The Armchair
One of the clear benefits of our formerly prestigious institutions crumbling due to the tyranny of subterranean standards is that the credentials and imprimaturs they dole out carry little to no weight.
Ponder for a moment: Thanks to affirmative action injustices, does anyone walking around with a “B.A.” or “B.S.” (initials more appropriate than ever) really impress? How about a PhD in fields respected just a couple of decades ago? The great Tom Woods in a recent missive reviewed some of the paper proposals for symposia sponsored by the preeminent professional historical associations. Do you mean that you don’t suspect that an entire paper written on the queering of the Pequod War won’t attain the same cultural heights of Frederick Jackson Turner’s frontier thesis or Emile Zola’s “J’Accuse“?! How dare you, bigot?! That he/she’s or zig/zag’s paper does not become the historical phenomenon it ought to be just indicates “how much work there is left to do”–of course, to vanquish any anachronistic connection and preference society might still have with truth, goodness, and beauty. A PhD in history just ain’t what it used to be.
Kamala Harris supposedly holds a JD. Unless there is a Latin phrase that can be acronymed from “Montel William’s lesser side piece” into “JD”, well I’m afraid her very essence makes my argument vis-à-vis the legal profession. Case closed.
Proven now is a long held suspicion: Your doctor is not Albert Schweitzer or Hugh Lawrie from “House, M.D.” It is not that medicine is an ignoble pursuit, but perhaps because of the high time preference and demand for physical health–often today turned into temporary, pharmaceutical relief–most doctors are owned. Owned by the government. Owned by big insurance. Owned by big pharma. Owned by the licensure organizations owned by the former three. The founders of the American Medical Association considered it imperative to form a high-falutin, de facto union of physicians to crush alternative medicine; that is, alternatives to the Rockefeller-petroleum-pharmaceutical health complex. Just glimpse back at what happened to doctors and medical researchers who, during the Covid plan-demic dared to defy Dr. Puppy-Torturer, Dr. Science, Anthony Fauci. Truth is “public health” is a sleek veneer for what old practitioners used to proudly call “eugenics”. A public educated in government schools by a lot of Ph.Ed’s (please, contain your laughter) is too mollified, too dull, too ignorant to notice the deadly doppelganger-substitute.
On a positive note then, allow me to laud the alternative–the armchair expert. It seems that Dax Shepherd and some cute Indian girl have an eponymous podcast–done tongue-in-cheek, of course since Shepherd claims to be something of a know-it-all and the cute Indian girl challenges his notions. I’ve never listened nor will ever listen, but let’s proceed to extract the langue du joue for a moment.
The present day is the triumph of the armchair.
Just today at Mass on the Feast of the great Saint Monica, the priest extolled us in the congregation to live like saints, and to do so, we must stop being the faithful-enraged about what is going on in the Vatican, with our local bishops, and with their obsequious servants. He warned about “armchair theologians, armchair ecclesiologists.” Odd, it struck me, that he had just minutes earlier praised both St. Monica and St. Catherine of Siena for their respective geniuses; one as a mother, the other as a mystic-theologian. Neither had obtained any initials after their names. In fact, their charitable outrage at and firm action against what they understood was wrong all around them is what, in large part, rendered them saints. Turns out that the real sons and daughters of God, true geniuses, know first that it’s not about the letters after your name that matter, but before.
Want to be really informed, really awakened? Do not read some associate professor of history at DePaul–read Thaddeus Russell or Tom Woods or Stephen Kinzer. Current events? Go for Mr. James Delingpole and not Ms. Joe Rogan. Is knowledge of the current condition and ineffable teaching of the Catholic Church what you desire? You are much better off listening to ‘Avoiding Babylon‘ with a Long Island construction worker and a cantankerous Minnesotan (are there any other kinds?). Neither have M.Div’s or even MAT.’s but their faith and love of God render their shows more enlightening and informative than some garbage show from the ever-kowtowing Bishop Robert Barron. There is a hell, and listening to Barron mollify Church teaching and placate all his guests is a glimpse of it. Don’t even get me started about how your average D.O. is a much more effective and knowledgeable health provider than your run-of-the-mill M.D.
The etymology of “armchair expert” comes down to us from 1809 when the phrase first appeared in English publications denoting someone who is not a professional so must work from home, in an armchair. I am interested if the phrase (and its negative connotation) became popular because the existential archenemy of Britain at the time, Napoleon Bonaparte, appeared to be ruling on both domestic and foreign affairs, as a sort of armchair dictator. I did not gain such a curiosity, nor proper historical contextualization from my years of schooling in history. The fact that I had to write and then publish and then teach the history of the late French Revolution gained for me such expertise. Experience and practice made perfect.
The osteopath. The skeptic. The midwife. The farmer. The Austrian economist. The conspiracy theorist. The entrepreneur. The anti-vaxxer. The anarchist. The saint.
Get comfortable with the armchair.
