The illusion of competence

Our contact with the world beyond our immediate social circle comes largely through the media^[1], and increasingly through the Internet and social media.  The media delivers us a skewed picture of human ability, one that, even today in the age of the tabloid and the infotainment bulletin, is excessively flattering.  The Internet delivers us what we want it to deliver - connections, opinions and information that largely reinforce our predispositions and our sense of competence, belonging and homogeneity.

Journalists, editors, news presenters, script writers, and actors, are not representative of the population at large.  To the contrary, to have succeeded in their industry they must have been drawn from the top of the human ability range.  The intellectual capacity, the eloquence, the competence, and the self-confidence of the people who deliver us the world through our visual display units and the pages of our magazines and daily newspapers, are considerably above the population average.  It is this elite that interprets and presents the outside world to us, coloured with its own views, interests, and abilities. 

Even when they portray or relay life in the gutter and at the blunt end, our actors or journalists inevitably understate the poverty of intellect and the depressed consciousness of a surprisingly high proportion of the population. 

The news of the world, and our daily vicarious insights into the lives of others, whether by sitcom, cop show, or reality TV, is brought to us by people who are bright and highly motivated.  It is easy, seeing them in action, having them in our living rooms every night, to come to assume that they and their interpretations are representative of the population at large and of life in general.  Nothing could be further from the truth. 

The level of understanding or even interest among a large proportion of the populace in events outside of their immediate environments is very low.  In public referenda on significant constitutional issues, the comprehension achieved, even after extensive publicity expressed in the very simplest of terms, is dismal. 

The contemporary trend away from current affairs reporting and analysis to infotainment, offering a quick succession of unrelated but juicy sound-bites, reflects a growing understanding by the commercial media of the dearth in intellectual capacity, social conscience, and emotional maturity of much of its audience.  Similarly, the worldwide rise of the tabloid newspaper reflects not a drop in social standards, but a recognition that the standards previously adopted were beyond the interest and the capacity of much of the market. 

Even so, we still overrate ourselves and our fellow citizens. 

As a result of the restricted social circles in which most of us move, our generally self-affirming use of the Internet, and the filtered, embellished, energised, glossed-up, and "entertainified" media view of the world that we accept as reality, not only do we assume that the human population is more homogeneous than it is^[2], but we also assume an average level of life-competence and mental ability that is well above the actual.  We also assume that we ourselves are more competent than we really are.

At the top end of the life-competence continuum are those rare individuals who have the intellectual horsepower, the life experience, the maturity, the breadth of values, the social skills, the energy, and the drive to successfully manage large organisations, including entire societies.  They are innovative, highly adaptable, and are able to alter the courses of organisations^[3].  They are strategic thinkers who are able to develop and articulate appropriate, consistent, and cogent visions.  They are excellent communicators and motivators able to infuse their organisations with their enthusiasm for change and success. 

Such individuals are extremely rare; literally one in a million.  Economically, though not necessarily socially^[4], they more than justify the stratospheric remuneration packages that trans-national corporations pay their chief executives, assuming of course that such corporations have managed to capture one of these gems, and not a clever imitation, of which there are many. 

Below this elite, there is a layer, perhaps less than ten percent of the population, that is able to excel in specialist fields of human endeavour: the sciences, the arts, music, sport, business, government.  Their excellence in particular fields may come at the expense of basic competence in other areas, but, by and large, they are able to function effectively at all levels. 

The rest of us stumble through life, often reactively, shrouded in benevolent mediocrity.  We proceed with varying degrees of success, through a mixture of ability, reasoning, intuition, native cunning, cheating, luck, bluff, bluster, posturing, and sheer tenacity.  There are occasional flashes of brilliance, sometimes even a sustained glow, but we are, on the whole, much less competent than we like to think we are.

We all contribute to the illusion of competence.  The often quoted adage that people rise to the level of their incompetence would be funny if it were not true.  Incompetence, like naivety, is always somebody else's problem.  If there is one thing that most of us are very good at it is coming up with excuses for failed performance - there is always a plausible reason, and almost always it is somebody else's fault. 

That society has developed as far as it has with its frail and flawed raw material is one of life's miracles^[5].  That contemporary societies function at all is due to the fact that most of us run our lives down well-defined social railway tracks that allow us to keep moving forward and to contribute to society, while maintaining the illusions of personal competence and control. 

At the bottom end of the life-competence continuum, some twenty percent or more of the population of developed societies lives life at its bleakest and most brutish.  This group lives almost wholly by instinct, and prejudice.  Its members are more likely to resort to crime, violence and physical intimidation.  They will have comparatively poor physical and mental health.  They are largely unemployable, subsisting on benefits, charity, and crime.  They never vote.  There will be higher levels of abuse within their dysfunctional family units, than within those of other social groupings.  Educational achievement will be low; substance abuse and gambling will be high.  Morale and self-esteem will be particularly poor.  Few will see a way out, and no-one plans much beyond next week.  Life is taken from day to day, with wild mood swings, the few moments of success and happiness enthusiastically embraced, but rapidly swamped by the mean-spirited aggression that surrounds them, forcing them back down into anger, despair, and dense apathy. 

Far from pulling together under adversity, their inability to compromise, cooperate, and develop any lasting consensus causes them to lead a conflict-ridden existence, with one acrimonious petty dispute being followed by another.  The smallest reverse blows up into an emotional conflagration.  Perhaps because they have so little self-esteem, they need to fight tooth and nail for every inch of personal domain. 

The bottom twenty percent make no contribution whatsoever to the overall well-being or sustainability of society.  To the contrary, they are the primary recruiting ground for the criminal underworld, for fanatical sects, and for racist and fascist movements that pander to their aggressive and destructive tendencies^[6].  They do not recognise themselves as socially handicapped.  They hold strong opinions on a small range of issues.  They are arrogant and vehement in their ignorance.  They blame others and society for their inability to cope, seeking scapegoats of high visibility on which they can focus their frustration. 

These are the people who assault medical staff in hospitals as they are being treated. 

They are largely irredeemable.  What to do with them is one of the challenges of any faith or belief system.  The tolerant and forgiving approach^[7] advocated by the politically correct is certainly not the answer. 

This rather depressing account of human competence should not blind us to the considerable skills and positive qualities possessed by the majority of our population, and the frequently untapped power^[8] each of us has.  We also all have a strong innate sense of justice which is invaluable in the development and maintenance of viable societies. 

But, in conducting our lives and constructing our descendants' futures^[9], we must recognise our shortcomings and illusions

Only a minority of any population is able to function in the way envisaged by the architects of the Democratic system of government: as rational and informed decision makers acting with the best interests of society at heart. 

The assumption that the majority of people know what is good for them and good for society, and that therefore all we need to do is to get out of their lives and give them the ability to choose for themselves, is false.  The so-called empowerment of the individual through untrammelled democracy, the shrinking of Government, and the freeing of economic markets, will bring much permanent and unnecessary unhappiness, because a significant proportion of the population is inherently unable to cope with such freedom.  It will also undermine the biosphere^[10] and our long term viability as a species. 

Those of us who can have the responsibility to act as our siblings’ trustees^[11].