you wrote:

Note how we identify ourselves….

Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, Psychologist, and a myriad other singular definitions.

We have been conditioned to assign ourselves value based on our utility. Absent utility, we are useless.

in reply:
The Associated Press – great Gatekeeper of “News” as defined by “Professional Journalists” – just suffered a near-death experience when they jumped on a blogger for using too much of their material – even when properly sourced and cited – in his blog.

Suddenly, newspapers are looking at lowering their costs, and one way to do this is to limit the fees they pay to the Associated Press.

The first guy to do this is Rupert Murdoch, with the Wall Street Journal.

The “utility” of the “professional journalist” is being marked to market in the new world of the Internet, in general, with the growth of the blogosphere, AND with the new, links-based information economy.

With the passing of the “professional journalist” AND its source of organizational power – the Associated Press – will come, in time, the passing of most other “professions” that do not directly add value to the end user.

And, regarding “utility,” the Internet-forced transparency of the New Economic Order will redefine it, not in terms of governmentally-defined “titles,” but in terms of the value they deliver.

We can see this already in journalism, where the professional journalists are calling for a central fund to support them, and their academic positions.

I suppose the next step for them would be to require licensure for “professional journalists,” as they had in Marxist countries – proof positive that they are of no value whatsoever, in terms of telling the “truth,” but only the politically correct “truth.”

Nowadays, sans a college education one is reduced to sweeping floors and picking vegetables.

Was Gregor Mandel an educated man?

Was Johann Goethe an educated man?

Was Johann Bach an educated man?

In todays world, where would these men be?

Dave mentions something really important..

“An enduring fiction is the notion of “career”. How it got going, I don’t know. The notion does more damage to otherwise bright people that any other “meme”.

There is no such thing as a “career”. No such thing has ever existed.”

Note how we identify ourselves….

Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer, Psychologist, and a myriad other singular definitions.

We have been conditioned to assign ourselves value based on our utility. Absent utility, we are useless.

There is no such thing as a “career”. No such thing has ever existed.

This Wordism was most heavily promoted by the “Greatest Generation” to justify their defined benefit retirement programs and public employee union cards. Mommy Professor loves the notion for the same obvious reasons.

This “meme” would not exist if it were not for government. It is entirely a “Soviet” idea.

Think of the fools who pursue “career” in our time. How dumb can you get? Because of the Internet, there are no “exclusive access” silos of knowledge (stuffed inside some guild) anymore.

How do you get “profession” out of this? It’s obvious to me that the “professions” are attempting to bail their sinking ships with spoons.

And it is astonishing how fast these ships are sinking.