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> A "Renaissance person" is not a self-educated generalist > an old person who has had diverse interests and the motivation and the opportunities to pursue the
by from-nibly 2y ago
> A "Renaissance person" is not a self-educated generalist
> an old person who has had diverse interests and the motivation and the opportunities to pursue them.
How is that not the same thing? The only difference is that you added that they had to be old.
- jltsiren 2y agoFirst, because the "self-educated" part is irrelevant here. But more importantly, the difference is in the degree. Generalism is a matter of interests and focus. A Renaissance person is an ideal and an outcome. The Renaissance ideal was that elite men should strive to be good at everything they do. In the recent history, the people who have been called Renaissance men were typically at the top of their fields, with significant accomplishments in other fields. And those accomplishments take time.