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The Expert and Educated Incapacity
January 1, 1979
by Herman Kahn
(From /World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond/, Westview Press,
1979. pp. 482-484; © Hudson Institute)
Educated incapacity often refers to an /acquired or learned inability to
understand or even perceive a problem/, much less a solution. The original
phrase, "trained incapacity," comes from the economist Thorstein Veblen,
who used it to refer, among other things, to the inability of those with
engineering or sociology training to understand certain issues which they
would have been able to understand if they had not had this training. The
training is essential to gain the skill, and society wants these people to
have the skills, so I am not objecting to the training. But the training
does come at some costs by narrowing the perspectives of the individuals
concerned.
I also often use the phrase to describe the limitations of the expert or
even of just the "well educated." The more expert -- or at least the more
educated -- a person is, the less likely that person is to see a solution
when it is not within the framework in which he or she was taught to
think. When a possibility comes up that is ruled out by the accepted
framework, an expert or well-educated individual is often less likely to
see it than an amateur without the confining framework. For example, one
naturally prefers to consult a trained doctor than an untrained person
about matters of health. But if a new cure happens to be developed that is
at variance with accepted concepts, the medical profession is often the
last to accept it. This problem has always existed in all professions, but
it tends to be accentuated under modern conditions.
Large organizations have the tendency to proliferate new forms of
expertise and specialists who are drawn largely from a very special social
and cultural milieu. Bureaucracies in our technological society depend
heavily upon members of the New Class or at least recruits from graduates
of universities that emphasize liberal and progressive ideologies and
viewpoints, almost to the exclusion of hard or tough perspectives. Even
the practice of business seems to be in danger of becoming a professional
specialty. I would guess that the more prestigious the business school and
the more academically difficult the training, the more likely that the
graduate will be both ideologically oriented and a narrow technician,
rather than a decision maker in contact with the pressures and insights of
the real world.
Educated incapacity in the United States today seems to derive from the
general educational and intellectual milieu rather than from a specific
education. This milieu is found in clearest form at leading universities
in the United States particularly in the departments of psychology,
sociology, and history, and to a degree in the humanities generally.
Individuals raised in this milieu often have difficulty with relatively
simple degrees of reality testing e.g., about the attitudes of the lower
middle classes, national security issues, national prestige, welfare, and
race. This is not to say that other groups might not be equally biased and
illusioned—only that their illusions are generally reflected in more
traditional ways.
Educated incapacity is becoming a worldwide problem; in many ways, the
post-industrial culture is likely both to cause and to further this
"malady," though all cultures have relatively general and deeply held
educated incapacities.
/*Herman Kahn* (1922-1983), was the founder of Hudson Institute. View
his bio here.
/