Spe­cial­iza­tion allows us to bet­ter under­stand nuances and speci­fici­ties, but when it comes to areas of study, we can become ensnared in that lev­el of detail. Work­ing across dis­ci­plines is nec­es­sary to achieve a holis­tic out­look. Make sure to share what we find inspir­ing, learn from oth­ers, and learn more about ourselves.

Con­tem­po­rary soci­ety is shaped by hyper-seg­men­ta­tion. Sharp lines are drawn between roles, work is com­part­men­tal­ized into dis­tinct silos. In the search for effi­cien­cy and order, tasks are bro­ken into small divi­sions and addressed indi­vid­u­al­ly while human activ­i­ty is divid­ed into parts, with each per­son respon­si­ble only for a nar­row­ly defined task. The unbe­liev­able com­plex­i­ty of our glob­al orga­ni­za­tion neces­si­tates some form of divi­sion and spe­cial­iza­tion of labor, but this comes with draw­backs. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion between dis­ci­plines is often lim­it­ed, and a holis­tic under­stand­ing of the greater whole some­times becomes dif­fi­cult to see.

The sto­ry of the blind men and the ele­phant tells the tale of the dif­fer­ent respons­es that sev­er­al blind men have when they’re forced to touch this unsee­able ani­mal for the first time. With­out the sense of sight, the men instead explore the ani­mal pri­mar­i­ly through their touch, each one in turn declar­ing their con­cep­tu­al­iza­tion of an ele­phant based on the small part of the larg­er whole that they’re touch­ing. One, as he holds the creature’s trunk. declares it to be sim­i­lar in nature to a snake. Anoth­er runs his hands over the elephant’s broad flank and deduces that it must be akin to a wall. This con­tin­ues, until all have deliv­ered their con­flict­ing state­ments based on their cor­re­spond­ing inter­ac­tions with var­i­ous body parts of the ele­phant. The dis­agree­ments between the men esca­late, in some tellings ris­ing even into phys­i­cal vio­lence, as each of the men find them­selves unable to rec­on­cile the oth­ers’ con­clu­sions with their own experience.

This sto­ry can be tak­en to illus­trate a range of insights into human nature. At its most basic, the mes­sage is: it is impos­si­ble to under­stand the whole of a thing by look­ing at only one of its parts. None of the men are strict­ly wrong, but their sub­jec­tive inter­pre­ta­tions are incom­plete. Through inter­change and the direct shar­ing of their respec­tive expe­ri­ences, they would all be able to enrich their own knowl­edge. And yet, mere descrip­tions are not enough, they have to invite the oth­ers over to feel it for them­selves. We must all rec­og­nize the lim­it­ed range of what our obser­va­tion allows. In order to bet­ter grasp the mys­ter­ies of life and the tremen­dous amount we do not know, we need to work togeth­er and be open to what oth­ers are experiencing.

We must all look to tran­si­tion across illu­so­ry divi­sions of craft ver­sus indus­try, of art ver­sus sci­ence ver­sus spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, or any oth­er false sep­a­ra­tion of human endeav­or. None of these divi­sions are serv­ing us as peo­ple. In fact, they’re often caus­ing us harm. Issues with over-spe­cial­iza­tion can be seen in hotbeds of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion, as evi­denced by cul­tur­al fall­out from com­pa­nies in Sil­i­con Val­ley. The influ­en­tial busi­ness­es head­quar­tered there tend to lack work­ers with back­grounds in the human­i­ties, and are instead sat­u­rat­ed with employ­ees arriv­ing there from STEM fields. The tech­ni­cal bril­liance of their work­force is unde­ni­able, but scan­dal after scan­dal has shown us that includ­ing those more famil­iar with ethics and human­i­ties would help to avoid these pub­lic rela­tions dis­as­ters and rein­state pub­lic trust in these insti­tu­tions. But, at present, seem­ing­ly nobody at these com­pa­nies is voic­ing these con­cerns. Or nobody is lis­ten­ing. This prob­lem is down to the myopia of the workforce’s rel­a­tive spe­cial­iza­tions. We need to lis­ten much more and to more dif­fer­ent views. By com­mit­ting to being recep­tive to the expe­ri­ences of oth­ers, we will become more informed and insightful.