Experts and Amateurs

I have read several blog posts lately discussing “The Cult of the Amateur.” It seems someone wrote a book by that title claiming the web and blogs are killing our culture. Not to be blogging on a blog of a blogged book report about blogging, but…..

I do believe in listening to the experts. Very much so. I just define “expert” differently others do.

I don’t think the 20 something kid who just spent eight years in a classroom surrounded by other adults listening to some ancient professor drone on about child rearing theories is an expert even if he does have a pretty paper on the wall. I think my mother who successfully raised two children to be strong, dependable citizens and who has counseled many other parents in their child rearing is far more of an expert.

I think the midwife who has delivered 20 babies and participated in almost 100 births in many ways, from onset of labor until baby is days old, BEFORE she was allowed to be certified (20 years and 200 babies ago) is far more of an expert in NORMAL childbirth than an OB who has seen few if any natural, un-intervened births in his entire carrier, and is only actually present to “catch” the baby, not during the hours before. (OBs are actually trained in problems, not normal births. For problems, they ARE the experts. That is why midwives send problem pregnancies to them.)

I think the mom who has spent years worth of time researching different educational methods and examining resources of all kinds for her own family as well as brainstorming with her friends for theirs, is more of an expert on tutoring individual children in her own influence than a teacher who spent his education learning the one view point presented in colleges and has no time to research once he is in a classroom (wouldn’t do any good anyway since he is limited to state approved methods and resources), and most especially not some administrator or union rep who hasn’t seen a live kid in years.

I think the kiddo who has just spent years in a classroom being told what Luther and Calvin believed the Bible says is not nearly the expert on the Bible that my father who has spent the last forty years with his nose in The Book is.

You see, I believe the people who are actually living IT are far more knowledgeable than someone who has learned IT from a teacher or a book. Those who are set up as experts often don’t really know what they are talking about. It is an unfortunate thing that so many people over the last hundred years have tossed common sense out the window and listened to people whose only qualification is that they could stand to sit in a college classroom for four to eight years.

The fact is that no matter what your qualifications, no one would hear you if you didn’t agree with the media. They controlled what books got published, movies made, TV shows produced, the text of the evening news, content of the newspaper, even the words to the songs we hear. And they all agree! Ask them. The American media, by its own confession, is 80% liberal (socialist), atheist, and evolutionist. And that is the only view point presented over the last hundred years with any shred of validity.

The internet is giving the common man back his voice. Anyone can put out their ideas and they will be debated and ultimately judged on their own merits, not their media’s opinion. In fact, modern technology has opened up the door for the common man to have a voice in all areas of media.

The era of the “expert” is over. It is time for common sense to prevail.