Interdisciplinary Learning
Stumbled across this book the other day as the author was a guest on a podcast I listened to. Hagstrom is an interesting guy. He talked (and writes about) drawing on the wide range of liberal arts education subjects to better understand the world and investing. The author includes physics, biology, economics among others and, on the podcast, he also talked up Art Appreciation.
I wish I had taken Art Appreciation back in the mid 70s when I was in college. I remember students working hard to commit to memory a vast number of different paintings. It looked a bit grueling, based on what I heard them say.
As far back as then, there was a debate about whether St. Lawrence University should continue as a liberal arts school or whether there should be a greater emphasis on “salable skills.”
While a broad liberal arts education may not be so much in vogue today, it seems the world still needs people who know something about a lot of different things. Connections can be made between disciplines and this is helpful in lots of different contexts.
On the morning of this writing, Warren Buffett dropped the 2022 Berkshire Hathaway annual report, always a fun and interesting read. Buffett’s partner, Charlie Munger, has some of his thoughts featured as well. Both of these fellows are believers in reading widely and that doing this consistently results in an increasing, exponentially growing worldly wisdom that keeps people learning and getting smarter over time.
Hagstrom’s book isn’t lengthy. You can get through it in an evening. Reading it will light up your brain and you’ll find yourself making some connections you hadn’t previously pondered.
There have been many recent extreme examples of what happens when there is a serious failure of the capacity to engage in critical thinking. The approach taken by Buffett, Munger and (in this case) Hagstrom is the only approach I’m aware of to minimize them and lessen their occurrence going forward.