| Interesting comments. I was surprised to see so much dissension. I'm in agreement with the author on the idea that expertise has been cheapened by our culture. I like to use the term "mastery" over "expertise" because I think the concept of mastery better embodies what a true expert brings to the table. To me, a true expert (master) is someone who has deep knowledge in a given domain (or set of related domains). You can't fake mastery. Mastery is, in part, the ability to produce consistent, high-quality results over time. Anyone can get lucky once, or even a few times, but a master can deliver superior results more consistently than anyone else in that domain. The issue now, as I see it, is what the author calls entitlement. I would add to that, impatience. People want to be masters (experts) now, not later. We want to hack our educations and get results faster than the 1000's of people who came before us. In the process of our impatience and unwillingness to submit to the rigors of craft, we, instead, settle for the illusion of expertise. It's strange to me that people think a deep level of knowledge can come from anything other than a lifetime of hard work and dedication to a given subject. Yet, we still kid ourselves into thinking that being the next Picasso, Sergey Brin, or Yo Yo Ma is just a matter of reading a few books and blogs. An expert spends a lifetime learning a few things deeply. A dilettante knows a little about a lot. |