Adam Blatner

An acquaintance wondered if I was “hoodwinked by expert culture.” What a provocative phrase! (Provocative is a compliment, because it provokes my thought, not my defensiveness.) I responded, “You might be right. Blind spots happen.” But what is “expert culture?” Is it the received knowledge of the dominant worldview, what is taught by those whom folks think know?”

(I went on to say:) “I am by no means in awe of these folks and hold in my consciousness to a growing degree each year the awareness that what they say may:
  a. Arise from a medium-smart or not-very-smart-at-all consciousness. The difference is great! It’s not a matter of real cleverness, but rather a nimbleness of mind that is willing to call one’s own assumptions into question. Also (b), many experts have been and may well be simply mistaken. C. I keep in mind the possibility that so-called experts are often opinionated, their opinions clung to out of base prejudice and the need to maintain the illusion of being “right.”

I allow that experts are sometimes right on for the reasons they give, or right on but not for those reasons; rather, they’re right, or partly right for other more interesting reasons. Most often they (and sometimes I, too) are partly right and partly wrong, which offers an interesting challenge of dissection and analysis and discernment.

Often so-called experts have attained their status in the eyes of others who are embedded in the worldview of the early or even mid-20th century. Since I keep these options in mind, I don’t assume I’m “hoodwinked.” However, I may end up buying something that I shouldn’t, and that is because someone else in the dialectic of culture has thought of an antithesis that neither of us has thought of; but that’s not being “hoodwinked” so much as “Ah, that might be a good alternative to consider.” It’s the stuff that marks the gradual advance of awakening on our planet.