Is There a Synthesizing Culture…And Should There Be?

© Howard Gardner 2024

In pondering the fate of Western Europe at this delicate time, historian Timothy Garton Ash made an offhand comment—one that caught my attention: To the noted sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf (1929-2009), Ash attributed the claim that the German population (people) has a predilection, a preference for synthesis and synthesizing.

Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf, Baron Dahrendorf 1929 – 2009

I’ve been unable to verify this claim but I have been intrigued by it. Indeed, since publishing a memoir A Synthesizing Mind in 2020, I have been intrigued—perhaps even obsessed—with the nature and functioning of synthesis. I’ve pondered what synthesizing is; how it can be developed; whether—in this age of intelligent machines and powerful programs—we should seek to educate more and better synthesizers, or whether this skill is better consigned to the garbage bin or allocated to ChatGPT4 and its presumably ever-more-capable successors.

But throughout I’ve assumed—perhaps without due reflection—that the synthesizing capacity, or even the synthesizing gene, has been spread quite evenly across cultures. Perhaps that’s not the case! Indeed, perhaps certain cultures—or, more precisely, certain educational milieus—have leaned, skewed toward the valuing and development of synthesizing capacities; while others (of presumptively equal prominence and distinction) have been leery of—or indifferent to—synthesizing.

To make this speculation a bit more grounded: We might think of Anglo and Anglo-American cultures as skewed toward what is more specific, particular, empirical; and, accordingly, skeptical of grand, sweeping claims (the writings of philosopher David Hume pop to mind). Or, to switch hemispheres, we might think of Japanese culture as oscillating between highly detailed artistry, with an occasional touch of imperial grandiosity—as anthropologist Ruth Benedict memorably expressed it “the chrysanthemum and the sword.” Or we might think of French Cartesian culture as emphasizing the logical, the rational, the deductive facets of cognition.

Whether any of these “cultural characterizations” could withstand scrutiny is a challenging issue—we could adduce evidence from examples and argument. Or perhaps we could actually carry out empirical studies—counting words, phrases that connect (or contrast), images, titles, illustrations—whatever would lend itself to enumeration and to statistical manipulation.

But at least for the sake of argument, and bearing in mind the length and finitude of a blog post, I am going to assume that Dahrendorf’s claim—as put forth by Timothy Garton Ash—has at least a grain of truth to it. And building on that assumption, I offer some educational speculations and a tentative evaluation.

In every culture that includes formal education, certain key texts, models, artifacts are particularly valued (even as presumably comparable ones may be relatively ignored, minimized, even dismissed). German culture does well on broad synthesis—in philosophy, there is work of Immanuel Kant and of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (who wrote specifically about thesis, antithesis and synthesis); in history, the sweeping scope of Oswald Spenglers’ text: and, more recently, Jürgen Habermas’ “Public Sphere”; in literature, there is the writing of Goethe and, in more recent times, Thomas Mann (particularly The Magic Mountain) and Guenther Grass (I have mind The Tin Drum). And notably in classical music—Beethoven’s heroic works, and Richard Wagner’s all-consuming mythic sagas. Indeed: when I utter the word “miniatures,” Germany does not spring to mind…

A student living in a culture with such valorization is likely to feel the “pull” toward synthesizing. As Henry Kissinger, a prototypical synthesizer, allegedly quipped,

“At the end of five or six minutes of speaking, I have not yet come to the end of the first sentence.”

However, what is valued is not necessarily the same as what is taught, educated, nurtured. And here I invoke a name that should be far better known, Kurt Hahn (1886-1974). Born and educated in Germany, Hahn was an early victim of anti-Jewish sentiments—and so he moved initially to England, then to Scotland. He is arguably the most influential secondary school educator in the Western world—the principal architect of the International Baccalaureate and the United World College systems—both of these initiatives are now pursued around the world.

Kurt Hahn CBE (1886 – 1974)

What’s most distinctive about the regimen of Hahn-inspired Schools? In my view it’s the culminating or capstone course—Theory of Knowledge (usually abbreviated as TOK). This course entails an explicit effort toward integrating knowledge from different disciplines and perspectives—and accordingly away from pursuit of separate lines of inquiry, an excessive focus on specific facts and figures, an ignoring or even discouraging of making connections, links, grand statements, surmises, and summaries. Perhaps not surprisingly, TOK appears to be most resisted in societies (East as well as West) that are suspicious of leaving the specifics of particular instances and instead striving toward or embracing more conspectuses of knowledge… in the Germanic /Teutonic tradition, as I’ve argued here.

As we move into the middle years of the 21st century, advocates of synthesizing (and that describes me) will face a challenge. Should they—should we—continue to nurture and valorize synthesis? Should we allocate that capacity to machines — algorithms, programs, large language instruments —that are purportedly more capable than we are? Should we be suspicious of such all-encompassing approaches and ideologies, which may have inspired some to great achievements, but also led to dangerous efforts to encompass too much, and thus to snuff out competing, more analytic, more empirical, more modest slants and stances? (Note that after the disastrous Nazi era and the defeat in World War II, German culture has deliberately lowered its once grandiose aspirations.) Or, as I would hope, can we have the best of both worlds—keen analyses, equally keen syntheses?

Allow me to trot out one more example; Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) was arguably the most important sociologist in mid 20th century America. Born in Colorado, he received his doctoral training in Germany and put forth a highly ambitious intellectual synthesis—The Structure of Social Action (1937). In a prototypical Teutonic effort to link separate theoretical frameworks, Parsons sought to synthesize the works of Karl Marx, Max Weber (both German), Emile Durkheim (French), Vilfredo Pareto (Italian), and Alfred Marshall (English). But highly empirically-oriented American trained sociologists could never accept—or perhaps even grasp—the sweep, the grandiosity of the Parsonian synthesizing enterprise. Robert Merton, (1910-2003)— the most brilliant and influential of Parsons’ students—put forth the compromise which eventually received a place of honor, “theories of the middle range”.

In the period ahead, it will be intriguing to observe the scholarly, political, and public, pendulum swing back and forth between analysis and synthesis—or perhaps veer off in an unanticipated directions.

References

Ash, T. G. (2024, May 23). Big Germany: What now?. The New York Review, May 23 2024 issue, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/05/23/big-germany-what-now-timothy-garton-ash/?

Gardner, H. (2020). A Synthesizing Mind : a memoir from the creator of multiple intelligences theory. The MIT Press.

Merton, R. K. (1968). Social Theory and Social Structure (1968 enl. ed.). Free Press.

Parsons, T. (1967). The Structure of Social Action :A study in social theory with special reference to a group of recent European writers (2d ed.). Free Press ; Collier-MacMillan.

Weingart, P. (1969). Beyond Parsons? A critique of Ralf Dahrendorf’s conflict theory. Social Forces, 48(2), 151–165.