An Argument for Generalists

I love the minutiae of English.  I am quite interested in linguistics in addition to literature and composition.  I think diagramming sentences is, in some incredibly wierd and nerdy way, fun.  I love the detail found in college courses focusing on a single writer.  My 495 Senior Seminar Yeats class being the prime example for me.  

That said, I loved the survey courses I took in college as well.  

I truly believe that the greatest sign of education and learning is the ability to make connections between disciplines, to find the arcing themes that join all learning together.  The kind of themes that Klayton has indicated Kinneavy pursued over long years in the creation of A Theory of Discourse.  In describing the book, and perhaps (to an extent) Kinneavy himself, Klayton referred to it as "inspiring" and "impossible."  Inspiring because of its amazing breadth, and impossible because such a breadth would be, supposedly, impossible today.  

I grant that there is no way for one person, in one lifetime to have a specialist's knowledge of all fields.  In fact, it is impossible for even a generalist in a single field to have a specialist's knowledge of any more than a small portion of her own field with the ever multiplying number of specialities nad disciplines.  Soon we'll have people who are Hamlet Act IV Scholars, so specialized that they've never bothered with the rest of the play, never mind the rest of Shakespeare.  Shirley, I jest.  But, in the midst of my hyperbole, I want to stand and scream that even then, in the long ago dark ages of the 1970s, or further back in the stoneaged '50s when Kinneavy received his doctorate that it was already impossible to have a specialist's knowledge of all the fields that in which Kinneavy was learned and drew upon for his book.

The cost of being a generalist in any sense, and despite the fact that Kinneavy was first and foremost a rhetorician and writer I would argue a theory attempting to unite all discourse makes him a generalist, is the ire of the specialists who will argue that you just don't get it.  You're ignoring this or that tidbit.  Unfortunately, the cost of any systematic approach is generalizations.  And, as was thoroughly and correctly addressed generaliziations were made in order for Kinneavy's system to work.  (I agree in particular with the placement of that Declaration of Independence which I would argue is primarily based in the persuasive intent located on the Decoder corner of Kinneavy's triangle.)  However, this generalization is also a fact of life in providing context and context is essential to the understanding of what we're doing, where we came from and where we are going.  We need big picture thinkers like Kinneavy who are unafraid to take on such Herculean tasks, because without the larger context, it seems pretty petty to exchange arguments within our private academic club about the meaning of Hamlet.II.iii.124 (I'm ad libbing.  Such a line may not even exist in Hamlet.II.iii, and if it does, I have no idea what it says).  

The generalist is necessary despite the inevitable flaws as details are lost when providing big picture perspective and context through simplification necessary to the endeavor.  The generalist is necessary because it is precisely this big picture that gives meaning to our academic pursuits beyond mere intellectual gamesplaying and curiosity.  

More of us should have the courage and intellectual drive to attempt the inspiring and the impossible.