“Civilization” has many definitions, each of which has its own agenda or remarks upon some aspect of the history of human society. One of these that you learn in World History class concerns the effects of the “agricultural revolution”, said to have started around 8,000 BCE where we find the earliest evidence of deliberate cultivation of food crops. At first, it happens as an adjunct to the hunter-gatherer society; favorite places where wandering groups would visit each year were planted with food that would be ready when they next came though. Taking that to the next level meant having to stick around and keep an eye on the crops, planting more of them, and at this point you start having permanent settlements.
With the permanent settlements in place and food made easier to obtain (at least in theory), not everyone needed to be a farmer. It became possible for people to develop specialties and hence we get potters, tanners, carpenters, warriors and eventually scribes and bureaucrats. So the division of labor into specialties becomes a mark of civilization, because these specialists can exercise creativity and refine their crafts in ways that weren’t possible before.
Now there is a problem with that word “specialized.” The problem is that increased specialization makes it harder to adjust when circumstances change. Considering all living species for a moment, it is a fact of biological science that ultimately the most frequent cause of extinction is not asteroid impacts or human activity per se, it is overspecialization. A species becomes so good at thriving in a special niche but loses the ability to function outside of that niche. A change in the environment, and unless they can adapt, they die.
Some conversations with a few friends recently has prompted me to give this some thought with respect to the unemployment crisis. Our modern society has more and narrower specializations than at any time in history. That argues that because of our highly specialized job descriptions, losing that job to overseas outsourcing or other cause means that more people have to adapt because the few jobs that are left don’t make the best use of one’s specialty. It’s downright uncivilized.
The problem is that one can’t always predict where the new jobs are going to come from, so job training can often be an exercise in speculation and, if you don’t get a job with your new degree in Biotech Basketweaving, you’re doubly stuck because you’re probably on the hook for the loan you took out or drained the savings you tapped to go back to school. Hiring managers make this even worse because in this market, they can be extra picky about who they want, and what they usually look for is a specialist who is almost, but not quite your specialty. It’s easy to think that by hiring precisely what you’re looking for, you reduce the risk that the person won’t be able to do the job. Narrow square peg, meet narrow round hole.
But change hits businesses too. If they are staffed with a bunch of specialists and they suddenly have to change what they do, that can be a problem. Flexibility is admired in businesses, but you have to allow for the abilities of your people. This is why I think we are entering a time when the Generalist can be of great value. But I also suspect that being a Generalist is valuable because when the doors won’t open and those applications or resumes don’t connect, you’re on your own; you have to do everything yourself. We’ll talk about that soon.
