There are exactly two ways to do things: one, and many

Spurred by William Tozier’s meditation above, which is an argument for generalist practice and knowledge as against hyper-specialisation, our friend Paul Hartzog wrote some interesting observations in the comment field.

Paul Hartzog writes:

“The classical opposition to the One was always the Many.

Somewhere in the rage against monolithic meta-thingies the binary opposition became One vs. None. So for example, nihilistic postmodernism claims that we must throw out the One and be left with the None (and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth).

But the rejection of the One does not necessarily demand the substitution of the None, when in fact we could embrace the Many instead.

There is a historical trajectory here:

1. Modernism: embrace the One

2. PostModernism: reject the One, lament the None

3. PostPostModernism (or Pre- Panarchy): reject the binary opposition constituted by 1 and 2 and embrace the Many (Spinoza’s Multitude).”

In other words:

“During Modernism we are told that there is only one way. The universalism is imposed.

During Postmodernism, universalism is rejected, but the only alternative is a chaotic nihilism in which there are no solutions.

Under panarchy, the entire notion that we must choose between an oppressive universalism vs. a nihilistic particularity is rejected. There is a whole world of third way possibilities when we come together to share and build them…”

Additional commentary by Sam Rose, more directly related to William Tozier’s argument:

“One of the things that I thought about while reading your excellent, post above is that, for more and more of us to effectively do *this*, it turns out that we need each other, more than anything else.

All of those people who want us to think we need to be specialsts have to convince us of this, if they are ever to control us. And that is what they need: control. At the beginning of the last century, it was decided that society could become near-perfect, if it became highly ordered, with everyone in their place, working on keeping things nice and ordered.

This is breaking down in reality. In real life, if you really stand back and look at it, it takes more energy, more time, more forcing and pushing, whip cracking and mutual/-self psychological mutilation to have everyone specialize.

The path of *least resistance* is to generalize. Before Mass Industrialization, I contend that people knew this, and applied it directly. I think that upon the emergence of Mass Industry, that for a brief period, abundant, but depletable resources made it possible for people who controlled those resources to force us all to specialize. But, once those resources started to dwindle, we were told that we are on our own to replace those things that came cheap, easy, and mass produced. Naturally, people start to follow the path of least resistance, to become an adaptive generalist. But, there is litte infrastrucutre, little support for the generalist. Our systems are set up for the specialist, as you discuss in your article above.

This is what I am interested in. Part of what I am concentrating on these days. *It’s up to us to plant thesseds and grow this dynamic societal infrastructure for generalists.* If we can make a better choice, people will likely choose it. People need generalist-centric alternative ways to solve their basic survival problems. We need new ways to “bank”, new ways to grow food, make the things we want and need, research and develop new things, better insights on how to work together as generalists.”