The moral of the story (and more Q)
On Annalisa Barbieri’s article Let the knowledge in, Saturday February 9, 2008, The Guardian
The moral of the story is that expertise might imply a conscious attempt to erect walls around not only one’s knowledge, but one’s own ability to learn more and change. Being declared an expert brings forth the risk of allowing oneself to a greater degree of ease in relation to one’s own responsabilities towards that (fleeting) entity called knowledge – be it practical or theoretical. In relation to wisdom, it could be argued that taking upon yourself the role of an expert means to foreclose the possibility to become wise, which is perhaps connected to the opposition between gaining an inclusive and expanding general knowledge and the need to narrow down and specialise. Can expertise be seen as a dead-end branch of the path towards wisdom?
Thinking about childhood and teenager-hood identities, isn’t becoming an expert in one field a way to attract attention, to externalise an interest/passion and make it a channel for socialization? What is the difference between that expertise (hobby) and adulthood expertise (thinking of non-professional expertise)?
