The Specialized Society : The Plight of the Individual in an Age of Individualism

This book offers a broad-based critical examination of the consequences—moral, psychological, sociological, educational, and economic—of increasing specialization in today's world. According to the author, we have now reached a stage where the education and professional work of both elite and non-elite groups are so narrowly focused as to diminish both the individual and society. The development of the complete individual has given way to the development of a complete collective, made up of narrowly focused, fragmented individuals. And educators—the very people who should be able to lead us out of this path of increasing specalization—have themselves fallen victim, unable to function outside their own specialized areas of expertise. This controversial work will be of interest to scholars and students in social psychology, philosophy, educational foundations, economics, Third World development, and business—in short, to all thinking members of modern society.