Suffering under expertism
There are many demonstrably smart people whose intelligence is overrated.
I’ve complained about “stupid smart people” for years: people with apparently “high IQ’s” (whatever IQ is — and measurements of general intelligence should be the subject for another rant) who are generally highly successful in their technical areas, but who are unable to relate well to people outside of their areas, who are skilled at employing logical reasoning but unable to operate in the region outside of logic where much of living happens.
We suffer greatly under experts. When we benefit from expertise (which we frequently do — I don’t contest that), the expert is usually a specialist in a narrow domain. The problem is when such a specialist believes (assumes?) his (why do I write ‘his’? Hmmm…) expertise transcends that narrow domain.
Expertism is the ill-placed confidence in experts who think their expertise extends beyond its actual boundaries. Hubris.
Sometimes, this ‘ill-placed confidence’ is placed by the experts onto themselves, and then it just rubs off on credulous people around them. You may be able to think of examples.
Lin Yutang, in The Importance of Living, has a little to say that puts the lie to these wayward experts:
[T]o proceed from the knowledge of books to the knowledge of life, mere thinking or cogitation is not enough; one has to feel one’s way about — to sense things as they are and to get a correct impression of the myriad things in human life and human nature not as unrelated parts, but as a whole.
In this matter of feeling about life and of gaining experience, all our senses cooperate, and it is through the cooperation of the senses, and of the heart with the head, that we can have intellectual warmth.
Intellectual warmth, after all, is the thing, for it is the sign of life, like the color of green in a plant. We detect life in one’s thought by its presence or absence of warmth, as we detect life in a half dried-up tree struggling after some unfortunate accident, by noting the greenness of its leaves and the moisture and healthy texture of its fiber. (139)
“Intellectual warmth” “Life in one’s thought” — I imagine there are many people who would consider such formulations besides the point, irrelevant, not worth regarding. I find them life-saving.
January 13th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Ok, so when are we starting our own university? UofIW (University of Intellectual Warmth).
I think there is a lot of societal pressure to be an “expert.” We depend on these “experts” for trial evidence, scientific data, documentaries, etc..
I don’t think it always stems from hubris (or perhaps the hubris is a direct result of low self-esteem). A certain close relative feels she needs to be an expert on everything, but it is clear when we’ve reached a topic outside her “expertise” because she changes the subject. I can see that there are people who feel the need to convince the rest of the world that they are learned. But those who really truly know, I think, don’t have to broadcast it. If one looks at the wisest teachers, there most often seems to be a humility that accompanies it.