For many of us the start of a new year can be the start of some ‘New Thinking.’ Not the sort of thinking which, as the poet A.E Houseman puts it, “Drives men underground.” But the kind of thinking to take the initiative and lift the spirit.
Let 2014 be the year when ordinary man and women seize back control from; The Experts!
For too long experts have bullied us ordinary folk by poking into every aspect of our lives. Whether it is in education, health, raising children, driving cars or looking after livestock, let 2014 be the year when we tell the experts that they are there for us, not us them!
We are fed up being bamboozled by experts, so let this be the year of experience and common sense. Let us resolve to trust our own senses and rely less on the theories of others. For example, Fredrick Engels wrote much about poverty in Manchester and with Karl Marx came up with a grand scheme to abolish it. I read a lot about their scheme and saw it in action: Yet I learned more about solving poverty from my Methodist Great Grandfather than anything Engels theorised.
I am not saying that expertise is a dishonourable and unworthy pursuit, but rather that the expert should accept the limitations of their own knowledge, and that the public should point a sceptical eye on every recommendation from an expert. Don’t ignore it; just don’t stop believing in your own common-sense simply because an expert says something. In any case remember that many experts also gain something from their own recommendations.
Mind you, telling people what to do is not new and ancient writings such as the Bhagavad Gita, Bible and Koran, have lots of injunctions telling us what to do. (Or else)
From the beginning there have been expert bosses pushing us around. Tribal leaders, Kings, Colonels, Politicians, and Police who, until this past twenty years, seemed to enforce the law with a reasonable touch of common-sense. However, something has changed as it now appears that the governing elites of all parties have no inkling of common-sense.
But where has Common-Sense gone? It is as though the old moderating balance of British Common-Sense has irrevocably disappeared into a vast cosmos of infinite regret, so that one is left wondering if it ever existed. This is surely a major issue for 2014.
We might speculate as to why Common-Sense has disappeared. Is it the one-sided belief of many educational theorists that pupils cannot learn from failure and so everyone must succeed? Is it lawyers who think the letter of the law is greater than its spirit. Could it be bankers who don’t see a difference between investment and gambling, and what about Politicians who manipulate us to behave in ‘correct’ ways? Or, might it be ‘The System’ which is owned by no-one and fully understood by no-one, but which must be followed, because it is there to serve our best interests?
Most readers will have their own ideas, but may also think that we now have a bureaucratic system so vast and complex that it simply cannot deliver common sense decisions.
Such thoughts can be depressing and, because changing the system is nigh-on impossible; how about making 2014 the year to change ourselves? Despite my earlier comments we do need an expert to do that. But not your usual bossy, know-all arrogant expert, this expert is us. As we know more about ourselves than anyone else; who better to bring about change?
A word of warning however. Changing ourselves can have a downside as in the following story:
A wealthy Arab with a very rare blood group went into a Glasgow hospital for heart surgery and after a frantic search a local donor was found. Following the operation the grateful Sheik sent the donor a new BMW. Two days later more blood was needed, but this time the Sheik sent a box of Thornton’s chocolates.
The donor, who had expected diamonds, was shocked and rang demanding to know why the change of heart. “Well laddie” replied the Sheik;
“Dinna forget ma veins now contain a wee drop o’ Scottish blood.”
View from the Pew 