The Dilettante and the Generalist
By Daniel Rigney
Imaginary questions continue to pour into my electronic mailbag. Today I received this thoughtful question from an inquiring mind: What is the difference between a dilettante and a generalist?
The difference lies less in the labels than in the labeler.
Briefly, a dilettante is a person who has an amateur interest in diverse areas of knowledge, from the arts and politics to science and technology, and is driven by natural curiosity to learn more about them, even at the risk of being less than expert in any of them. The dilettante continually explores unfamiliar fields and tries to connect dots of knowledge in the naïve and unattainable hope of seeing the world whole. The dilettante would rather know something about everything than everything about something.
A generalist, by contrast, is a person who has an amateur interest in diverse areas of knowledge, from the arts and politics to science and technology, and is driven by natural curiosity to learn more about them, even at the risk of being less than expert in any of them. The generalist continually explores unfamiliar fields and tries to connect dots of knowledge in the naïve and unattainable hope of seeing the world whole. The generalist would rather know something about everything than everything about something.
See also liberal education.
I hope this clears things up.
By Daniel Rigney
Imaginary questions continue to pour into my electronic mailbag. Today I received this thoughtful question from an inquiring mind: What is the difference between a dilettante and a generalist?
The difference lies less in the labels than in the labeler.
Briefly, a dilettante is a person who has an amateur interest in diverse areas of knowledge, from the arts and politics to science and technology, and is driven by natural curiosity to learn more about them, even at the risk of being less than expert in any of them. The dilettante continually explores unfamiliar fields and tries to connect dots of knowledge in the naïve and unattainable hope of seeing the world whole. The dilettante would rather know something about everything than everything about something.
A generalist, by contrast, is a person who has an amateur interest in diverse areas of knowledge, from the arts and politics to science and technology, and is driven by natural curiosity to learn more about them, even at the risk of being less than expert in any of them. The generalist continually explores unfamiliar fields and tries to connect dots of knowledge in the naïve and unattainable hope of seeing the world whole. The generalist would rather know something about everything than everything about something.
See also liberal education.
I hope this clears things up.
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