We Are in Need of Renaissance People By Victor Davis Hanson

[mystery-ak]

We Are in Need of Renaissance People › American Greatness
Victor Davis Hanson


The songwriter, actor, country/western singer, musician, U.S. Army veteran, helicopter pilot, accomplished rugby player and boxer, Rhodes scholar, Pomona College and University of Oxford degreed, and summa cum laude literature graduate, Kris Kristofferson, recently died at 88.

Americans may have known him best for writing smash hits like “Me and Bobby McGee” and “For the Good Times,” his wide-ranging, star-acting roles in A Star is Born and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, his numerous solo albums, especially with then-spouse and singer Rita Coolidge, and the country group super-quartet he formed with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.

In other words, Kristofferson was a rare Renaissance man who could do it all in an age of increasingly narrow specialization and expertise.

At certain times throughout history at particular locales, we have seen such singular people from all walks of life.

more
https://amgreatness.com/2024/10/07/we-are-in-need-of-renaissance-people/

[mountaineer]

... We have created a sophisticated modern society that is so compartmentalized by “professionals” and the credentialed that those who excel simultaneously in several disciplines are often castigated for “amateurism,” “spreading themselves too thinly,” “not staying in their lanes,” or not being degreed with the proper prerequisite letters—BA, BS, MA, PhD, MD, JD, or MBA—in the various fields that they master.

But specialization is the enemy of genius, as is the tyranny of credentialism. ...

I don't see how renaissance men (or women) can come out of America's current crap educational system. Even the specialities like science and medicine are watered down and imbued with DEI stupidity, to the point of teaching utter falsehood as fact. The result is that children learn nothing. As this person posted yesterday to X:

Jeremy Wayne Tate
@JeremyTate41
Imagine trying to explain modern education to any of America’s founders.

Founder: You have classical languages?
Nope
Founder: Civics?
Nope
Founder: What about Philosophy and Religion?
Ha, no
Founder: Penmanship, classical literature?
Have you heard of Diary of a Wimpy Kid?
Founder: What about super basic stuff? Stuff like cursive?
Nope, even kids at Harvard can’t read cursive. We do “skills” bro. Nobody knows what we mean by skills but it only costs us 50 billion a year so we go hard.

Or see this 2022 article in The Atlantic: Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive; How will they interpret the past?

[Smokin Joe]

I think there are quite a few renaissance men left (and some women, too) but they are comfortable with a wrench in their hand (mechanics), planting a garden (agronomy), canning (a little bit chemistry), fixing a busted pipe, etc. as well as some more esoteric profession or passion(s). Will they ever get credit for that?
Unlikely, but most read compulsively, learn all they can about all they can, and often tackle tasks that would have others reaching for the phone (after doing the appropriate research, of course).
They also don't rely on credentials (even  if they have them) and as such can speak with virtually anyone who is willing, always scrounging tidbits of practical knowledge with the full understanding that everyone knows more about some thing, no matter how infinitesimal, than they do, and that they can add to their own bag of tricks if they just listen.