Mmmm, more pedanticism coming your way...
As for having my philosophers and psychologists having qualifications, I have a friend who would rather have the poets. I won't argue with him but I won't agree completely either. I agree with your sentiments as well. Much of philosophy and psychology, etc, is just footnotes to the poets. When I say poets I enclude drama as well, of course.
Am I being pedantic? I apologize. I'm enjoying all your inputs.
Regards.
In some ways I think it kind of boils down to a debate between science and art (or humanities). It seems, at least in popular opinion, that science is the realm of the professional, whereas art is the realm of the amateur. "Anyone" can do art, but to do science, you must be able to verify your findings, repeat them, and have them peer reviewed. I think this is a dangerous line of thinking because it invalidates the arts and humanities and subjects them to the wishy-washy whims of the ignorant (not stupid, just uninformed) masses. Sorry to keep talking about my wife, but she has to deal with this constantly in her classes. She teaches gen-ed lit, which is a non-majors course, and always has students try to pass off opinions as critical thought. Someone will say that they don't like the book or story because it was stupid or that they couldn't get into it. These are not valid criticisms, or at least not valid criticisms in a college course. You wouldn't refuse to do a lab in biology class because you couldn't get into it or thought it was stupid (well, okay maybe some people will refuse to do it because they think it's stupid), so why do people think that these are acceptable criticisms in the humanities. I struggled with this as a religion major all through college. Though I no doubt knew more about religion than most people who weren't studying it, my deeper level of knowledge was irrelevant in the face of their personal faith. It didn't matter that I "knew" more, because people were still going to believe what ever they wanted to believe. I recognize that some of that frustration was born out of a personal desire to see my studies as worthwhile in some tangible way.
Sorry, I'm rambling, I'll get to my point. I think that with the advent of youtube, blogs, celebrity advice books, and wikipedia, we are democratizing knowledge and expertise. To a certain extent this is a wonderful thing, but the negative aspects of this movement are frightening. In a world where everyone's opinion is given equal weight, how do we know who to trust. For example, there is an ever growing group of parents who are refusing to inoculate their children because they are afraid that these shots trigger autism. Doctors and members of the medical community deny this connection and claim that there is no conclusive evidence to prove it. Do you know where a lot of these parents are getting these ideas? From a book by Jenny McCarthy. That's right. Playboy bunny and MTV personality Jenny McCarthy. Why are we more willing to trust a person, who as far as I can tell, can't walk and chew gum at the same time, over people who have spent years studying working in a field? Not that we shouldn't be skeptical and critical of practices that have become commonplace, but I see a terrifying willingness to believe someone who is grossly unqualified over people who are. I am worried what our society will look like in 20 years when people my age are making the decisions. Maybe I'm overly cynical (which is always a possibility
) but I see the rise of amateurs and the death of experts as a dangerous paradigm shift.
Then again, that's just my opinion.
