Solitude and Leadership was an enjoyably comprehensive and intuitive speech given in regards to the correlation between isolation and unique thought that can be transferred to the benefits of humanity. While I found most of it to be insightful, sensitive and well articulated, I found myself feeling a bit skeptical as to how pragmatic or fool-proof this system was. A key argument is that we should learn to think for ourselves by reading and isolating ourselves, but these can have unintended consequences in practical application.
One issue that I had was the concepts of books as isolated knowledge. A book, while often more educated and peer reviewed, is still at the root of it, an opinion. Books are also limited to their socio-political conditioning and prevailing ideologies; even the concept of who gets published arguably adheres to a classist and racist institution. When looking through history, there is a habit of certain people (generally not white males) slipping through the cracks of what is considered intellectually relevant. While I believe books are a lot better than the internet, there are certain draw backs to simply reading "old dead white guy" literature.
Additionally, there are limits to what solitude can do. Heart of Darkness is used as an example to bolster the argument that solitude is an important part of contributing to mankind, but also shows the contrary. While Marlowe finds himself discusted with the system and is able to think critically about empirialism, there is still the issue that Kurtz was also isolated, and became an incredibly dark and hedonistic entity. This shows a bit of ethical ambiguity, which isn't something that would benefit a large group of military officers. Sometimes, an inherently selfish human being in isolation is only going to keep them in a state of unquestioned authority. One way of examining this particular interpretation of Conrad's work is that it's idealistic and assumes mankind is inherently altruistic.
