18122636]

>>18122597
/thread

[Anonymous No.18122637]

>>18122599
You're an idiot

[Anonymous No.18122638]

>>18122413
I consider myself a sort of polymath, yeah I have never contributed anything to the modern body of knowledge, but that requires extreme specialization. I do however enjoy studying, be it sciences or humanities.

I think that's enough for someone to be considered a polymath.

[Anonymous No.18122645]

>>18122413
Most of these men were incels, which wasn't that bad back then when the culture wasn't mercilessly sexualized.
Us modern polymaths never get to succeed because we're too afflicted by inceldom-related social alienation and mental illness.

[Anonymous No.18122651]

>>18122428
I always find it odd people presume theres someone or a group of people tugging the strings of academia or the world as a whole. Its reminiscent of Pynchon's Tristero, and assumes the smartest people in academia are blind to it, and then by extension, the person claiming it believes themselves smarter than them. Im not saying there arent insidious people vying for power, but I think its too bold of an assumption to say someone has that much power and influence. Maybe im misinterpreting your post though.
I think the real reason is the limit of human knowledge and life span.
Newton was well versed in mathematics and religion, but today to get to quantum physics, you have to pass through what Newton knew, then what he discovered, and then even more. I believe it just isnt possible for a modern man to be well versed in fields that have been exponentially compounding to the point it requires decades to have a working understanding of one. Same with philosophy to a degree, and even poetry has an inexhaustible catalog now

[Anonymous No.18122654]

>>18122637
He already said he was an academic

[Anonymous No.18122656]

>>18122651
>Newton was well versed in mathematics and religion, but today to get to quantum physics, you have to pass through what Newton knew, then what he discovered, and then even more. I believe it just isnt possible for a modern man to be well versed in fields that have been exponentially compounding to the point it requires decades to have a working understanding of one. Same with philosophy to a degree, and even poetry has an inexhaustible catalog now

[Anonymous No.18122664]

>>18122420
several thousand times, actually

[Anonymous No.18122768]

>>18122563
I'm not the guy to whom you replied, so stop assuming stuff such as that the original reply wasn't by a guy who simply made a mistake.. you just did one, too

my advice is - stop being bitter, I didn't even notice the mistake, tends to help in life to know what matters and what doesn't

[Anonymous No.18122778]

>>18122569
>muh society
I didn't understand we were talking about society's trends, I thought we were talking about what is good in itself. Abstractedly speaking, is it better to watch the same object all day every day, or is it better to watch that object for some time and then put it in some kind of relation with another object which you start to observe while still thinking about the previous object, so that you think two objects at the same time, both individually and in the relation they form?

[Anonymous No.18122824]

>>18122413
I thought Ibn Khaldun was just a jurist or something, in what way was he a polymath/

[Anonymous No.18122883]

>>18122768
imagine believing in op's good faith

[Anonymous No.18122923]

>>18122883
I'm not that anon and I'm not OP either but your post was worthless and obnoxious

[Anonymous No.18122932]

>>18122432
You know victimization from both sides of the spectrum kinda gets old after a moment

[Anonymous No.18123156]

>>18122413
Excessive pedantry is a symptom of mature civilizations, when its great period of intellectual trail blazing has ended. The totality of knowledge grows so large that men soon find themselves lost in it. The act of knowing seems increasingly distant and arcane, while the function of knowing becomes the banal filing of facts and details rather than the systematization of general concepts. An overabundance of knowledge has the same effect on the mind as its scarcity. Confusion. Consider Cicero, the man who knew everything but could not bring himself to believe anything. Cicero is thus the "middle man", a transitionary figure between republic and empire, of rationalism and non-rationalism. This is where are today, contemporaneously with the Romans.

[Anonymous No.18123192]

>>18122413
>>18122443
I'd argue that Noam Chomsky, James Cameron, and Terence Tao are all living polymaths.

[Anonymous No.18123282]

>>18122462
>People who gladly accept hyper specialization are exactly the less intelligent ones
i think this depends on how we're defining intelligence here. on one hand, yeah, hyper specialization is a massive negative and instrumental in the death of meditative thought--one could argue that it'll be our demise. but at the same time, i think one can be smart in many aspects while remaining ignorant of systemic problems like that. calling some super-advanced pure mathematician who's changed the field of topology or something unintelligent because he's failed to reject hyper specialization doesn't capture the full picture. i think you can say that he's failed to recognize something important and his understanding of knowledge as a concept is poor, but he's still an intelligent guy.

[Anonymous No.18123317]

>>18122932
Except one is real and one is headcanon

[Anonymous No.18123349]

i'm working my way towards being one. used to be an aspie kid so i'm good at overfocusing and specific obsessions, but i have a range of them and always on the lookout for new interests.
started lifting recently to live up to the greek idea of an all-round developed man too.

i'm not putting all the effort i can into it, but the end goal isn't to surpass tge geniuses i admire, it's to reap every fruit this garden has to offer and plant twice as much
pic, my horse enjoying his favorite drink

[Anonymous No.18123874]

>>18123349
Nice

[Anonymous No.18123897]

>>18122491
>nobody calls him "da vinci". he is called leonardo.
Depends on where you are located in the world, where I live Da Vinci is more common.

>Liebniz,
>who?
Imagine proudly exposing your ignorance like this

[Anonymous No.18124465]

>>18122656
Since catalogs are now inexhaustible it is good for academic advisors to attempt integrated teaching instead of the compartmentalized race horse game they play with specialists. Narrow range generalists can work on cross functional teams. Hyper specialized experts always conspire against the industry and the profession. There are interesting connections to be made among disciplines that are easier to do but more rewarding than anything within a discipline. Take for example the lowliest worker ant laborer on building a home. Though he is not assigned the curriculum he witnesses electrician, plumber, HVAC, Woodworker,etc. He can become a high tech wizard with a few opportunities. Such cross functional teams can result in deeper and thorough look at the same details in textbooks combed over by specialists. The cat whisker diode at Bell Labs became a proto-transistor when this closer look happened and thus computing leaped.

[Anonymous No.18124480]

>>18122585
>The average /lit/ poster is an absolute cretin

[I hate women No.18124490]

>>18122413
>Why are there no more polymaths or Renaissance men?
What are you talking about? I'm right here

[Anonymous No.18124803]

>>18122462
>Most people on /lit/ are smarter than the average academic professor.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the top 10% of /lit/ posters pulled the average up enough for us to be smarter than college professors. Professors have less people who are outright retarded, but we have more people who are outright brilliant. They're more clustered around the mean, while we're heavily stratified.