[PEN-L:28704] re: Democratising/Upbraiding & regulating professions

[Hari Kumar <hari.kumar@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

PRIOR COMMENTS:
1) JUSTIN: Schwartz wrote: In my typical, class-blinkered, petty
bourgeois manner, I am a real fan
of expertise. Democracy has its place, but not in micro-managing the use
of real expertise by real experts. There are skills that require long
study and constant application to master, and where the opinion of the
populace has no damn role, except indirectly in setting general ethical
standards and
rules and regulations embodied in law. Don't tell me how to manage my
shop.
2) ULHAS wrote: I agree, but then who judges accountants like Andersens?
Other accountants?
Does any profession ever pass adverse verdict on the leading lights of
that profession?
RESPONSE:
1) approval of expertise is hardly the monopoly of the class-blinkered
petit bourgeois. I assume that JS knows the invocations to expertise
offered by ZLenin, and that he is parodying the mindless Ultra-leftist
attack on expertise.
2) To Ulhas's question: "Does any profession ever pass adverse verdict
on the leading lights of that profession?" - Answer must be surely: Yes,
if and when there is enough of a spotlight from press; &/or if there are
factional fights within the profession. In classical bourgeoisie
democracy, there at least some occasions when there are enough press
investigation & enough public pressure form below  to force this. The
enquiries into the Bristol deaths of children in intensive care cardiac
units a case point. re Factional fights - In Toronto recently, big
brouhaha in the scientific world re struggles in the laboratory of a Dr
Tak Mak - which resulted in the loss to Canada of a scientist tipped to
be a future Nobelist.
H