Sunday, July 16, 2006

D'Light

One of my readers has pointed out that besides Descartes and Da Vinci, I left out Dodgson. Dodgson? Yes, the infamous cleric who wrote stories about little girls and invisible monsters and unexpected logical consequences. Alice in Wonderland is probably the keyword clue you seek, I suppose. For the Snark was a Boojum, you see.

The same reader used another 'd' word — dabble. Said reader: "In the times of Descartes, Da Vinci, and all the other people you named, it was a lot more common to dabble in several professions rather than focusing on one particular field of work." Hmmm. No. I don't think so, not quite. For two reasons, one trivial and one not.

First reason: the majority of people in those times were engaged in agricultural production. They did of course dabble in several fields (it's partly a consequence of chemistry - crop rotation is needed - and partly a consequence of political economy - feudalism is 'serf and turf'), but most focussed on one particular group of fields.

Second reason: professions per se did not quite exist. There were guilds and schools, philosophies and ideas, specialisations and technologies. Accountancy, for example, was born in 1494 with the publication of Luca Pacioli's Summa. Pacioli was a geometer who was the first to describe in detail (though not to use) the double-entry accounting system. You could use the same mathematics to be a surveyor, a siege engineer, or a captain of mercenaries; it depended on who was fighting whom, or on what season it was, or what you were being paid to do.

Reading documents such as the autobiographical The Life of Benevenuto Cellini convinces me that the great names of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment didn't really dabble in several professions, although I understand the idea sympathetically. The thing boils down to that Greek word technë again - which can mean 'craft' or 'art' or 'making' or anything to do with distilling thought into substance.

You see, people like Da Vinci were never bound by the artificial area-of-knowledge distinctions we throw up nowadays. They thought, they acted on their thinking and the philosophy that developed from it. They were thinkers, aesthetes, engineers, sculptors, scientists, limners, carpenters, artillerists - whatever - as an expression of their personal beliefs and the wherewithal to do something about those beliefs. If you had a well-defined 'profession' ('crossbowman', 'silversmith', 'wainwright'), it was probably linked to your contract or guild. If you were a scholar, officer or gentleman, it was expected that you would know how to do about twenty different things reasonably well.

There is a reason why we call a person with many talents a Renaissance man, and one who merely dabbles a dilettante. The two are not the same. My personal wish for the flowering of Singapore (if ever it comes) is that we see more of the light of the Renaissance, the full glory of the Enlightenment, than the murky glamour of the Post-Modern. Until then, we can only strive to keep our own little flames alive.

It is true that the bright ages have always seemed brighter than they really were, in contrast with the darker times before them. But what does it say about us that we often look toward a future that seems as dark as it has always been? Take heart, take heart; as Rabbi ben Ezra said, "The best is yet to be!"

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thats why, teach less learn more!

Monday, July 17, 2006 4:14:00 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

what a cheap and superficial platitude to leave behind. sloganeering always works when you run out of ideas.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 2:45:00 am  
Blogger Chekist said...

haha, anonymity also works when you have cheap and superficial ad hominem attacks to make.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 2:58:00 am  

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