Roadmap To Knowledge

            In our sophisticated world, specialization is a must. It makes us better professionals and gives us an edge in the job market. But specialization has a downside. It narrows the boundaries of our knowledge. We end up knowing a lot about a very little. Charlie Chaplin knew that. In his famous movie, “Modern Times”, he pointed out that specialized knowledge had a hidden danger. It could change us into blind cogs on a wheel - each of us doing something - maybe doing it very well - but not knowing what we are doing it for. No matter what we do, we need to remain human in doing it.

On the other hand, knowledge has grown so much in the late 20^th century that our minds run the risk of getting lost in the jungle of facts. The many trees can stop us from seeing the forest.

Living in the early 21^st century is like walking in an immense shopping mall without a reference map. We can get no idea of the overall layout; and worse, we cannot locate ourselves in this gorgeous, gleaming chaos of labyrinths.

Wouldn’t we be happy to find, at last, a directory panel - one that shows us the overall plan of the mall; and with it, the arrow pointing out: “You are here.”

That’s exactly what my “Roadmap to Knowledge”© aims to be. It’s meant to be a directory panel, showing the overview of modern knowledge and culture, and an arrow saying, “You are here.”

Specialization and the huge scope of modern knowledge make being a modern-day Plato, Aristotle, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci or Pascal seem like an impossible dream. Who has the time to read through, let alone deepen and memorize, the whole Encyclopedia Britannica?

I’ve designed my “Roadmap to Knowledge”© to overcome this difficulty for every person who prizes the intellectual life. It offers you an organic overview, an aerial snapshot of the peaks of human achievement that surround you in time and space.  With these you can orient yourself.

Nature abhors a vacuum. In the same way, our intelligence abhors disorder.  My “Roadmap to Knowledge”© will outline the framework of human civilization.  It will show where every human achievement, every bit of knowledge, every fact, and even every fiction, falls into its place.

Intelligence is defined as the perception of the relationships between things. My “Roadmap to Knowledge”© offers an easy way to be “intelligent”, to perceive the relationships between things - and without great toil, without great pain. In the modern world we are like pilots flying our planes in formation. We need to know exactly what we’re doing, but we also need to keep an eye on what the rest of the world is doing. If we do that, the work we can do together can be breathtaking.  Otherwise, we’ll crash.

A few years ago, a young man from California named Tony Robbins aroused an enthusiastic hurrah for his seminar on “Personal Power.” Mr. Robbins teaches people how to use one of their master mental faculties, willpower: how to make decisions, how to take consistent actions to achieve their goals, and how to change their lives. Very good, and bravo Mr. Robbins! But please don’t forget that good decisions and good judgement depend on good knowledge and information.

The “Roadmap to Knowledge”© wishes to offer you a touch of general culture, the dream of every Gentleman of the Renaissance - an insight into the whole of things and into how all knowledge fits together.

            The joy of study is an austere joy, like the joy that comes from climbing a mountain.  Because study is like scaling a mental mountain.  From the heights you have reached, climbing above your own ignorance and resistance, gazing reflectively on the vast scene of human knowledge spread out below you: what a thrill!