Expertise for Dummies

I'm about halfway through The Philosophy Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained.  When I started, I didn't realize it was a series of books, which includes topics on Science, Criminology, Sociology, and others.  I'm glad I didn't realize this, because I typically shy away from those types of titles for fear that content may not be sufficiently broad nor deep.  This is all the more curious, because I also tend to like titles that sum up obscure topics in more bite sized packages - The Annotated Mona Lisa being another summary title I purchased years ago and really enjoyed.

These types of summary pieces introduce me to concepts I don't otherwise take the time to create to delve into, but usually do so in a way that doesn't leave me underwhelmed.  I know by some measures, this plays into the Dunning-Kruger effect, but I guess after a month's worth of posts, that seems to be the main point of more than a few posts - is there a point to being good enough? 

For a while, a lot of people in my circles seemed to be fixated on the 10,000 hours needed for expertise as referenced in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers.  I always felt a bit skeptical of the claim (or jealous, simply for the fact that I don't think I can spend 10,000 hours on anything).  It also pissed me off a bit because it taps into an American ethos that comes up short under close examination - if you work hard enough, you can achieve anything.  This aphoristic ideal ignores other factors like luck and talent.  In doing so, it hides the pernicious corollary - if you didn't achieve your goal it's simply because you were too lazy.

This has further social ramifications that have been encoded into American society that I don't want to delve into here, but as a simple rebuttal, given my genetic composition and my (at most) 5'10" height, there was absolutely no way that I ever was going to be a pro basketball all-star.  I'm sure someone will respond with the bitingly sharp "How do you know? Did you try?"  But yes, I'm sure. 

The real beauty to rebutting this simple, but flawed, rule lies in the fact that, if you can't devote 10,000 hours to being an expert in something, you can enjoy things that you can actually spend time on.  And rather than feeling guilty for the hard work you didn't put in, you can appreciate your accomplishments and the hard work you did put in for the task at hand.