Exposing the notion of "expertise" when (ab)used to protect turfs

Edited/Updated on January 26, 2014

A few months ago, at a three-hour forum on "Immigration into the United States", I offered  to present the “Mexican" aspect of the issue along the lines of  my "Op Ed" on Mexican immigration.  I said to the organizers, "Ten minutes would be enough for me."  However, I was refused a "voice" under the pretext that they were only inviting experts (as speakers) and I was not an expert.

In this context, I want to make a point that some people employ the notion “expertise" or "credentials" to shut out differences and as a fence or fortification to guard and protect fiefdoms and to silence original or “radical” thought.  It is sometimes used (abused?) as an excuse to exclude inconvenient and, therefore, unwelcome “intruders” and to hide one’s stake in the status quo.  Thus it is that the notion can become a self-serving tool.

In my opinion, revolutionary thought has rarely come from the (so-called) experts or specialists.  Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King were hardly experts; one was a plain barrister/attorney and the other a simple clergyman.  Neither of them had a Ph.D. in political science.  Jesus was not an expert, not formally schooled (He was perhaps an excellent carpenter), but he 'preached' and revolutionized the world."

Three after-notes:

   

(A) To add to my "sentiment" of feeling excluded/rejected (in light of the fact that, earlier, I was asked to give a short course on India), I also felt that I was being pigeonholed, stereotyped.  Just because I am an Indian -- born and brought up in India -- I became an expert on India, in the Organizers' eyes, even though I do not have a single degree or formal expertise on any topic related to India except Sanskrit Drama!  "Deja vu", as they say.  I have said it before and I'm saying it again: Indians of my generation living in this country have been readily pigeonholed and stereotyped.  A relative of an Indian friend of mine was hired in a South Asian department of a university here in the United States though, again, he did not have a single degree or formal expertise on any topic related to India. I can think of many first-generation Indian immigrants here in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences who are compartmentalized and put in the cage of "You're allowed to speak only on India".

(B) I withdrew from the India-course deal.  Anyway, they would have, in the words of a friend, "shut me off from further discourse on the topic and interaction with participants at the school."  This is no particular loss because my wife and I had already decided to "downsize" my involvement with the University, given my age-consequent diminishing energy levels. 

(C) I didn't say the following to them at that time, but I was thinking, "If most Americans I came in contact with had defined and insisted on 'expertise' in the same restrictive way they did, I would have had NO career in the United States.  I would have been on Welfare (as a legal citizen, though)."  Post-Ph.D., I have not had a chance to teach even for a day in the area of my (formal) "expertise" --English Renaissance Literature and Linguistics.  If this other institute accepts my proposal, I'll be able to teach the English Sonnet -- something I love and, at the same time, something that falls within the area of my formal expertise. 

In Praise of Poetry

In Praise of Poetry

  Mohan R. Limaye

When I promote or recommend literary classics (belles-lettres or “lalit vaangmay”) written in the past, some people think that I am “stuck in the glories of the past.”

I have several reasons for doing so, though being stuck in the glories of the past is not one of them.  One of the ways a classic (in this case, a literary classic) is defined is that it is ageless.  It is not for one time.  It is timeless.  It comes alive every time an appreciative person reads it, and it is true of a great literary work whether it was first written two thousand years ago or two months ago (By the way, I’m talking about literature that is valued for its elegance, aesthetics, and creativity and not literature that aims to inform, “argue”, and teach). 

Alternate interpretations of poems are not meant to be replacements or substitutions but as extra, accessible, and likely meanings.  This, to me, is a unique feature of poetry: With great poetry, it is not an “either-or” proposition.  It is “and” or “in addition to” other valid interpretations.  It is these cumulative meanings, the aggregation of valid interpretations, which enhance and enrich our experience of great poetry.

When I was a student in India, both my Marathi and English language-arts texts included a plenty of poems – an indispensable part, it seems, in pre-college education.  I assume that situation created a very different academic ambiance in the Indian classroom of more than six decades ago.  I’m aware that the generational chasm between me and my grandnieces and grandnephews (some of whom range in age from the teens to the thirties) has led to widely divergent literary tastes among us.    

Incidentally, I’m using the term “poetry” in a very broad sense that includes all genres of literature (I’m following here Sanskrit rhetoricians: “Kaavyeshu naatakam ramyam”= Drama is charming among all forms of Poetry).

Another reason why I passionately push literary classics written in India’s past, particularly, on young Indians of today is I do not want them to think that the West invented beauty, strength and great literature.  Since some of them are not comfortable in India’s regional languages, it is even more imperative that they are familiar with Indian classics, even if only in translation.  Incidentally, I do not promote or recommend “religious”, “mythical” or “theological” texts.   

How does one decide which books / authors constitute as good reading?  It is a difficult

question to answer.  Apart from the factor of personal likes and dislikes (which cannot be avoided), there is another variable here: You have to compare apples with apples; inter-genres comparisons are neither fair nor enlightening.  I cannot say Hamlet is a better, more promising, read than, say, Amartya Sen, Prof. Zinn or Thomas Jefferson.  Within the same "genre", one can compare.  In poetry, for instance, it is possible to say that one poet offers "more" than the other.  Again, it is even more complex than that because one has to factor in "durability" -- part of the definition of the term "classic", as mentioned above.  Again, add to this the issue of what the reader brings to the table.  As one of my retiree friends says, "Poetry should be introduced only to mature audiences/readers".  Another friend observes that a greater appreciation of poetry comes with actually trying one's hand at it.   

To conclude these musings, poetry in my view is the quintessence of the humanities.  Great poetry does not get obsolete or superannuated with the advancing years of the reader but improves with his/her age, like good wine.  For instance, I have been reading Hamlet, some Marathi poems, Shakuntala, and The Little Clay Cart (from time to time) over the last 55 years.  Every time I re-read them, I am enriched more than ever because I find something new therein.  Availability of valid, diverse interpretations is, in my judgment, a unique feature of poetry. 

Saving just one book in English

Hamlet is my choice.

It has a thrilling plot, a dazzling diversity of characters, philosophical reflections, a gamut of emotion, excellent poetry (blank verse), and plenty of humor (even though it is a dark, brooding tragedy).  Hamlet, in my judgment, delves deeper into the human condition and human psyche than any other literary work in English that I've read.