JAN'S FRESH REAL NEWS

               © 2001: JAN COX
                                  **************************************************

November 3, 2001.
 
 

The results of a tradesman's toil are visible;
what he constructs observably works or does not,
and his efforts to repair clearly succeed or fail,
but not so with the professional;
his “work” is carried on in an unseen realm,
and concerns matters which only therein exist,
thus all notions of success and failure depend on the ipsedixit judgment of
the professional involved.
 

The more civilized are a people the more is their collective life centered around
non tangible interests,
and the more is their individual sense of reality centered in their mind;
the more civilized are a people the less mental regard they have for tradesmen
(and only pragmatically so when one is needed),
for, anyone-can-do-work-with-their-hands (perceive they),
but only the exceptional professional can do so in his head.
Everyone knows (would say the sophisticated)
that tradesmen by nature are not verbally felicitous, literally adroit,
perhaps not even literate at all --  but ‘tis not necessarily required,
but professionals (would say the cosmopolitan) are a different breed entirely;
the talent needed to perform their jobs is of a whole higher order;
they must be able to deal-with and manipulate matters which the
non professionals cannot see, and of which they can just barely conceive.
 

Ordinary, civilized people place greater trust in professionals than in tradesmen
in spite of the manifest fact that it can be upon the latter that
their actual survival may depend (whether the farmer brings in a crop;
the smithy repairs his sword; the carpenter completes his shelter);
they will readily pay more lip and fiscal tribute to a professional
to perform services that belie their very name in that they serve no evident purpose, other than whatever satisfaction the customer says he received from the transaction.
 

People go to a tradesman (barter in hand) with a request that he build something
for them which can be delivered into their hands for their inspection
and determination of its functioning aptness,
or with a request that he repair something already in their possession
that is in disrepair, and then too are his results easily ascertained,
or in the case of a physician, that he repair something about their own body,
which obviously is already in their hands;
but when men approach a professional,
whose work is carried on totally in the minds of him and his customer,
there is no actual product that can ever be received by the payee,
and in the instance of seeking intangible repairs to themselves
from a psychological counselor or priest, the whole concept of success or failure
in attempting to change what a person is relies entirely on the un testable,
subjective statements of the professional and/or customer.
And the mental world being the disneyworld that it is,
‘tis standard in this situation for the supplicant to accept the professional's judgment
of the outcome of his efforts as the binding seal on their deal
(the priest assures the parishioner that god has forgiven her of her transgressions regardless of whether she still feels guilty or not,
or a psychiatrist affirms to the patient that they are making real progress in spite of how it may seem to the patient)
after all: what are professionals if not, know-it-alls,
experts in areas so abstruse that mere laymen can scarcely even conceive of
their existence (thankfully there have always been professionals amongst man
to make him initially aware of such matters).
For this formidable undertaking, professionals must be, know-it-alls;
experts in affairs so foreign to farming and fishing that expertise of an
unfathomable, nay --  indescribable quality is required;
the delivery of services so obscure that only incomprehensible methods will do.
 
 

                 Two things the few should take from this:

1: people go to see a magician not to figure out how the tricks are done --
    --  but to be fooled;
2: in your consciousness are tradesmen, a professional, and consumers galore.
 
                                                              J