An amateur – now and ever – spare me the curse of expertise. 

                  In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, amateur was an honorific: one who studied or practiced what they loved, not what they were employed to. A mind with means could meander wherever inclination winked. Then came the mechanization of industrialism and bureaucratization of education (say that three times fast!). One was paid to fill a slot, shaped for that purpose. Specialization ramified specialties till they became too numerous to name, much less fathom. Specialists clustered into societies with their rules, hierarchies, orthodoxies. To advance in one’s field one had to keep up, which left less and less time for exploration beyond one’s expertise. Those who defied orthodoxies risked ostracism and careers: you played ball or else.

                  Knowledge proliferated fantastically. It’s been estimated that ninety percent of all human data has been generated in the last two years! Since dentistry is on my mind (and draining my wallet), let’s tally its specializations:

Primary care dentist
Endodontist
Periodontist
Orthodontist
Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon
Prosthodontist
Pediatric Dentist
Oral & Maxillofacial Radiologist
Oral Pathologist
Dental Public Health Specialist
Cosmetic Dentist
Implant Dentist
Geriatric Dentist
Special Needs Dentist 

And teeth are one of hundreds, arguably thousands of body parts, depending on how you count, each with its professors, controversies, awards, publications, funding sources, pecking order. And medicine is just one of 253 degrees currently offered by Yale University, each with its sub- and sub-subdivisions, gobbling gobs of intellect.

                  I am all for learning; the anti-intellectualism of America’s current overseers enrages and appalls. As outgoing Senator Tillis put it (a Republican, poor guy): “I’m sick of stupid.”

                  For me, expertise equals ignorance of all the knowledge I’d never suspect. To bone up on, say, Augustan verse, which I’d enjoy, would be like dropping into an open manhole cover, vanishing from our shared street, narrowing my potential interlocutors to a sallow handful. To converse even half-intelligibly about the spirit of our age, it behooves me to know “what’s going on,” whatever that squishy phrase might mean. Community depends on commonality of interests; and as folks and focuses proliferate, shared concerns get harder to locate.

                  America’s present debacle is partly attributable to this loss of shared interest. Democracy only works if its drivers, that is, the voters, are paying attention; otherwise, they veer off track. Our attention elsewhere, seduced by commerce and curiosity, we lost sight of our commonwealth and look where we’ve ended up. Yes we made a stupid choice of leader, not because we were stupid but stupefied. Americans were abler citizens two centuries ago because they didn’t have smartphones; elections were still boffo entertainment.

                  My allergy to expertise also stems from laziness. My mind chafes in harness. Tell me I must learn something, and my jaw juts, “Gonna make me?” My attention zigzags like a pinball flicked hither and thither by accomplished fingers. Most of my mistakes in life – and some were doozies – arose from poor concentration. I can’t read anything vilely written to save my life. That goes for instruction manuals, cookbooks, contracts – I just can’t.

                  The advantage of amateurism, for my purposes, is a miscellaneous mind. Like the magpie I construct out of scraps, weaving Augustan poetry, dentistry, distracted driving, our national calamity, pinball, unexpected word-collisions (folks and focus, say) and magpies into brain-nests which don’t bore me.

                  Dr. Johnson famously groused that with the metaphysical poets (Donne, Herbert, Marvell and their set), “the most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.” I derive my jollies from discovering unexpected connections. Likenesses make me smile; logic makes me yawn.