specialization is for insects

[piranha]

it's a meme, and it's heinlein, and i am doing it anyway, but then i am gonna quibble with it.

• change a diaper -- done it. happy to not ever do it again, mostly because of the smell. human feces: worse than chicken and pig shit.
  
• plan an invasion -- do computer games count? no, didn't think so. i am pretty good at organisation, but the scope would probably be much larger than anything i've ever handled. and then there is the strategy, of which i know too little. in the context of survival in a post-apocalyptic world, i'd hope i have copies of sun tzu and clausewitz handy. ok, so first i'd invade a well-stocked public library.
  
• butcher a hog -- yeah. a wild one, too. (my father hunted, and i learned to skin and butcher anything he shot.)
  
• conn a ship -- haven't worked up my way from a boat to a ship yet, but i could do this.
  
• design a building -- single story, yes. haven't done it with anything larger than a shed and gazebo though. i am pretty sure i could do a simple cabin, including plumbing and electrical. i've done plenty of renovating.
  
• write a sonnet -- *shudder*. i am so not a poet. but there's no requirement it be good, right? ok, so i could do it. now i must prove that to myself. :)
  
• balance accounts -- yes.
  
• build a wall -- yes. logs, bricks and mortar, cinderblocks, and field/river rocks.
  
• set a bone -- i've done it temporarily.
  
• comfort the dying -- yes.
  
• take orders -- used to do it, am much less likely to do so now, and growing less likely by the year.
  
• give orders -- yeah. not fond of it either.
  
• cooperate -- yes. there is extra power in numbers. even been a member of a formal cooperative. would like that again; sharing large, expensive assets such as machinery and tools makes a lot of sense to me.
  
• act alone -- yes. prefer it, though cooperation with like-minded people can be really great.
  
• solve equations -- yes, up to diffy-q's.
  
• analyze a new problem -- new to me? sure. new to the world? not likely.
  
• pitch manure -- done it as a job, when i was 16. there are much worse things, though chicken shit is vile.
  
• program a computer -- made my living off it for a couple decades.
  
• cook a tasty meal -- well, i like the taste of my own cooking. the paramour and the *poing* seem to like it too, but i suspect that maybe their taste buds are stunted.
  
• fight efficiently -- efficiently, eh? i don't think so. i can fight dirty, though, if my survival instinct kicks in.
  
• die gallantly -- not done it yet, and i am sure it'll depend on the circumstances as to whether i can manage. also, i'd prefer to die with some dignity; not sure about gallantry -- that sounds a bit showy to me.
  

i think his list is a little weird. i also wonder what conditions he expected for these things, and these things in specific to matter. what about growing the things one wants to eat -- in which world are there hogs to butcher which one hasn't raised or killed oneself? what about the other ingredients for the tasty meal (and its nutritional value)? why would one have a ship to conn (this has got to be for the invasion one has planned) -- how about navigating by the stars in any kind of boat? rather than just comfort the dying, how about knowing something about handling disease and wounds? i'm sure we can squeeze the emotional support in around the edges.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I've always really hated that quote, above and beyond issues with each of the individual thing, because acquiring skills in all those directions seems to actively preclude the sort of focus that leads to mastery in any of them. Specialisation is for people existing within a context of civilisation.

Re: specialization is for insects

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i don't think it's really an either/or proposition, but then i am a renaissance poisson by preference, and i think civilisation is too thin a veneer for me to trust in it absolutely. besides, there is the fun of acquiring new skills. i am also a neophile. :)

come to think of it, i was pretty specialised as a programmer, and that didn't keep me from doing all the things above, and many more. i don't know that that has hurt civilisation, or myself.

Re: specialization is for insects

[redbird]

It's not how deep civilization is, but how wide: civilization is what lets some of us specialise in building and programming computers, in nursing care, yes in butchering meat animals, rather than all having to be involved in growing/gathering our own food almost every day.

Re: specialization is for insects

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

sure. how much i trust it has a lot more to do with how deep it is than how wide, however. :)

[ailbhe]

Human faeces is only worse than chickenshit if the human is really, really sick, in my experience. I mean, it can be pretty bad, but my chickenshit experiences were *awful*, though more limited than my human shit experiences.

human vs chicken shit

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i shall not now conduct an experiment with a random sample on the street. *shudder*. :)

it's probably just individual variation. though maybe there's a mother thing about the smell of baby poop? some mothers i know seem to have other special baby smell things going, but i never asked about the poop.

Re: human vs chicken shit

[ailbhe]

Well, the incontinent adult with diarrhoea due to "being old" complications, whom we visited while I had morning sickness, wasn't as unpleasant as chicken shit...

But I can definitely recognise the distinct smells of formula-fed versus breastfed baby shit.

[crazed-lynn.livejournal.com]

The list makes a reasonable amount of sense from the perspective of Lazarus Long in his youth. Lazarus Long was a "teacher by metaphor," too. So "butcher a hog" amounts to the same thing as all things farming.

Heinlein was also a product of his times. When i was young, his philosophy worked for me because it was simple and deterministic. There was no room for chaos. His characters early characters tend to believe that anyone not in one's immediate family is a threat at all times. This, too, fit my personal brand of paranoia.

I've recently reread most of Heinlein's work and find that I don't enjoy most of the books anymore. Still, I've taken a few things from him, or, rather, he introduced me to a few things. It is possible to have multiple love relationships. It is possible to change the world with an idea.

And he has convinced me that fighting is never noble. That wasn't his intent, but I cringe when I read about his characters with their shiny chivalry. It is NOT a man's job to protect the women and children.

Yep. I used to love L. Long. And I can barely tolerate the character now.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I've seen people discuss this quote before. If you take it literally, and use that exact list of skills as the measure of a human being, it's pretty silly. If you take it metaphorically, arguing that a human being should be able step up and handle a wide range of tasks if the need comes along, it makes a lot more sense. Our modern society permits considerable specialization, to everyone's benefit, but if we become so used to it that we lose the ability to adapt to new situations by picking up new tasks as they become necessary, we are much diminished.

I ought to re-read some Heinlein. I read everything I could get my hands on (which I think was everything that had been published at the time) by the time I was 20, but since then I've only read the books that he wrote after he got senile, plus For Us, The Living.