Remember Soupy Sales? One of his side kicks was White Fang. White Fang was some mysterious, off camera animal, sometimes referred to as a dog, that was always telling Soupy what was what. All you ever saw was a paw and part of an arm. He was a modern day expert, made so by the fact that you could never understand a thing he said.
We are being run by experts. That is not a compliment. Experts, by necessity, are limited in their area of expertise. Remember when you had someone you called the Family Doctor. They were everywhere. They had their own offices and I hear they even made house calls. They would get to know you and treat whatever ailed you. Then we went to the GP, or general practitioner. That is where I came into the picture. They often had their own office. Now we go to see our Primary Care Physician. He is usually working in a clinic or a suite disguised to not look like a clinic. When we first came to Texas we had a new doctor every year because they kept moving on. They would refer us to the experts.
If I am bored I will see my Primary Care Physician once a year. I see a cardiologist, my eye doctor, and a podiatrist. I see my Dermatologist at least twice. I also have an orthopedic team and a guy who looks at my colon. Since my diabetes is under control I don’t have an endocrinologist. They are all experts. No one looks at the complete picture except the PCP and that is to pass me on to someone else.
Pascal had some thoughts on this situation.
“Since we cannot be universal and know all that is to be known of everything, we ought to know a little about everything. For it is far better to know something about everything than to know all about one thing. This universality is the best.” Kindle location 421-22I don’t mind having a guy who specializes in brakes work on my brakes but I really want someone who has a feel for the whole picture to tell me the problem is the brakes.
We have experts advising us on all the hot issues of the day from Kabul to CO2. The problem is that they don’t know much outside their field. An even bigger problem is that they got their position because of affirmative action and a college degree that was awarded the same way. I now how it works. I was credentialed to teach science in high school and had not had a science class since my freshman year of college, but I test well.
Beware of experts. It is possible that the common sense of your grandmother is of more use than Dr. Fauci when it comes to getting well. In fact, I can almost guarantee it.
Pascal, Blaise. Pensees. Project Gutenberg.
homo unius libri
When I worked in the oil business, we were told that the main source of "experts" in our field was Houston. Shortly after that, a professor emeritus from an East Coast university explained the derivation of that term thusly - "'Ex' refers to an unknown, and 'spert' is a drip under pressure." He then proceeded to lead us through a proper Latin definition of "emeritus" - 'E' means out, and 'meritus' means he deserved it.
ReplyDeleteAnd homo unius libri means man of one book.
DeleteGrace and peace