Reply to comment

I originally wrote the following post in response to a discussion of "fact," held in Ann Dalke's Stories of Evolution & Evolution of Stories class.  Even so, I feel it applies to Virginia Woolf's observations concerning the bloodthirsty nature of all professional life and training:

"It is my opinion that living in a Capitalist society has perpetuated the idea that certain professionals "own" their field...mainly, scientists "own" science because, well, that's just what they're good at. This belief, held by a majority of the educated population (though they may not necessarily phrase it as such) has allowed professionals to speak to their audience (educators, the professional community, etc.) in much the same way as a priest preaching Christianity.

Basically, If you know your science, you own that science, because, let's face it, after a certain point, you realize you know more than someone else and that knowledge is "yours" to exploit.

Now, while this is happening, others become concious of the fact that they don't know as much about a topic as another and, as a result, find themself looking to that person with the upmost of trust. There are two reasons for this. The first is that they don't obtain the knowledge necessary to contradict them. The second requires a visual: A scientist has spent years absorbing "facts" and is constantly moving up the knowledge ladder. If a scientist standing on the 10th rung of this ladder offers someone standing on the floor a bit of information, they benefit that person as they offer them the means to work their way up the ladder. The person on the floor does not want to believe they are filling their head with less-wrong information, and so they justify the absorbtion of new knowledge by calling it fact."

 It is my opinion that knowledge has slowly transformed into the natural resource everybody wants. More valuable than oil, and hypothetically attainable by every individual, people have begun to fight not only for it, but over it. People persist with this mentality: "If i've spent my time studying, I better damn well know more than you."  Thus, I must agree with Virginia Woolf: "professions make people...possessive, jealous...and highly combative."