Speaking of pretense, I am an example of one. One of my many assumptions is that I assume that you might wish to read what is on my warped mind.
I was reflecting on what I wrote yesterday. I fancy myself a musician, a writer, a historian... (butcher, baker and candle stick maker)...I have had music lessons, a fine multi-university education with multiple degrees in history, religious studies, literature and economics...a fine liberal arts education (Summa cum laude no less). But currently we are a breeding ground, a virtual swamp, for amateurs. I listed my acquaintance yesterday as one such. Anyone, literally anyone, can pick up a guitar and, with or without lessons, play. Rock and roll gave us some interesting music but it did more to populate a culture of amateurs. Garage bands, weekend warriors. And so on. This is the lazy approach to so called music.
We have an idiot who assumes because he ran a company (four of them right into the ground) that he has sufficient expertise to run for president. The last time be had an idiot president with an MBA as a background we were fighting a multitude of senseless wars and ruining the economy. Justice Scalia has had the temerity to sit on the highest court in our country and say he really hasn't read the Constitution. Just not a student of the subject. Another amateur rising to the top. We have so called "scholars' with no real knowledge of the subject who claim the world is but a few centuries old and that dinosaurs roamed the earth in biblical times. There is another person at work who fancies herself a scholar of Antisemitism because she catalogs so much Antisemitic literature. Still, she can't find a usable subject heading to suit her needs and refuses to sit down with our Jewish Studies bibliographer and the head of the Metadata Management Unit to make good and usable finding aids on this topic so as to best help out patrons. It is the "I don't know it for a fact...but I know it is true" mentality. It has a grip on us. Everyone is an expert. Everyone has the moral high ground. It is just so pervasive in our culture. It may even be a harbinger of the end times...(like that will happen because of the cultural morass we find ourselves) (NOT)
I digress. This culture of amateurism might lead me to say that because I am bipolar, which I am, that I am an expert on the subject. True, I have made a "study" of this, but not in an academic setting. I do read a great deal. Doesn't make me an expert. You need a professional to prescribe medications, not some dolt like myself. Regardless of how much I have read or had intensive therapy I am not an expert. I don't pretend to be, but our culture might elevate me to a position of being an expert. (I am not a doctor but I play one on television...(There for the grace of WebMD go I)).
In terms of music, again, I know that D-G-A works in chording. Most basic of knowledge. I might have learned this through lessons, (which I did) or by diddling around on a guitar. C-F-G...rock and roll, E-A-B7 in blues. That is like the Rosetta Stone of guitar music. You can change the tuning but these chords will repeat again and again. Just watch this rant on popular music using Pachelbel's ubiquitous Canon to see how similar structures work.Pachelbel Rant
Amateurs. A whole culture of amateurs, dilettantes and what-nots. Anyone can be a self professed expert. I can go online, fill out a form and become a minister who can perform weddings and other sacred events. Does that truly make me one...I think not. But I could.
Just like I could tell you I know what I am talking about (which I do) but I can't quantify this. And sometimes things need to be quantified, studied and applied, not just assumed. As my daddy (and probably yours, too) used to say "To assume makes and ass out of u and me"
Or more to the disgusting point. When I ask you how many bowel movements you have had today and you say none, then I can really say "You don't know shit!".
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