From Seduction of the Spirit
I used to try to "keep abreast" of the books and articles in my "field." Then I dropped back to "keeping abreast" of the reviews of the books and the titles of the articles. Now even that seems like too much. But then I have always been a secret sinner against the orthodoxy of specialization, even falling into transgressions as a graduate student when presumably I should have been exploiting every moment to prepare for my comprehensive exams. I was weak. I simply could not prevent myself, while walking through the massive alluring stacks of Widener Library in search of a book in my field, from stealing side-long glances at the titles in a section I happened to be walking past. Venial turned to mortal sin as I first stopped, made sure no one was watching, then reached out for a book far afield from any exam I would ever face, to squander sometimes a whole hour or two on it. I now confess that there were more than one of these secret trysts; that I loitered, dallied and frittered many such afternoons away — and that the books I stealthily savored were drawn from such a chaotic variety of stacks and floors that no one could possibly relate them to any one "discipline." These were flagrantly undisciplined acts of impulsive self-indulgence. But I do not recant....
The sentiments [against specialization] are not those of mere intellectual vagabonds growing up to be dilettantes.... The specialist is also inimical to free society — nurturing tunnel vision and "I only followed orders."
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