Brought forward from December 2006. Edited today.
I had an entry under my soon-to-be-indispensible Underground DSM-IV which noted that "when someone challenges your credentials, no credentials will be good enough." This originally came from listening to patients challenge their psychiatrist's advice by loudly and emphatically noting "But you haven't had any training in psychonutrition!"
I am expanding that to a general rule for life. If you are in an argument with a socialist and say "I used to be a socialist," the demand for your credentials means the discussion is over. Nothing you say will be accepted as a credential that you were, in fact a socialist. If you are arguing about bridges and say "I have a degree in engineering," it will not be the right kind of engineering somehow, even if it is, and you've been designing bridges all your life and won the "Best Bridge Design" award 3 years in a row.
Today's was my claim that "I work with the poor." Well, a lot of people work with the poor, at least part of the time. Merchants work with the poor. Lots of government officials work with the poor. The police and ambulance folk work with the poor. It's not that odd, really. But when someone wants to make a point about the poor - as I did on two blogs today - facts can't be allowed to get in the way.
I don't claim expertise in most of the subtopics about poverty. But sometimes people make assertions that anyone who works in the biz knows to be untrue. Experts can go wrong in many ways - usually by getting some particular set of ideas in their head and fitting everything into that box. Credentials aren't everything, and they are not all just "years of schooling." But taken with proper humility, they should mean a little.
Just 'cuz I'm smarter'n you, Woody. Deal with it.
ReplyDeleteSo to recap you have no credentials but resent those who do telling you, according to their expertise, you may be mistaken. I can see why you'd have a problem with myth-busting expertise. Most wingnuts do, but that changes little about nonexpert assumptions. Testably false in most cases. In other words layman's opinion. There is always room for the odd exception from anyone.
ReplyDeleteUh, mark? The point is that I do have credentials. The intent of the post was to note that when someone challenges them, I usually find that they don't like them, however good they are.
ReplyDeleteI originally applied it to psychiatric patients and families, but have expanded it as applying more generally.
Read louder.
What credentials mean can be taken sideways. I was briefly introduced to a friend of my soon-to-be mother-in-law. I was told later that my m-i-l then described me in my absence, mentioning that I was a physicist. Her friend was saddened--"He seemed like a nice young man; it's a shame he makes bombs."
ReplyDeleteI think an appeal to credentials is as good a sign as any that you’ve failed to convince, and thus is probably in vain. I would defer to an engineer or mechanic, if their arguments made sense. Assumptions are where we are often blinded, and most often wrong. A mark of character, and mental wellness, is how you behave when someone can prove your assumptions wrong. I’m working on it…
ReplyDeleteI should have hit the point more forcefully that the post is primarily about people challenging your credentials if you make any kind of claim at all. In my own case, I did not arrive on the scene and say "I used to be a socialist, so you should listen to me about all such matters," or "I work with the poor and know a lot about them," but in response to the claims of others. People make statements about socialism or the poor that are just wrong, and I might well say "Actually, I know at least a bit about this." It is at that moment that it gets annoying when opponents say "No you don't. You aren't a real socialist," or "You know nothing about the poor."
ReplyDeleteWhen your doctor recommends a particular treatment, her appeal to credentials, whether education, intelligence, or experience, is implied. It might be reasonable to challenge that idea, especially if you know something yourself. But to say at that point "Bah! You know nothing" is the mark of a person who just doesn't want to hear it.