Monday, October 31, 2005
Get Ahold Of Yourself Man
From the London Telegraph
If that wasn't the case, the traditional authority figure would not have been replaced by priesthood of gurus. Here's the problem though -- traditonal authority figures had come through a system, usually an apprentice kind of system, that weeded the capable from the incapable and guaranteed us good leaders. Now anyone can declare themselves an expert and set up shop.
Now it is up to the free market, not the apprenticship system, to sort the good from the bad. In many ways that's more egalitarian, and fairer. But it will also result in a lot of bad advice and rip offs. What it ultimately says is "buyer beware" We need to carefully decide which experts we will and will not listen to. Otherwise we are going to end up in a world of hurt.
According to a leading academic, the nation is in "thrall to a new priesthood of gurus".Boy oh boy is that true. We live in a world where there is simply too much to know. No one can know everything they really need to know. We must rely on experts, we must rely on leaders.
In a speech at the Battle of Ideas Festival tomorrow at the Royal College of Art, Prof Frank Furedi says the collapse in traditional authority figures has not produced a less deferential or more questioning society.
Instead, we are now slaves to therapists and "hustlers" and taking advice on saving Africa from pop singers.
If that wasn't the case, the traditional authority figure would not have been replaced by priesthood of gurus. Here's the problem though -- traditonal authority figures had come through a system, usually an apprentice kind of system, that weeded the capable from the incapable and guaranteed us good leaders. Now anyone can declare themselves an expert and set up shop.
Now it is up to the free market, not the apprenticship system, to sort the good from the bad. In many ways that's more egalitarian, and fairer. But it will also result in a lot of bad advice and rip offs. What it ultimately says is "buyer beware" We need to carefully decide which experts we will and will not listen to. Otherwise we are going to end up in a world of hurt.
