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Amateurs and Professionals

Amateurs and professionals - what is the difference?

Not too long ago I read a book that focused greatly on how to find and maintain ways to be happy and content in life, and came across something that echoed loudly within me to the point that I saw it in others as well that I decided to share it with you.

Therefore, if this resonates with you as well, please take heed.

Some of us specialize and devote all our energy to a particular activity, aiming to reach almost professional levels of performance in it. We even tend to look down and criticize anyone who is not as skillful and devoted to our specialty.

While those others prefer to dabble in a variety of activities, taking as much enjoyment as possible from each without necessarily becoming an “expert” in any one of them.

There are two words whose meaning reflect our somewhat warped attitudes towards levels of commitment to physical or mental activities. These are the terms amateur and dilettante. Nowadays, these labels are slightly derogatory. An amateur or dilettante is someone not quite up to par, a person no taken very seriously, one whose performance falls short of professional standards. But, originally, “amateur” from the Latin verb amare, “to love,” referred to a person who loved what he or she was doing.

Similarly, a “dilettante,” from the Latin delectare, “to find delight in,” was someone who enjoyed a given activity. The earliest meanings of these words therefore, drew attention to experiences rather than accomplishments. They described the subjective rewards individuals gained from doing things, instead of focusing on how well they were achieving. Nothing illustrates as clearly our changing attitudes toward the value of experience as the fate of these two words.

There was a time when it was admirable to be an amateur poet or dilettante scientist, because it meant that the quality of life could be improved by engaging in such activities. But increasingly, the emphasis has been to value behavior over subjective states—what is admired is success, achievement, the quality of performance rather than the quality of experience. Consequently, it has become embarrassing to be called a dilettante, even though to be a dilettante is to achieve what counts most—the enjoyment one’s actions provide.

It is true that the sort of dilettantish learning encouraged can be undermined even more readily than professional scholarship, if learners lose sight of the goal that motivates them. Laypersons with an ax to grind sometimes turn to pseudo-science to advance their interests and often their efforts are almost indistinguishable from those of intrinsically motivated amateurs.

An interest in the history of ethnic origins, for instance, can become easily perverted into a search for proof of one’s own superiority over members of other groups. The Nazi movement in Germany turned to anthropology, history, anatomy, language, biology, and philosophy, and concocted from them its theory of Aryan racial supremacy. Professional scholars were also caught up in this dubious enterprise, but it was inspired by amateurs, amid the rules by which it was played belonged to its politics, not science.

Soviet biology was set back a generation when the authorities decided to apply the rules of communist ideology to growing corn, instead of following experimental evidences, Lysenko’s ideas about how grains planted in a cold climate would grow more hardy, and produce even hardier progeny, sounded good to the layperson, especially within the context of Leninist dogma.

Unfortunately, the ways of politics and the ways of corn are not always the same. And Lysenko’s efforts culminated in decades of hunger.

The bad connotations the terms amateur and dilettante have earned for themselves over the years are due largely to the blurring of the distinctions between intrinsic and extrinsic goals. An amateur who pretends to know as much as a professional is probably wrong, and up to some mischief.

The point of becoming an amateur scientist is not to compete with professionals on their own turf, but to use symbolic discipline to extend mental skills, and to create order in consciousness. On that level, amateur scholarship can hold its own, and can be even more effective than its professional counterpart. But the moment that amateurs lose sight of this goal, and use knowledge mainly to bolster their egos or to achieve a material advantage, then they become caricatures for the scholar.

Without training in the discipline of skepticism and reciprocal criticism that underlies the scientific method, laypersons who venture into the fields of knowledge with prejudiced goals can become more ruthless, more egregiously unconcerned with truth, than even the most corrupt scholar.

Therefore, dear friends, let’s return to the origin of doing whatever it is we decided to do simply for the love of it, for the enjoyment we derive from it, and not because we’re seeking praise, fame, or anything material—but because we consider ourselves true amateurs or dilettantes.

Thank you very much for your attention and God bless.

Ernesto Cole

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