How to be a Non-Expert
Or: open integrity with evolving techne 😜
Too much going on with Arendt and All the Things, and I just can’t pull my thoughts together. Normally I wouldn’t tell you that, dear reader. I wouldn’t own up to my state of cognitive chaos, but it’s part of today’s topic. The more I read, think, discuss, engage, the more I need to remind myself of a few de-chaoticizing principles that work (for me).1
Wise nuggets of pop epistemology appear all the time on our social feeds and apparently they have great appeal, going by the number of likes and shares. I’m thinking of all those philosophy quotes, proverbs, sayings about how not to become too biased or ideological, appeals to “mental models,” and so on. I approve that they are aimed at generalists rather than specialists, non-experts rather than experts. I agree that they seem to embody lots of pragmatic common sense. Sometimes they really do pithily capture obvious life experience (readerly experience, political experience, social experience). They do tend to lack substance, i.e. real content subject matter. They propose method without application. That could be a little worrisome. They also, if you can relate to them, tend to self-affirmation. “Hey, that’s a wise saying. I’m so glad I think that way, too.” Confidence-building is a tricky thing.
A question for today is whether wisdom nuggets can really help curb cognitive chaos, for example when you’re trying to work through difficult ideas in a high-stakes environment, or when you’re a non-expert trying to get a handle on one or more sub-familiar fields. “Okay, I’m a non-expert, but it seems important that I should get a grasp on this for the sake of being a more responsible voter, citizen, human.” I get that one shouldn’t “have an opinion on everything” — especially a pseudo-expert opinion — but I’ll dare say, most things of common concern shouldn’t be left to the experts. (I don’t say that glibly. I hope it gives you pause.)
So today, as I sit here in some cognitive chaos, I’ll repeat my principles to myself. You may listen in on my self-talk (only if you want to).
I’d love to hear what works for you, too.
Open
Someone very close to me regularly evokes from me the (sometimes screaming) accusation, “You always have everything all figured out!” And of course he does not always have everything figured out. But he thinks he does. Some people need to operate, apparently, with tightly closed sets of beliefs and commitments. Maybe their life is hard (not the case here), and they need sureties to keep on trucking. Or maybe they are maladroit at managing the emotions that come with cognitive chaos (probably the case here), especially when one needs to perform.
For me, though, openness is essential, as a lifelong learner. I’m just never going to be “done, sorted.”
Integrity
That said, integrity of thought, emotion, and action is necessary for me to hold it together, to manage the emotions. I’m just not smart enough to be two-faced, to “play” (play off) variant forces by being all things to all people, or saying what everybody wants to hear — or doing what everybody wants to do. A mode like that is too complicated for me.
Probably I try to be a bit too independent and try too hard figure it out (over and over and over) for myself. Actually I’m open to most sensible input. But I have to reserve the right to see how it all “fits” before the penny drops.
I thus adhere strongly to coherence and revelatory models of truth.2 Stuff has to hang together, and I need to “see” it. The picture is always fuzzy around the edges and regular blurs until I squint it back into some semblance of clarity. It then needs to hold shape for a while. Getting stability, for me, generally requires talking.
Techne
What would be “sensible” input? How to measure? It’s input that I can apply a model to, a framework for understanding, a techne.
The more subject areas I learn to some non-expert level of minimal competence, the more I understand that each has its own techne — from the Greek, meaning art or craft; the basis of our modern technology. A working definition of techne for me is “a framework of knowledge and practice.” There’s knowledge (more or less acceptable, verified), and there’s application or practice. It’s organized into a framework. It helps make sense of chaos.
Techne (I’ll use the same word for an anglicized plural form) are sort of like the faddish “mental models,” but they are less generic. They are methods developed for particular subject areas. They tend to come from the most immersed, reflective, and insightful practitioners-cum-theorists — like Ms. Arendt.
In an open search for integrity, techne are my tools.
Evolving
But techne aren’t static, either. One needs an openness to new techne (yes, add the meta level) and to extending one’s grasp of existing and familiar frameworks. The best techne are not quite fathomable all the way down, at least for non-experts.
Mash-ups across techne, combining techne, is one of the most productive ways for me to resolve cognitive chaos. This is a plug for being a generalist — even as techne themselves are generally subject-area specific. Wisdom comes from not being too narrow and playing/performing with only one framework. Imposing an ideology on the world skews the world (for you).
What’s that saying? (Here we go…)
Not everything is a nail, just because you have a hammer.
Personal Canon
Want to evolve your techne? Want to merge some? Develop a personal canon of the best practitioner-theorists, the ones who help you see. They don’t need to be right, scientifically. They need to see things and communicate what they see in a meaningful and useful fashion. Techne are tools, technologies. They help hold it together, at least temporarily.
What techne offer should be constructive, generalist-applicable but not substance-less, subject matter-less. The best theorists are not destructive, except perhaps in a creative-destructive way, as they criticize what went before — the history, the backstories (as they see them), of which they have significant knowledge, admiration, appreciation. But they draw upon the past, as in re-constellating fragments. Gathering the bits and pieces up, they push forward into the new.
Right now, Hannah Arendt is my seer-theorist of choice. I’m learning her techne and trying to mash things up. The cognitive chaos should clear soon.
Other posts come to mind:
“Principles” may be a bit strong. Maybe they are more like heuristics or strategies/tactics or rules of thumb.
A revelatory model would be associated with Heidegger. He got his basic idea (aletheia) from the Greeks. Religious traditions also feature “revelation” as the most important mechanism for truth-finding. You want truth? God gives it to you. God may give it, but since we’re flesh and blood creatures, and truth comes to us (if/when it ever does) through entirely earthly means, I would hold that it always comes through finally “seeing” something that’s probably been there all along. I have a pet theory about what scriptures are doing, and how “miracles” work.
One other productive contribution from religious thought considers what humans need to do “in their souls” to have a better chance of seeing well (i.e. some semblance of truth).
Tracy, I wish more writers would do what you did in your first paragraph and be open about where they are mentally - I might even prefer to read someone who is struggling to understand a topic or the world or some particular situation than someone who believes they have mastered it. I think the best writers take you along on that journey with them.
Your comment about not leaving everything to experts reminds me of the justification that civilian, Anglophone, military historians and strategists developed after the First World War - war is too important to leave to generals and admirals.
These days I am struck by the narrowness of many of the so-called experts. Failure to understand or ignore larger contexts is too often a symptom of today's experts. There are always exceptions, but maybe not enough of them.
c/o @Stephen Greenleaf (I think), I just read https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/schemas-and-the-political-brain, and older post from @Brian Klass at Garden of Forking Paths. The schemas he talks about, into which we fit data as it comes in, may be close to the techne I mention. Although... I try to be very conscious of, and very deliberate about, which techne I choose to think by. I also like to work with several at a time. I really do find "mashups" fruitful.