Curious about this

[lapsedmodernist]

I am taking a brief break from packing for Berlin. Livejournal, a question came into my mind. Depending on what your profession is, what is the form that "lay [incorrect] expertise" takes with regard to it? Like, and I've written about this before, but there is this specific discourse of "lay anthropology" that is seizure-inducing. Usually it involves a broad generalization about "primitive people" or "an African tribe" (that usually goes unnamed; if [on a rare occasion] it is named, it is generally the Maasai, whether or not the attributed behavior has anything to do with the Maasai or not. Usually this un-knowledge is wielded in support of whatever [generally Western privileged] behavior the speaker is seeking to universalize/naturalize, like (one example) the extreme, fetishistic version of attachment parenting. And these are not even teachable moments, because most of the time you can't get these people to reflect on their assumptions, because these assumptions are just symbolic expressions of their subjective emotions, masquerading as factual narratives. I can correct factual narratives; I can't do much with deep-rooted investment in primitivism, that goldmine of emotional validation for a very specific subset of the general population.

Anyway, I feel like I have a sense of what shape this sort of annoyance must take for doctors (what with THE INTERNET!) and for therapists--but what about other professions? What is your profession, and do people outside it casually claim expertise in an ignorant way that drives you craz?

Comments

reposting AGAIN to fix html (this time I mean it)

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

History! Historians suffer horribly. US historians have to hear idiotic stuff about the Civil War ("it didn't have anything to do with slavery, really" and German historians have to hear all about Nazis and the Holocaust ("Hitler was a vegetarian, you know") and Latin Americanists have to hear crazy-ass shit about the Mayans, also sometimes the Aztecs and the Incas ("ancient astronauts" and worse) and all of us have to hear about how it was everyone's least favorite high school class, which I say serves everyone right for being such ignorant dumb-fucks.

Er. You may have touched a nerve.

Re: reposting AGAIN to fix html (this time I mean it)

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I was a Latin Americanist. I feel that pain. The other side of the civil war question is the people who think it was about nothing other than slavery. You can easily guess the regional origin of both sides of that coin. :)

[msmsgirl.livejournal.com]

ooooooooh, English lit. folks will have a lot to say on this one, too. Everyone reads novels. More charitably phrased, actually: literature is enjoyed by so many people and is such a popular form of entertainment -- and one that connects to the personal, and to emotive, subjective experiences in such an obvious way. Even leaving out the confusion about English language/grammar v. English literature (this is very common when I go back home, the people who are like "I hated English! I had this mean old bitch teacher who made me diagram sentences!"), the role literature plays in popular culture creates several different kinds of lay-knowledge issues.

Lots of people who assume that what we do is evaluate the merit and/or capital of various works of literature, like the objective of the profession is to SET and FINALIZE a canon of "good" works of literature (interestingly, this was actually one of the formative aims of the discipline. they're not totally wrong, just like 80 years off). They either try to impress you by disparaging some piece/genre of popular/mass literature because they think an expert opinion would be that it's "not good," or collar you to contest what they see as an expert evaluation that something is "good"... or just the ones who rhapsodize about how good Shakespeare is...

Relatedly, people have a lot anxious anti-expert, anti-intellectual beliefs about the study of literature because of reading being such a personal and subjective experience-- so there are the people who feel that what we do is a threat to the pleasure and autonomy of reading itself. This manifests as an "I liked this book so whatever I say about it is as valid as anything anyone else says about it" attitude; and, more perniciously, especially in these conservative times, the belief that we "take the joy out of reading" or "tell people what to think about the books they read" or "use the pure, innocent experience of reading to push our evil feminist/marxist/gay/etc... agenda." This bleeds kind of seamlessly into the bottomless well of animosity towards academia as a whole, especially any kind of politically-motivated or culturally-engaged academia: the anti-theory trip and all that ("I don't believe in POSTMODERNISM, it's all bullshit!")

I am actually almost always crazy-interested to hear what individual readers thought about books that they actually read. If I have had one conversation about _The Help_ with my friends' moms from the Northeast this summer I have had 5. If it can be contained within the realm of actual works of literature that people have actually read, I find lay knowledge to be a really cool source of ideas.

For example, people are, unsurprisingly, really interested in authors, authorial intent, and authors' biographies. They are usually disappointed that I don't know very much about authors. But I think biographical criticism is degraded and irrelevant within our profession in a way that is kind of interesting, so sometimes it's food for thought.

The problem is when it comes to light that a lot of what I do is also about narratives of history and culture that a lot of people have big problems with. It is widely suspected that I just go through history calling everybody gay. Everyone has an extremely strong opinion as to whether or not Shakespeare was gay!

I was at a dinner party the other night and mentioned, when those _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_ books came up, that I had browsed through the first one in the airport and read the first 20 pages in a flash, I found the style so engaging. This 22-year-old little Russian immigrant girl who just graduated from Columbia (sigh) announced "I DON'T READ paperbacks." I was like "oh, you can get this in hardcover!" :) She was like "I meant, I DON'T READ CHEAP literature!" She then announced that the Harry Potter books were "PERFECT" and "FLAWLESS," the standard by which all literature should be judged. I kind of wanted to die.

[cos]

I don't know that I have a specific profession, it's been a collection of them and several overlaps... but for the question you're asking, one clearly stands out: electoral politics / campaigns. It'd take me some thought to figure out how to write down the themes this lay "expertise" tend to follow. Hmmm.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I'll be interested in your comments on this if you end up writing them up. I couldn't think of a way to write out my scattered thoughts on this very topic. I, literally, grew up in politics. I started working on campaigns and attending county party meetings in my early teens. Even though my first degree was a poli sci degree, a serious bout of depression in my mid 20s made me decide not to pursue electoral politics as a career. I've maintained more than a casual interest in the topic. It's probably the thing that I'm most knowledgeable about. since I don't do it professionally, I think it's impossible to really assert something more than lay knowledge until someone knows me for a certain length of time.

[smschrader.livejournal.com]

Well my degree is in child development and family studies and everyone thinks they're an expert on parenting and the way families work. And maybe everyone is, but what gets me most is the totally discounting that I might have some knowledge on the long term effects of corporal punishment or some insight into how the influences of the macrosystem on the family dynamic mean that an issue isn't as simple as do or don't or they should know better.

[loolica.livejournal.com]

I'm a graphic designer and people always imply or say outright that if they could just figure out how to use the software they would be graphic designers, too. Just last night I was on a date and the guy was talking about how he thinks if he had just been a little bit younger when "all that graphics software came out" he would have gone into some kind of commercial art or graphic design field. He said, "Because I can't draw at all, I'm not that artistic, but with the way the programmes work now, I think I'd really enjoy it."

And then he argued with me when I said it didn't really work that way! That drawing with a computer isn't that different from drawing with a pencil or a pen, and that the computer is just a tool and doesn't really do my work for me. He said that nowadays with templates and being able to copy things from other places it must be totally easy! Bah. Bad date.

So, there's that, and then I have a new co-worker who does the content part of our publications, you know, the text part, the writing. And the other day we were meeting with a third person, a researcher, to discuss a small publication we're going to put together and he had a good idea about format, which we all agreed would be a good way to go. Then he started telling me about this pamphlet he had put together in iSomething... iPages, maybe? Something I'd never heard of. And then about a half hour after the meeting he came by with a printout of the pamphlet he'd put together--something that had clearly been plugged into some kind of a template and started giving me advice on how I could design the publication we're going to put out! Everybody thinks they know design.

[boymaenad.livejournal.com]

relatedly, addressing both of you: I do sound. and because software makes it "easy" for "anyone" to "do sound", you end up with a lot of relatively professional things (most commonly, stage shows and indie films) where the sound is really, really ineffective, and even jarring, or just plain wrong, and even though it's true that maybe 30% of the audience won't notice at all, the rest all feel something is amiss, even if they can't figure out what.

and people say "oh it's all drag and drop; I don't need an expert".

page layout is the same. I took ONE eye-opening page layout class in the early '90s and I know more about page layout and effective type placement than most of the people doing ads, and especially, business signs.

but once it's penetrated your skull, the distinct emotional impact differences that fine details determine, you can work in different areas (sound, type design, even clothing and makeup) so much better. and those who haven't realized this, eat cheetos and mcdonald's and can't get over how much they love [insert thing they bought based on a jingle].

[loolica.livejournal.com]

I don't know how you feel about it, but for me, I feel like now that there is some ability for lay people to do their own sound, or lay out their own album cover, the bar for me is set that much higher. If my mom can play around in word and make a pretty decent poster for a garage sale, it means the exact opposite of anyone can do my job; it means everyone expectations of what they are going to see in the world are higher than they used to be.

[boymaenad.livejournal.com]

mm, that's a very pleasant way to think of it. :) I think that may happen some, but I think mostly it lowers the aesthetic standards and people don't much notice when something is excellent. like how the word "everyday", which used to mean 'ordinary', has become synonymous with "every day", meaning daily. so you get things like Everyday Flowers (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=everyday&sll=34.005017,-118.433834&sspn=0.073145,0.110378&g=90066&ie=UTF8&ll=34.031892,-118.415451&spn=0.069565,0.110378&z=13), and it's head-smackingly dumb, but now we're all used to it and it will simply not ever go away.

like that, signage here in los angeles has become more and more chaotic and ugly. the city has no cohesive personality, partly because of its sprawlingness, its lack of walking neighborhoods, and its gradually expanding but still too inadequate public transpo. so people are likely to butt businesses up against each other that clash terribly, including their poorly laid out backlit plastic signage. and because everybody does it, it only makes it more acceptable and indeed, not even noticeable.

it only makes things worse that so many people who speak poor english move here from so many different places, and stay insular so their friend who also doesn't speak english well makes a sign for them (or this is at least what I think must happen), so you end up with ugly signs everywhere that clash with their surroundings, employ bad typography, and are misspelt (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&q=ferkho's+petroleum&ie=UTF8&ll=34.087995,-118.288422&spn=0,0.055189&z=14&layer=c&cbll=34.08355,-118.297946&panoid=xaefOj9nb-_4kPBiI8HWkA&cbp=12,352.37,,0,-15.88).

it's really pretty amazing. to be honest, I tend to laugh about it more than get any level of upset. but I think that's the way of the world; entropy. 1940s pictures of Hollywood are gorgeous in their signage and consistent aesthetic (which I think was similarly automatic; you do it because people do it).

now I'm inspired to take a pic matching this beloved hollywood pic:

http://thisrecording.com/storage/HollywoodBlvd4.jpg

thanks for accidentally inspiring me :)

[monkey1976.livejournal.com]

I'm a graphic designer and people always imply or say outright that if they could just figure out how to use the software they would be graphic designers, too.

i hear you. try being a copywriter. it's even worse because any dildo and their brother can operate microsoft word.

the client (or whomever) can actually get in there and start chopping and adding and editing like a crazed primate.

[anthrokeight.livejournal.com]

I also love What The Caveman Did lay expertise. It's the same as What the Primitive Africans Do, only the Cavemen are dead. Add in some evolutionary psychology bullshit and you can justify anything you like whatsoever.

Bleah.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

This is smaller and less politically-fraught (though they're often used as a shibboleth for whiteness and other privilege), but

(a) "you're a linguist, how do you get people to stop using Bad English?" or
(b) "you're a linguist! neat. I bet you know a lot of languages" or
(c) "I do guerrilla grammar-correction on other people's lunch menus and political posters, this makes me edgy. and linguistic!"

all definitely push the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" button for me. Our culture is rife with un-knowledge (this is on analogy with the Un-Fifties, right?) about linguistics.

oh yes:
(d) "I heard that raising your kids bilingually is bad for their development -- it's confusing to them"

that one's particularly annoying, because it's reinforcing the xenophobia of American white Anglophones, it's harmful to the kids in question. Oh, and of course, it's factually upside-down -- bilingualism is good for kids' brains, as I'm sure you could guess.

[monkey1976.livejournal.com]

i used to be in human resources (advertising now). i loved it when people would say, "i should do that. i'm good with people." like it doesn't take any knowledge of business and employment law. just like people!

[slit.livejournal.com]

Great question. I study education and Islam, sometimes together and sometimes separately.

With education, practically everyone has been to school, and practically everyone has had some negative experiences there, so they have built schools in their minds reflecting what would have been The One True Perfect Educational Experience for them. They then extrapolate this to the rest of the population. When you tell them there is often a name for the method that they're describing, that it was tried in the 1930s/1960s/last week, and that it works with a certain demographic but has negative outcomes for urban kids/rural kids/ESL kids/kids in Alaska, they'll often deny that those kids were educable in the first place.

With Islam, it's so much worse. In the United States there's a tendency to see Islam solely through the lens of what people know about Christianity or Judaism, which 1) isn't much to begin with, and 2) ignores a long political history, particularly the impact of colonialism. Europeans seem more willing to consider the cultural and political aspects of Muslim identity but this is almost worse, because it's made it easier to justify discrimination, e.g. "I do respect religious pluralism, but the way she wears niqab is a political choice with no basis in her own holy texts so I have a right to ban it."

In both subjects there's an assumption that what I do is no different than what they do, i.e. pay occasional attention to these subjects when they come up in the media, and spend a little time thinking about them, maybe while driving or fixing dinner.

[zerodivide1101.livejournal.com]

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