Saturday Night Zinn

[marmar]

"I do not like experts. They are our jailers. I despise experts more than anyone on earth.... They solve nothing! They are servants of whatever system hires them. They perpetuate it. When we are tortured, we shall be tortured by experts. When we are hanged, experts will hang us.... When the world is destroyed, it will be destroyed not by its madmen but by the sanity of its experts and the superior ignorance of its bureaucrats..

We are expected to believe that great thinkers-experts-are objective, that they have no axes to grind and no biases, and that they make pure intellectual judgments. However, the minds of all human beings are powerfully influenced (though not totally bound) by their backgrounds, by whether they are rich or poor, male or female, black or white or Asian, in positions of power, or in lowly circumstances. Even scientists making "scientific" observations know that what they see will be affected by their position.

Why should we cherish "objectivity," as if ideas were innocent, as if they don't serve one interest or another? Surely, we want to be objective if that means telling the truth as we see it, not concealing information that may be embarrassing to our point of view. But we don't want to be objective if it means pretending that ideas don't play a part in the social struggles of our time, that we don't take sides in those struggles.

Indeed, it is impossible to be neutral. In a world already moving in certain directions, where wealth and power are already distributed in certain ways, neutrality means accepting the way things are now. It is a world of clashing interests-war against peace, nationalism against internationalism, equality against greed, and democracy against elitism-and it seems to me both impossible and undesirable to be neutral in those conflicts."

-- Howard Zinn, from Declarations of Independence

[babydollhead]

1. thank you!

[upi402]

2. an open mind

is the prime symptom of wisdom

rec'd

[drokhole]

3. Hot damn is that a great quote!!!

I'm a bit weary of experts, so it helps me to think of them "guessperts" - meaning they're just making their best guess based on, like Zinn said, their past experiences, and the best available "objective" information to them at the time (which, as it turns out, is still influenced by and filtered through their past experiences). Some might know a bit more, some might know a bit less, and some may just be bullshitting outright (or partially) for any given reason. But claiming to be an Expert is claiming to know all there is to know on any given matter, and no one can know all there is to know on any given matter (that is one thing I know for sure!). And, when Expert Opinions conflict, how are we to trust one over another? A few quotes I have come across that are personal favorites:

"All experts operate largely on bluff." - Cliff Irving (the guy who wrote the bullshit Howard Hughes biography)

"You become a leading Expert by acting as if everybody else's opinion deserves no attention and never even deserves the courtesy of an answer. A leading Expert knows that he has a bigger audience than any of his critics, so he can afford to bluff. Just keep a straight face and make sure the mass media gives you more coverage than it gives those who try to correct your mis-statements." - Robert Anton Wilson


Orson Welles loved toying with the notion of Experts, and had a great pseudo-documentary about a guy named Elmyr - a notorious art forger whose Picassos rivaled Picasso (and whose work has been deemed to be Picasso's by Art Experts) - called F is for Fakes:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072962/


And, one more quote I enjoy from Robert Anton Wilson (from his book Cosmic Trigger: Volume III - My Life After Death) -

"Experts cannot survive in a world conditioned to 'this looks like a Picasso to me.' Expertese demands 'This is a Picasso!' Experts create the forgers. And, similarly, Expertese cannot survive 'At the present, this looks like unsound science to me;; Expertese demands a flat 'This IS pseudo-scientific and vaporous posturing and its inventor IS a shaman, a guru and a notorious crank.'"


Also, thanks a ton for Zinn's quote - hadn't seen it before, and love his insight. Bookmarking this thread.

[Taverner]

4. I don't know - there is something to be said for excellence