Schon - The Crisis in Confidence ....

A few thoughts on Schon's article (better late than never).

Schon says in his article that we are wholly dependent on professionals to define and provide solutions to our problems, but is this really the case ? Was it ever the case ? Since the rise in professionals in the labour market hasn't there at the same time at least in the West, been a massive rise in the knowledge base of the general population with greater access to education and with this a huge growth in literacy rates since the turn of the century and hence greater access to the written word (knowledge). With the internet revolution so much information is available at the touch of a button, never have we had the opportunity to be so well informed on all matters trivial to those of great global importance.
If we so wish and are motivated and diligent enough so much of this so called "specialist knowledge is ours for the taking . Specialised knowledge isn't specialised anymore. Case in point, in my previous job I was supporting families who had children with chronic and in some cases life threatening illnesses . Amongst the families I supported there was one very tenacious and inspiring mother who was in such a position, her daughter had been diagnosed with such an illness, after beginning to research the condition her self at length and on a global scale the mother began to question whether the correct diagnosis had been given, over a period of first months and years she has been equiping her self with truely staggering level of knowlege about her daughter's condition to the point where she became more than a match for child's consultant and raised doubts about the original diagnosis.
For some professionals, your judgement being called into question must be a bitter pill to swallow so to speak but it's a good thing and more power to the people for it.