
14 Jan Progressive Professionalism
Longtime readers may recall that I have repeatedly used these pages to express my skepticism of the contemporary concept of “professionalism.” Much of my criticism of professionalism has centered on the “profession” of journalism. Tocqueville noted that, “among the moderns, independence of the press is the most important, indeed the essential, ingredient of liberty.” The professionalization of journalism, I have argued, worked to undermine this key ingredient, with “professional” standards, “professional” associations, and “professional” schools, designed specifically to undermine true independence and to enshrine “professionals” as informational gatekeepers, empowered to determine who is or is not a real journalist and thus to determine who is or is not qualified to speak “The Truth®” to or on behalf of the regime.
I have not, however, restricted my criticism of professionalism to journalists. I have also criticized the professionalization of government administration, policing, education, and other erstwhile “occupations.” The underlying reason has been the same in every case: my opposition to the effort undertaken to restrict the practice of a vocation to those who first acknowledge and accept a set of standards and behaviors designed principally to advance and protect the power of its members. More simply: the problem with most professionalization is that it is intended to advance the “rule of experts” and deride as unqualified those who lack proper credentialing. Or, as I put in a piece about professional policing just under four years ago:
American policing, like so many other American institutions, suffers today from decisions made by the early, proto-Progressive reformers to insulate the management and operations of this supposed “public” service from the public.
American policing is American institutional history in a nutshell. It has a track record that could apply to almost any institution that the Progressives screwed up in their pursuit of permanent, self-aggrandizing command of the state. It can be summarized as the “top-down, antidemocratic means” of control.
To be clear, I don’t object to professionalism in a generic sense. I think it’s important for doctors and lawyers to conduct themselves according to certain codes of ethics and in line with certain expectations. Likewise, it’s important for police and fire departments to abide by best practices and to strive to interact with the communities they serve in a standardized mutually acceptable manner.
The problem, rather, is “professionalism” – with the scare quotes included. It is almost uniformly a practice undertaken in the name of progressive goals and which focuses more on procedures than outcomes.
The U.S. Fire Administration, for example, is an important and necessary organization that provides a great deal of valuable education and information. It is also, like most federal agencies (under the Biden Administration, in particular) focuses in part on advancing the goals of the progressive state. Its “leadership” training and continuing education focus on DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – and on integrating social values into codes of professional conduct. It celebrates Pride Month. It advocates “justice” above impartiality and fairness.
Last week, social media posters made public a DEI recruiting video created by the Los Angeles Fire Department. In the video, Deputy Fire Chief Kristine Larson explains that it is important to people that those who provide this public service “look like” them. “You want to see somebody that responds to your house, your emergency—whether it’s a medical call or a fire call—that looks like you,” Larson insists, “It gives that person a little bit more ease, knowing that somebody might understand their situation better.”
Perhaps this sentiment is backed up by hard data – although I doubt it. Either way, Larson, much to our dismay, continues, addressing the possibility that she might not be able to rescue a man from a fire in the same way a male firefighter could: “Is she strong enough to do this, or could he carry my husband out of a fire? To which my response is, ‘he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.’”
The response to this video has been overwhelming and overwhelmingly negative, as you might expect. “DEI is a suicide pact,” as one wag noted.
This is inarguably true. DEI is problematic for a number of different reasons, but mostly because its specific goal is to subvert competence and merit and replace them with values that are more social and less practical, namely superficial values and characteristics that have nothing to do with the job at hand. If the end result of DEI is hiring people who cannot do the job and who, more to the point, know they can’t do the job and are proud of it, then DEI is indeed a patently dangerous and destructive enterprise.
But DEI is only a part of the larger problem. DEI has been promoted, despite its obviously perilous premises, because it advances the agenda of the ruling class, of the “experts” who believe that they know best and who believe that their credentials entitle them to universal deference. DEI is not the culprit; it is a symptom of progressive professionalization. It is a mere part of the professionalization process. And like much of what passes for professionalism, its so-called expertise is more acutely directed toward process and procedure than results. Progressive professionalism declares that it is more important and more beneficial to hire firefighters who “look like” their public clients than for them to be able to save those clients. That is a peculiar conclusion but one perfectly in keeping with the spirit of top-down, anti-democratic administration. It’s about power, not results. Always has been. Always will be.
Remember that when you see that some professional organization or another has issued a statement explaining to you what is and is not in your best interests. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re wrong. But usually, they’re more concerned about how to make you behave than anything else.