Definition of an Unprofessional
Almost to sanctify self-interest it seems, was Protestantism born. The philosopher and economist Max Weber argued that the justification for our daily ritual of work derived from theology, the so-called Protestant work ethic. If true the modern Gospel of Prosperity that marks the chosen by their worldly wealth, has been with us far longer than we knew.
Weber’s thesis has of course always been controversial, and selfishness was long sanctioned by the divine even before Christ commanded to render unto Caesar. What seems most peculiar to the historical context of Weber’s claims, however, appears to have less to do with religion than it does with class. After all, the term “Protestant” came out of concerns of politics rather than the pieties of religion.
At the dawning of the Renaissance, the social order began to reflect the growing independence of the intellect but, as German princes worked to free themselves from the yoke of Church hierarchy, they unwittingly paved the way for the fall of the social hierarchy as well. Money came to be the only title worth having as the monarchy and the church receded into the background or, in the case of France, stamped out altogether.
To sum up, the nobility vanished to be replaced by the new nobility of the bourgeoisie. Only, this new aristocracy was more practical, practical in the most unimaginative sense, less concerned with the beauty of a crown than the price it might fetch at auction. Yet, the romance of the past, along with much of that authority which went with it, could not completely be dispensed with thus, was the “Professional”conceived.
Of course, professions had existed previous to this event, but in past ages these were but humble trades, necessary perhaps for society but as nothing compared to the business of the court, politics being the only business an aristocrat was sanctioned to engage in. The rise of the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth-century changed all that. What had once been the practice of peasant traders evolved into a modern chivalric code. In compensation for the loss of Noblesse Oblige, Professionalism arose to take its place and, just as with the code of honor it superseded, provided a justification for their sense of privilege, a privilege just as underserved as it is comical.
The comedy is of the bitter-sweet variety, as one may already have discerned. We were gifted with a new species of aristocrat, but hardly a nobility. Instead of champions of art, patrons of learning for its own sake as a universal good beyond the crass concerns of the marketplace, these lofty ideals were brought down from the heavens and transmuted into middle-class concerns, exchanging gold for brass. If Britain at the start of the century was, as Napoleon is reported to have said, a nation of shop-keepers, by the end of the period the whole continent could proudly claim that name. The revolutions of the past, rather than giving birth to the dreams of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, had instead hatched a monstrous progeny of the old medieval hierarchy, only, of much shorter stature.
Of course, we must make a distinction between the professional and that which we call an expert. The expert too has always been with us, but in former times they held the title of sage, Wiseman, or woman. Regardless of the name, their function in society was much as it is today, with the added caveat that expert and professional have almost become synonyms, yet the distinction is there even if you must dig about to find it.
The professional legitimates and supports the superstructure of capitalism, the expert is just an authority upon a topic or body of knowledge. Such authority the Greeks called ethos and is why, as a symbol of authority, the professional class at once co-opted it under their own banner when really they are free of class distinctions. After all Lavoisier, the father of chemistry was a nobleman just pursuing what we might call a hobby in his free time, and free time is precisely what the professional disdains. To be free to think, to be free from care, is dangerous to the status quo, and makes no capital for the boys upstairs.
“All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.” — Aristotle
There was a world of good sense in those early societies that forbid their upper classes from engaging in commerce. The maxim of Aristotle is nowhere better illustrated than in the boardrooms of business where, to their everlasting folly, the greatest thought is given to the accumulation of profit when the object of their concern, money, is but a fiction. Despite what they would say to the contrary, there is no greater castle in the clouds more absurd than the stock market, compared to which the dreams of poets hold more rational substance.
A less considered gamble is the good fortune one may be endowed with at birth to enter a profession at all. You may spot this too common bird by the total lack of self-awareness in the role of fate over merit in their lives and their heedless desire to broadcast this ignorance to all and sundry. For those who crow loudest of their talents are typically born to parents whose tinkling talents, though less loud, always tip the balance scales in their children’s favor. Recent history has provided us with more examples than one could practically name.
“We may affirm that absolutely nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.” — Hegel.
Fortunate too, for those who have it, is enthusiasm. For in the professions their purpose comes with the title, and when the day is done they give themselves over to their true passions without a single thought for the business when they’ve closed up shop of an evening.
How many lawyers look up from their legal briefs to see the sunlit sky and groan for a lost day of fishing by the lake? How many office visits with our doctor have made us witness to that physician, wistfully absentminded, derailed from his train of thought as he pronounces upon our test results, catching him in reverie at the thought of spring and a return to the links, eye’s flashing white with golf balls on the brain?
Thankfully this common indifference is sometimes countered by the True Believer, those rare few with all the zeal of the missionary fortified in the belief that they can change the order of the cosmos, and perhaps are the luckiest of all if they can maintain that ardor for a lifetime, much as we consider blessed those who have managed a long and happy marriage.
For the multitude of these excellent characters, to do what they love requires some credentials though, if it were possible, they would happily expect no fee but the privilege to profess their love. This is most often the case for the scholar. As the pursuits of knowledge and wisdom, though rarely promising a path to wealth and material well-being, have always granted their practitioners a form of social capital, access to which is as jealously guarded as a dragon of his hoard. The result obliges even those with the noblest and honest of intentions to don the pretense of the monkish gown, and pay obeisance to the high priests of academe. Yet, even after all of this, they may not be deemed worthy to profess. Worse still, many others come to view the attainment of a title as the attainment of all the wisdom and virtue that title represents and deal out judgments with all the indifferent lassitude of a god. For those who endure and live up to the ideal, there is set aside a special place in heaven for, if only posthumously, do scholars make a name.
Those in the medical profession share similar temptations to righteousness, temptations that rival all the rest for, to bring a man back from the bourn of death is no mean feat. But, if properly humbled by the enormity of the calling so much greater than themselves, and understand what was meant by Galen when he said: “the true doctor is also a philosopher”, then they rise to a class all of their own.
As I have said, the professional is the new aristocrat, and their specialty is their little fiefdom. As if their title were hereditary, as if they felt some sense of family honor, a title becomes their whole identity. It is then not remarkable when they take offense at any doubt of their expertise as if a presumptuous peasant had slapped their lord with a velvet glove. And yet, they are not the masters that they think. For, a professional is a professional only by a set of standards and considerations not their own and surrenders their autonomy to an invisible hand as if a dog on a leash. There is always someone higher up the pole that you must answer to.
But instead of feeling pity, we may more often feel disgusted that in their desire to rule over others they are more than eager to let themselves be ruled. An illusion of solidarity with their masters however soothes the sting. “One day,” they think, “I’ll be up there with them,” the true elect, and return to pushing harder at their cog. Thus, those preachers of autonomy, of the self-made, serve as the unwitting enablers of slavery the slave is conditioned to believe freedom, the sound of the dog whistle of work becomes to those minds the sanctifying hymn to holy service.
In fact, so subtle and complete is this identification with our rulers, we have only to glance at what goes by the name of entertainer, specifically the comedian, to see how deep it goes. A society that lauds a wealthy professional with a national, or even international, soapbox as a “philosopher”, has truly lost all sense of perspective. For whatever may be said of the academic, there is no speaking truth to power when that same source of power is your patron. A true philosopher may use humor to please at their discretion, but they are never dependent upon the laughter of an audience to persist in their calling.
The comedian must be, as are all professionals, the servant to outside opinion for, to be accepted as humor, a joke’s premise must be shared and accepted by the audience they pander to. True, they may occasionally present facts, but these facts are so often already well known, and those ignorant of them are hardly likely to change their values due to a joke; are, instead, more likely to harden in their views in self-defense for being made to feel a fool. Real truths, those that discomfit and hold a mirror up to our hypocrisies, are not generally welcomed by the mass. Socrates was witty to his friends but, to the city at large when a scapegoat was required few were those to defend the man who brought so many of their faults to light.
The risks of such truth-telling are too great to sacrifice the rewards of popularity. As the entertainer must be perceived to be, as the ever-watchful eye of God in Bishop Berkeley’s philosophy, if their audience fails to tune in they are lost. In this way, all professionals condescend in preaching down to us from upon the heights of privilege, that privilege of a platform the status quo has already predefined.
Truth can rarely be called such if many delight to hear it, and those who would silence their critic are often first to award that scarlet letter, that most unspeakable of bourgeois curses, the accusation that one is being…unprofessional.
