"Not My field" Are We Over Experted?

It was at a dinner in New York City some years ago. Nor sure of the occasion. There were about 8-10 of us around a dinner table. There was an ongoing conversation about a variety of world problems including Israeli, the Balkans and the Bush administration. Amongst the guests was an Editor for one of the New York Times sections. As we talked around the Balkans I asked the Times guy his opinion re. the Kosovo problem. He thought for a moment, replied “Thats not my field.” I said, “well, it’s not mine either but that doesn’t say I can’t have an opinion.” That went over like a dead mackerel. Somebody hastened to explain that his job was “editing. We just went on to something else. That statement, “That’s not my field” has really haunted me.

Here was a pretty smart guy working for the Times at a very informal dinner who could not express an opinion because it wasn’t “his field.” I thought is this where the experteeism of TV brought us? All those pundits who are endlessly explaining to all us dunderheads what is going on in the world. Supposedly the TV pundits are experts in the politics of Washington. Of course that primarily has to do with “hot air” or better still very heavy doses of bullshit. Being an expert in that stuff is relatively easy as one doesn’t have to know much about anything except perhaps gossip
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A few nights ago I was treated to a good example of where that expertism has gotten us. Charlie Rose had an interesting group of people responding to Obam’s speech on the “oil crisis in the Gulf.” There was Al Hunt, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mark Halpren. Kevin Sheekly, James Leilman John Hoffmiester and maybe a few others. These are people who I like to think are a cut above the usual blowhards that give opinions following a Presidential talk. It’s a sort of a report card that tells us how we should score the speech.

Here’s what got me thinking. John Hoffmiester is the former CEO of Shell Oil. Of all the folks in that world, I have often found him a cut above the rest, in his ability to understand our love affair with oil. In the course of discussing the consequences of the Gulf oil spill he says. I’m paraphrasing.” Yes there are many ways to use oil tankers to scoop up that oil that is contaminating the Gulf. A major problem is the Jones Act. But the President can get around that.” I jump out of the chair as I am anxious to hear what he has to say. (Remember I wrote a blog about this very subject a few weeks back,)

I did not believe it then and as I write this I don’t believe it now but not one of that group of ostensibly smart people stopped Hoffmiester in his tracks to say, “yes tell us how does the President get to do that?” No, you see that was a technical issue and that was just another example of “thats not my field.” Those folks sitting around Charlie’s table don’t know beans from sauerkraut about how ships with vacuum suction ability could scoop up millions of gallons of that oil before it left the water. But it wasn’t their field. This is how the disease of expertism is effecting everything we are trying to do that might get us out of the dependence on oil rut that we have been stuck in for decades.

If you look at what is going on right now in the Gulf you would see a lot of local folks doing their best to clean up the oil. That’s the gap I have been complaining about. There just don’t seem to be anybody in that White House crowd who have a clue as to how one goes about getting the technology required to begin to deal with the mess. Even when some Middle Eastern folks offered to help there was no one smart enough about technology to say, “yes tell us how do we do this?”

We are in critical need of people who are able to think across specialized fields because we live in a complex world. It’s a world in which technology, morality and simply to know what to do will constantly cross our decision making paths. With an absence of some rudimentary knowledge of technology we are the blind leading the illiterate. A recipe for disaster in a world hurdling into the era where technology is king.