Do practitioners live in bubbles? Does 'lived experience' create bias?

[aelf]

I've noticed that when practitioners, people who spend most or all their time doing a particular type of work that they specialise in, do give their view on something, they often offer a pretty one-sided perspective that comes from their area of expertise.

The best would simply accept and acknowledge other perspectives when offered (usually by non-practitioners), but others would outright ignore or deny them, as though there is no possibility of anything else being correct. Granted, this may be quite universal behaviour, but I've seldom seen practitioners even debating much. They state their view and seem to expect no dialogue, maybe only agreement. This makes me think that there are such things as practitioner bubbles.

Why is this significant when it can be said of many other types of groupings? Because a practitioner bubble is not an ideological echo chamber or anything like that. The way it works can't be the same, since they are not bound by a particular idea or worldview. So what is it that creates these bubbles? Their common experience?

As the old adage goes, experience is the best teacher. But could the origin of this saying itself be rooted in a bias towards lived experience, which could explain the existence of these bubbles? It would also help explain why older people tend to be more stubborn to the extent it's almost impossible to convince them of anything. It could also explain how common biases are formed in the first place (i.e. I extrapolate from my experience and draw conclusions about an aspect of reality)

I'm starting to think that lived experience is actually pretty dangerous for learning because introduces a strong, usually unchecked bias in our knowledge. Perhaps a lifetime of academic/theoretical learning should go hand-in-hand with experience-based learning, instead of the traditional wisdom of just having academic/theoretical learning when you are young and then going on to learn about the real world through experience.

Any thoughts?

 

[amadeus]

I kind of get what it is that you're talking about but it's still a bit abstract. Could you provide some sort of example?

 

[Commodore]

I'm starting to think that lived experience is actually pretty dangerous for learning because introduces a strong, usually unchecked bias in our knowledge. Perhaps a lifetime of academic/theoretical learning should go hand-in-hand with experience-based learning, instead of the traditional wisdom of just having academic/theoretical learning when you are young and then going on to learn about the real world through experience.

My initial thought is this seems like an argument to justify those without experience ignoring the wisdom of the experienced because that wisdom doesn't jive with the theoretical concepts they were taught.

These practitioner bubbles you are talking about are built on decades of practical knowledge that has actually been observed to work. And most new people that come into a particular field with all their "new ideas" don't realize that a lot of their new ideas aren't really new and have been tried before and failed.

 

[aelf]

I kind of get what it is that you're talking about but it's still a bit abstract. Could you provide some sort of example?

My initial thought is this seems like an argument to justify those without experience ignoring the wisdom of the experienced because that wisdom doesn't jive with the theoretical concepts they were taught.

These practitioner bubbles you are talking about are built on decades of practical knowledge that has actually been observed to work. And most new people that come into a particular field with all their "new ideas" don't realize that a lot of their new ideas aren't really new and have been tried before and failed.

If they are talking about just their area of expertise, maybe. Their experience would be invaluable and probably outweighs anything else. But what I'm referring to are views or issues that typically touch on other things, not to mention practitioners can develop blind spots because they are too deep into something (it's like being unable to spot the typos when you've spent a long time writing something).

For example, artists talking about the role of artists in society. This topic concerns not only art and what they do on a daily basis, it also has sociological and economic dimensions. An artist might think it's his domain so he's the most qualified person to talk about it, but because it touches on things that are not necessarily within his area of expertise, his perspective on it might actually be incomplete. But there's a pretty high chance he won't realise that.

 

[Commodore]

If they are talking about just their area of expertise, maybe. Their experience would be invaluable and probably outweighs anything else. But what I'm referring to are views or issues that typically touch on other things, not to mention practitioners can develop blind spots because they are too deep into something (it's like being unable to spot the typos when you've spent a long time writing something).

For example, artists talking about the role of artists in society. This topic concerns not only art and what they do on a daily basis, it also has sociological and economic dimensions. An artist might think it's his domain so he's the most qualified person to talk about it, but because it touches on things that are not necessarily within his area of expertise, his perspective on it might actually be incomplete. But there's a pretty high chance he won't realise that.

Okay, I think I get your point now.

 

[Kyriakos]

If they are talking about just their area of expertise, maybe. Their experience would be invaluable and probably outweighs anything else. But what I'm referring to are views or issues that typically touch on other things, not to mention practitioners can develop blind spots because they are too deep into something (it's like being unable to spot the typos when you've spent a long time writing something).

For example, artists talking about the role of artists in society. This topic concerns not only art and what they do on a daily basis, it also has sociological and economic dimensions. An artist might think it's his domain so he's the most qualified person to talk about it, but because it touches on things that are not necessarily within his area of expertise, his perspective on it might actually be incomplete. But there's a pretty high chance he won't realise that.

Depends on how much the person is identifying their "expertise" with self-worth. Also, it is different in theoretical fields (like art) and practical fields; after all there's no point trying to argue about how to do a fairly standard electrical plan for a house, if you are not the one with working experience on such...

Some people will use their title as an avatar of positive worth. Usually when their field is STEM, eg some secondary education physics teacher. Now, in reality, being a secondary education teacher of physics, chemistry, math etc, generally means you are worth nothing in your field, but have authority as a teacher in a school and know more on the subject than the plebs. By itself it doesn't make you worth much and you can easily just be a jerk.

There's also the case when a field is just a life's work, or similar. For example, while I can listen to arguments about F. Kafka, I do have generally more knowledge on the subject than most people. But since it is a theoretical subject, there is always room for different understandings.

 

[aelf]

Somewhat related to the thread, I've had a few encounters now with people who had difficulty grasping slightly more complex ideas and instead told me to get some "real world experience".

Now, in some other countries, this could be interpreted as a threat, but not where I come from. These people genuinely think that they have some wisdom that has been granted to them by "real world experience" while being unable to articulate why they think, for example, that art should not be political.

Maybe practitioners are often simply exhibiting the same mentality, just with a more professional air.

 

[amadeus]

@aelf, thanks for clarifying earlier.

It sounds like it could describe just about anybody, and I'm sure there's a name for whatever it is you're describing because it sounds like a kind of cognitive bias where people frame things through the lenses they are most familiar with. But I don't know how to counteract that personally because I would think everyone's experiences and knowledge shape their approach to different things. Maybe I'm still a little lost with where you're going with this?

 

[Kyriakos]

Somewhat related to the thread, I've had a few encounters now with people who had difficulty grasping slightly more complex ideas and instead told me to get some "real world experience".

Now, in some other countries, this could be interpreted as a threat, but not where I come from. These people genuinely think that they have some wisdom that has been granted to them by "real world experience" while being unable to articulate why they think, for example, that art should not be political.

Maybe practitioners are often simply exhibiting the same mentality, just with a more professional air.

I doubt you'd often run into a person who holds both the view that you should get more life experience, and that art should not be political.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

it's like being unable to spot the typos when you've spent a long time writing something

This is a great analogy I feel, and a phenomenon we all have observed in our lifes.

Some people will use their title as an avatar of positive worth. Usually when their field is STEM, eg some secondary education physics teacher. Now, in reality, being a secondary education teacher of physics, chemistry, math etc, generally means you are worth nothing in your field, but have authority as a teacher in a school and know more on the subject than the plebs. By itself it doesn't make you worth much and you can easily just be a jerk.

Also a great example. Some teachers are just bad. Sometimes the students really do know better. "Real life experience" can mean decades of reflecting on your work and it's role in society, but it can also mean doing the same thing over and over again for 40 years and never questioning an iota of it, only waiting until you're finally off the job and can go home.

I definitely had some English teachers who were just completely wack. That one woman tried to argue with me that "trinket" is not actually a word. She kept repeating how she lived in England for 10 years. She was a practicing English teacher for 25 years. I was a boy who played a lot of video games in English. This exact same thing happened every other week, and always ended with me referring to a dictionary, and her getting incredibly defensive.

Today, a student would probably whip out Wikipedia and steamroll over decades of professional experience by referring to "scientific" authority, it seems we only respect experience to a certain degree, as in, until it clashes with the institutions we revere. Same goes for religion, for example.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Also a great example. Some teachers are just bad. Sometimes the students really do know better. "Real life experience" can mean decades of reflecting on your work and it's role in society, but it can also mean doing the same thing over and over again for 40 years and never questioning an iota of it, only waiting until you're finally off the job and can go home.

I definitely had some English teachers who were just completely wack. That one woman tried to argue with me that "trinket" is not actually a word. She kept repeating how she lived in England for 10 years. She was a practicing English teacher for 25 years. I was a boy who played a lot of video games in English. This exact same thing happened every other week, and always ended with me referring to a dictionary, and her getting incredibly defensive.

If I didn't know it was impossible, I might think we had the same teacher. The one I had docked me marks for capitalizing Earth (as in this rotating, revolving thing we live on). So I asked her, "Why did you take marks off for capitalizing Earth, but not for Saturn?"

"Because Saturn is a planet," she informed me.

She wasn't pleased when I counter-informed her, "So is Earth."

I got my marks back.


I had numerous arguments with her that year. To be fair, I guess she didn't know what to make of a student who insisted on bringing astronomy and the space program into as many assignments as possible (this was the same year I got hooked on Star Trek and promptly went on a reading diet of science fiction and astronomy and discovered the library at that school had a lot of Asimov's essay collections and The Concise Atlas of the Universe - a fantastic book for explaining the life cycle of the different kinds of stars).

But on the other hand, she didn't have to be obnoxious about it. Grammar is grammar, whether you're talking about studying the stars or yesterday's dinner. At times it got to be a bit of a spectator sport with the other students, wondering what I'd catch her on next. They weren't used to someone arguing with the teacher over marks.


That's not the only year I caught a teacher in a mistake. The classical history prof at the college was more easygoing about it, though, and this time I didn't mention his mistake in front of the entire class. I just said quietly, "About what you were saying yesterday about Tiberius and Livia... they weren't married. Augustus and Livia were married and Tiberius was Livia's son..." This time there was no argument, he corrected himself next class, and I just chalked it up to what he'd honestly admitted at the beginning of the term: He was more familiar with Greek history than Roman.

Some people would wonder why it matters. It does, when people take notes about everything, and this was before Wikipedia was invented. If you wanted to check your facts, you had to go to a physical library and read a physical book.

 

[Hygro]

This is something I think about all the time aelf.

I guess that neither means I have insight nor means I don’t

 

[amadeus]

@aelf, would you say people who are experts in something are more inclined to exhibit this behavior? I don’t know if I would consider myself an expert in anything, and if I did the subject matter is so esoteric that I don’t see how it could influence my opinions on anything outside of that realm.

 

[aelf]

It seems to me that it's not about being an expert. In fact, 'expert' typically implies having a lot of theoretical or academic knowledge. And given the current climate of scepticism toward experts, I'd say they're not the bad guys.

Practitioners are doers, not talkers (i.e. the experts). They are people of few words, but when they do speak on an important subject that they know something about, the wisdom of real experience is supposed to drip from every word. If you don't agree, well, too bad. They don't have the time to care, I guess.

Simple, salt-of-the-earth is probably how they would describe themselves 100 years ago.

This could be an example of such a practitioner in action: https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...8xQ0O_5K-mJDEIrABWYx5lnQhpKi8HcaNFdAkja_m-YV0

"What's art? Eh. It's not essential anyway. I could probably do it."

 

[amadeus]

Practitioners are doers, not talkers

Welp, I’m out.

 

[aelf]

I made it sound really bad there. But, honestly, sometimes I question myself.

In the eyes of some of the people that I know, I probably talk too much, while they're busy doing things and making things happen.

 

[amadeus]

I meant I was disqualifying myself from that category.

 

[amadeus]

Getting down to it I think I wouldn’t use “salt of the earth” to describe myself but “meat and potatoes,” which is probably a similar enough phrase. There are some concepts that I would say are simply too abstract or difficult to understand that wouldn’t really have an impact on my life as I see it, so dedicating a lot of time to understanding those things just seems like a huge exercise in futility.

I guess I’m on the other end of that spectrum then, where if one of these geniuses says something so important and earth-shattering and they decide to take offense at my indifference... too bad?

Am I getting closer to your concept?

 

[aelf]

What I'm talking about is when the opposite happens.

Suppose you decided to speak about something that you know, but when someone disagrees, you're not willing to entertain it and respond only to those who agree or to those who do the same thing as you because you are all practitioners.

 

[H4run]

What I'm talking about is when the opposite happens.

Suppose you decided to speak about something that you know, but when someone disagrees, you're not willing to entertain it and respond only to those who agree or to those who do the same thing as you because you are all practitioners.

Kind a like elitism?

"You disagree with me because you don't have it, and I'm not going to waste my time to make you get it" kind of stuff?