India Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar joins author M.J. John for release of Story of Man -- Layman (1991).

M.J. John, author of Story of Man -- Layman (1991) announced his support of authors J. Wyatt Ehrenfels and Jeff Schmidt, becoming the third author of a growing alliance against the corruption of scholarly fields by professionalism. John's latest work Professionalism: Bane of Human Civilizations joins Fireflies in the Shadow of the Sun and Disciplined Minds as testimonies to this alleged source of ill and ignominy. John strings citations from Thomas More, Albert Einstein, and George Bernard Shaw, among others, in laying the groundwork for his critique of professionalism and what ally J. Wyatt Ehrenfels has called a 'hyper-' or 'pseudo-' professionalism. "Professionals need a protected and artificial environment for their `effective' functioning and their products are synthetics and hybrids," remarked John. "According to Webster's (Dictionary) professionalism is the 'following of a profession for gain or livelihood', and a profession is 'a calling requiring specialised knowledge.' And a specialist is 'a man with a one-track mind.' So a professional is one who will sell his service of specialised knowledge (expertise) for a price or livelihood, no matter to whom or for what.'" Like his comrade in arms, Ehrenfels, John can often be found advancing his argument in Internet discussion groups. "We are a group of authors," commented Ehrenfels, "who have had to put aside the shyness and reticence that characterize most authors so that we could bring our message to the public in the most effective way possible." John and Ehrenfels have worked independently on platforms which converge on multiple points of similarity. But they claim that unlike their adversaries, who seek to conform to certain extraneous criteria that further homogenize the group to which they belong, sharing only intrinsic social ambitions, theirs is a truly independent convergence based on the sharing of imperatives grounded in nature. "Worldly success depends on your capacity to avoid or control self-passion," declared John. "A professional may, however, exhibit artificial (controlled) passions to suit the occasion. As strange bedfellows passions and professionalism always stay apart. Franklin Roosevelt's expert adviser, Mr. Louis Mc HenryHowe, once remarked in a 1933 speech that you can't adopt politics as a profession and remain honest. Professionalism succeeds when one does `justice' to his profession, like a `successful' lawyer doing everything to increase his cases and fees by covertly inflating and prolonging the cases; the professional policeman rejoices at the sudden increase of law and order problems; doctors and drug-manufactures help to increase diseases so as to thrive in their business; market minded arms manufactures increase tension, which will help arms sales the world over." John's induction into the alliance will be announced formally by Ehrenfels at his first reading in Seattle. Together they hope to put human faces on the consequences of professionalism. M.J. John can be contacted at muthukat@yahoo.com.

John's Critique, Informal Remarks from Author MJ John

"...No man is born an evil, nor is he trained as one; he is only trained as an expert or a professional for whom good and evil are just the two roles that he will `legitimately' perform on appointment or payment. At a time when the line separating good from evil, right from wrong, fact from fiction have all been made very thin and flimsy and which alternatively go on interchanging without much detection it is almost a futile exercise for us to expect modern professionals to solve our problems or find out the truth or to do the right thing or, simply, to use their mind. Professionals and experts exist only because of our problems. If problems cease to exist professionals and experts too will cease to exist which they can never allow. They solve one problem only by laying the seeds of two, may be more serious problem later, like the business logic's of modern synthetic medicines; problem and more problem are the pre-requisites to guarantee their success and continued existence.

The logic behind the widespread ragging in almost all professional colleges and other professional institutions the world over, particularly in the third world, is based on the principle of purging the humanistic passions and other finer sentiments from the incumbent trainees and thus to embolden them on the lines of blind professional skills. Of late, this trend has gained pathological dimensions; today even deaths are reported, now and then, from many engineering and medical colleges in India in recent times, for example.Mechanical logic and mathematics are the basic ingredients for high-tech professional skills and the very young and immature age is the prime time to train and sharpen them. So many developed nation catch them young. "Infants as young as five months can add and subtract," says Dr. Karen Wynn at the University of Arizona in a report in 1992 in Nature. Arithmetical and synthetic logical capacities appear to be innate in young age. Pre-maturely emboldened, they even shoot one another for such petty reason as snatching the attractive shoe of the victim, as has been reported from American schools, for example. The report that the fast surging teen spirit growing to much pathological proportion all over the developed nations especially America and, of late, Japan is a pointer in this direction of over-mechanization. Widely acclaimed Dr. Balamurali Krishna, who rose to become the media celebrity as the world's youngest doctor at the age of 17 from a famous American University in May 1995 was however, arrested at Visakapatanam, his nature place in India, in November 1995 on charge of cruelty towards his wife. And the reason was surprisingly silly, quite immaterial to the youth culture -- for bringing less money in marriage as dowry. (He was then in India to receive an award for his distinction as the world's youngest doctor after winning many awards from America).

Psychology

Psychology is to mind what water is to fish. Psychology, primarily and fundamentally, is a field dealing exclusively and directly with the affairs of the mind. In the vital field human health, psychology occupies the first position. In every area of human health problems, the primary reference is to the psychiatrist, as all ailments is supposed to have its roots with the malfunctioning of the mind.

Professionals to handle Psychology

Now to entrust this most crucial task with professionals - people without minds (they style themselves as experts) - is like appointing devils to solve the problems of heaven. No wonder a heaven-like 19th century healthy, wealthy America has become the 21st century hell with almost every forth American becoming a chronic neurotic as as depicted by the famous futuristic American writer, Alwin Tofler:

"Throughout the affluent nations the litany is all too familiar: rising rates of juvenile suicide, dazzlingly high levels of alcoholism, widespread psychological depression, vandalism, and crime. In the United States, emergency rooms are crowded with "potheads", "speed freaks" and "quaalude kids", "cock sniffers" and "heroin junkies", not to mention people having "nervous breakdowns".

"Social work and mental health industries are booming everywhere. In Washington a President's Commission on Mental Health announces that fully one forth of all citizens in the United States suffer from some form of severe emotional stress. And a National Institute of Mental Health psychologist, charging that almost no family is free of some form of mental disorder, declares that "psychological turbulence . . . . is rampant in an American society that is confused, divided and concerned about its future".

Thus wrote the famous American futurist writer Alwin Tofler on the growing mental illness spreading throughout the west, particularly America during the 70's in The Third Wave (1980).

Americans indeed have had a faulty raw deal by the highly professionalized mental health care system today. Professionals with their emphasis on the expedient aspect of doing business in this vital field have only helped to aggravate the problem by their highly superficial and compartmentalized method in which the solution of problem are in arithmetic proportion whereas the creation of new and more serious problems are in geometric proportion.

And the latest to join the fad is the likes of one Dr. Lou Marinoff, a philosophy professor who seems to go many steps further at one go in treating stress and other paranoid situations of modern man. Styled as philosopher therapist (he practices in Manhattan) he claims to displace the traditional "shrinks" from the field of psychiatry by invoking the 2500 years old history of philosophical discourses. Following the examples of Socrates, who conducted his mission in the streets of Athens, dozens of philosophers have entered American health care market place as "philosophical practitioners". They are reportedly campaigning for recognition by the authorities that would allow patients to be referred to them by family doctors. "Psychiatry is in crisis and psychologists are on the defensive" says Marinoff echoing a widespread disenchantment with the Fraudian disciplines tendency to see all mental disorders as a product of childhood conflict and trauma.

Thus be it the increasing common sight of common man flocking the consolation centres and makeshift Christian Charismatic halls or the intellectuals fast becoming endangered species or the steady reports of widespread stress and other psychological problems engulfing the so called experts, professionals and other elite social groups, or the fast declining political initiative among the people's leaders, namely the politicians, the world over, it is increasingly becoming clear that the life of modern mind is in real peril, and that no category of modern man is exempt from this growing catastrophic menace.

However, of late some light seem to be seen from the other end of the tunnel, for which the modern mental health care sector owes a lot to two brave American authors, one among them, Mr. J. Wyatt Ehrenfels, being a psychiatrist professor himself. Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt[reachable at]) and Fire Flies by Ehrenfels (reachable at) seem to be making a sort of revolution in the field of psychology by their passionate and bold fight against professionalism in the mental health care sector. They have, indeed, exposed a lot of aberrations and malfunctioning that have engulfed this vital human field due to its mindless professionalization.

And this author too can claim some sort of a credit in the fight against professionalism. Although I was not specifically concentrating on professionalism in psychology, in STORY OF MAN - LAYMAN (1990), as my first book, I was taking on professionalism head on. As the first author in the world to come out with a whole book against professionalism, I proved it as vitiating the entire gamut of human civilization, particularly the vital cognition sector. (The book was released by then Indian Prime Minister, Chandra Shekhar in Feb 1991 and some reviews from the leading dailies and magazines followed. But did not invoked much popular imagination in India, and not much sale.

Professionalism being a linear, synthetic and thus a non-cyclic mechanical process in the otherwise natural evolution process it is directly and solely responsible for all the pollutions in the modern society. In philosophy professionalism leads to intellectual pollutions, professionalism in religions leads to spiritual pollutions, professionalism in science leads to all-round material pollutions, professionalism in politics leads politicians misleading a whole nation and her people. "A nation as badly governed as America today is by professional politicians who may not know the term professional is an encomium when applied to apparachits like Rollins and Jordan". Newsweek columnist George F. Will wrote on the American political scene referring to the Ross Perot election campaign in 1990 in the hands of seasoned professional.

Professionalism : Bane of Human Civilizations

All professions are conspiracies against the laity - Bernard Shaw

You can't adopt politics as a profession and remain honest - Mr. Louis Mc Henry Howe (Franklin Roosevelt's expert adviser)

The man we call a specialist today was formerly called a man with a one-track mind - Endre Balogh

A specialist is one who knows everything about something and nothing about anything else - Ambrose Bierce

It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and of the morally good. Otherwise he-with his specialised knowledge-more closely resembles a well-trained dog than a harmoniously developed person. - Albert Einstein

What is fatal to the humanities is that they have been professionalised as if their end and purpose were the same as that of the science - William Arrowsmith

A diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip - Caskie Stinnett

No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot - George Bernard Shaw