FROLIO – Formalizable Relationship-Oriented Language-Insensitive Ontology

Welcome to FROLIO – a new attempt to merge philosophy and the "semantic web" . This website is under continuing development.

Related mini-essay: Professions - how can they avoid the charge of "conspiracy against the majority", i.e. the rest of us?

This arises from a quotation from George Bernard Shaw, in his play 'The Doctor's Dilemma' - "All professions are conspiracies against the laity."

It seems clear, especially today, that we can't each be an expert on everything we have to do to survive in modern social and technical environments. So an aspect of our civilization is that we farm out specialist tasks to specialist people, hopefully those with the best aptitude, skill and training for that specialty. This happens at multiple levels: we delegate part of caring for our own health to doctors (in the first case to General Practitioners), who in turn delegate to nurses, specialists - and if they are broad-minded enough - to complementary therapists.

One possible classification of 'types' of professionals

Advisors, Consultants, e.g. in savings and investment, IT, own health management
Organisers, e.g. project leaders, managers, personal assistants, civil servants
Intermediaries to some established 'system', e.g. accountants, lawyers, bankers, customs agents, agents generally
Risk mitigators, e.g. insurers, motoring organisations, GPs, security specialists, police on surveillance or 'neighbourhood watch'
Trouble shooters, e.g. emergency repair, police/fire/ambulance case workers, emergency doctors
Care workers, e.g. nurses, therapists, paramedics, home helps
Merchants, e.g. shopkeepers, importers/exporters, purveyors of special goods
Knowledge workers, e.g. journalists, researchers, teaching syllabus preparers
Message specialists, e.g. PA people, spin doctors, salespersons, advertisers, spokespersons, technical writers
Translators and transcribers, e.g linguists, shorthand typists
Designers - of just about any artefact or system
Wager takers, e.g. bookmakers, actuaries
Trainers, e.g. teachers, sports coaches, acting directors
Entertainers, e.g. professional sportspersons, actors, comedians, circus performers, magicians, singers, storytellers
Practical engineers, e.g. plumbers, electricians, gardeners, builders, mechanics, drivers, computer programmers, trained specialist soldiers

As can be seen, some people might find themselves in overlapping categories, e.g. a doctor or engineer might cover both prevention (check-ups, regular maintenance) and cure (call-out, repair).

The list seems to account for a large proportion of all the people in a modern society. So who is actually left?

We should also mention people like students, housewives, waiters, receptionists, orderlies, porters, unskilled labourers, night watchmen, old-style infantry soldiers, retirees, invalids and criminals. The implication of their not being in the list above is that we don't expect them to have a lot of specialist training in order to carry out their activities. Sometimes there is also the implication that someone else (presumably a professional) will tell them what to do.

Specialist professional fields

Although the 'types' of professional distinguish the sort of things we do, it's possible that we might do similar things but in different specialist fields. These correspond to the 'disciplines' and 'bodies of knowledge' that are needed. Here are some examples.

Finance

Investment
Insurance
Savings, Pensions

Engineering
- Building and construction
- Mechanical
- Electrical and electronic
- Chemical
- Information technology
Medicine

General Practice
Specialist Practice
Surgery
Dentistry
Complementary Therapy

Warfare
Science
Law
Religion
Business
Politics
Fashion
Arts
Media

Types of tools that professionals use

Methodologies - how we carry out our profession
Codes of practice - guidelines and limits on how we should - and shouldn't - do things, in order to keep people's trust in us
Underlying knowledge, theories, practical histories and experience
Skill and dexterity - manual (e.g. surgeons, dentists, carpenters, fitters) or mental
Personal communications skills, 'rhetoric', the 'language' specialists use to talk to the rest of us

What sort of temptations are there for professionals in general?

Playing politics within an organisation of professionals
Angling for promotion or positions of influence
Hanging on to sinecures and privileges
Hanging on to employed positions regardless of demand for their products or services
Maintaining an oligarchy in their own profession, keeping it exclusive
Putting higher priority on improving their individual CVs, rather than serving the client
Letting private or clique agendas rule their conduct
Manipulating clients into excessively frequent use of services in order to keep up income
Taking more interest in the work itself, rather than the benefit of the clients
Highlighting value criteria that emphasize the need for their own particular profession, while downplaying other criteria
Downplaying other professions, possibly rivals or competitors
Failing to understand clients' priorities and values
Pandering to their own sense of importance, or even infallibility
Persuading clients to use a service that helps their own or the profession's research aims
Persuading clients to use a service in order to create training exercises for junior professionals
Appealing to clients' vanities, or their tendency to under- (or over-)estimate risk or their chances
Encouraging an artificial "value gradient" so as to be able to charge more money, e.g. wine, coffee, holidays, modern art
Overemphasizing the speed and size of changes over time to encourage more repeated business
Overdoing claims of benefit to society (common among e.g. researchers)
Doing things for their news value, rather than value to clients
Doing things the way the individual professional likes, rather than what the client wants
Believing their own bullshit

Are there some specific temptations for specific professions?

I expect there are lots. A few that come immediately to mind are:

Accountants - to under-emphasize all considerations other than money value ('bottom line')
Insurance - to push people into the view that financial payouts can compensate for the pain of life's 'slings and arrows'; by listing all the risks (things that could go wrong), to play on ordinary people's fear, almost suggesting that they will happen; to keep quiet about historical probabilities of risks; not to considering the client's alternative of 'self-insurance' (i.e. having saved enough for 'rainy days')
Organized religion - to pretend to have a line to unique or eternal truths about all matters; to override individual persons' conscious self-reflection; to offer 'magic'
Law - to encourage the culture that "if at first you don't succeed, sue someone"; to maintain an oligarchy with a mystique of special knowledge
Management - to assume a 'divine right' to tell others what to do; to forget about the motivation of the individuals they are leading
Marketing and fashion - to set up 'value ramps'; to hustle people into change for change's sake; to uncaringly play on the weaknesses of potential customers
Medicine - to fob the patient off with a quick prescription; to follow the biblical maxim "if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off"
Financiers - to downplay future investment risk (other than by reciting the bland general statement "things may go down as well as up")
Academics - to view all problems through very narrow lenses of their own specialty, downplaying inter-disciplinary effects.

What sort of people are at risk of being taken for a ride?

The poorly educated, who may not spot they are being manipulated
The people stuck in a rut of their own favourite theories or 'stories'
The headbangers and people on a work or lifestyle treadmill who have no time or inclination to grasp the issues
Those in a culture of non-thinking 'mateship'
Those with too grand an opinion of themselves
Those who think their luck is better than others
Pessimists, hypochondriacs, complainers

What, if anything, can be done to limit the temptations?

Never restrict policing of the profession to insiders only - have representatives from outside the profession on any governing body
Try to get past the "I'm the expert, you're the idiot" syndrome and build a more normal relationship
If you are the customer, try to show a little background knowledge, ask friends about it, or read up on the web before you engage a professional.

Disclaimer

As with all my essays on this site, the observations on this page represent my personal view as someone who has been a citizen of 3 different nations and has lived in countries with different languages, religions and outlooks on life - and is an ex-professional and now retiree.

Links

Index to more of these diatribes

FROLIO home page

Some of these links may be under construction – or re-construction.

This version updated on 21^st June 2012

If you have constructive suggestions or comments, please contact the author rogertag@tpg.com.au .