Professional Poison

From "Professional Poison" by Susan Rosenthal
http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/professional-poison.pdf


Medical professionals are trained not to question the health of the society to which the patient must be adjusted, but to make the best adjustment possible.

The burden of change is laid upon the patient, who is expected to adapt to the system. The system itself is never questioned.

Employers and workers have conflicting interests. Bosses want workers to produce as quickly as possible to boost profits. Workers want to slow down to preserve their health. Bosses want to lower wages to cut costs. Workers want higher wages to pay their bills.

Because their interests conflict, employers must dominate workers.

In contrast, employers need their managers to be loyal and to fear their disapproval. So, while workers must be subordinated, professionals are trained to subordinate themselves - to accept without question the policies and priorities that are built into their work and into society.

To meet the needs of employers, professional schools train students to embrace the goals of their superiors as if they were their own, so that the professional will function as the eyes and ears of the boss and carry out the bosses wishes when the boss isn't there.

The professional deference to power makes it easy for professional reformers to be incorporated into the same power structures they set out to change.

Few professionals refuse [a small share of power in a crisis] because they believe they can manage the system better than anyone else.

Professionals are enameled of power in any form.

Being a professional means that you never question your superiors or the social order, even to save your job.

Whether professionals are personally conservative or liberal, their special training and their managerial role combine to make them a conservative force in society.

Because professional education has a hidden curriculum of subordination, the college-educated are more likely to trust the people in power.

Compared with workers, professionals seem more progressive because they are usually more informed. In practice, professionals share the same views as the authorities they serve, making them much more conservative than the workers they manage.

Professionals see nothing wrong in appealing for help to the source of the problem. They will ask for government funds to research the impact of government cuts, and they will appeal to the food industry to support food banks.

"Whatever the issue, the rebel and the expert stand out in sharp distinction to each other. In any discussion, the expert's lack of political independence - his loyalty - becomes apparent immediately, as he confines his thinking to technical solutions - making adjustments, fine-tuning the system. He may offer a multitude of ways to deal with a problem, but as if by magic, not a single one would reduce the flow of profits or otherwise disturb the hierarchical distribution of power." Disciplined Minds, p. 204 Jeff Schmidt.

Elitism is the anti-democratic belief that only a select few are capable of being in charge and making important decisions.

Having been indoctrinated by authoritarian institutions, professionals carry authoritarian methods into their social activism. Leaders who see themselves primarily as experts or authorities believe that they are entitled to lead because of their superior knowledge and social position. And they insist on maintaining their position as leaders, even when they fail to advance the organization's goals.

"Individuals who call themselves radical professionals, but who think of themselves as professionals first, are in essence liberals. Such people make the social reform movement unattractive by bringing to it the same elitism, the same inequality of authority and ultimately, the same hierarchy of 'somebodies' and nobodies' that turns people off to the status quo in the first place." Disciplined Minds, p. 266 Jeff Schmidt.

The problem with professional leaders is not their commitment, but their corrupt conviction that these goals can be reached only if they are in charge and everyone does what they say.

Consensus decision-making is based on the lie that everyone has the same interests under capitalism. In reality, the interests of employers and professionals conflict with the interests of workers, who are pressured to submit to their "superiors."