ULTRACREPIDARIANISM – ULTRA WHAT?

By David Kitchingman in All Sorts

when is it valid or necessary to offer an opinion on important social issues?

ULTRACREPIDARIANISM - ULTRA WHAT?
Apelles, the 4th century BC Greek painter, was the greatest painter ever. At least, that's what Pliny the Elder, writing 500 years later, would have us believe. No one could draw a line like Apelles. Mind you, like all great artists, he practised every day. 'Not a day without a line drawn', he once said. Apelles was also asked why he kept on touching and retouching his paintings, trying to achieve perfection, to which he replied, 'I paint for eternity.' What a shame, then, that none of his paintings has survived, not even for 21⁄2 thousand years. Just a few intriguing quotes and anecdotes remain.Apelles had a habit of displaying his paintings in public and then hiding behind them to listen to the comments of passers-by. Once a cobbler came along and observed that the sole of a shoe in one of the paintings was not painted correctly − whereupon Apelles (all credit to him) fixed the mistake overnight. The next morning, the cobbler was emboldened to comment on how Apelles had portrayed the leg. That was too much for Apelles who burst from his hiding-place to exclaim:
'Shoemaker, not above the sandal' ('Ne ultra crepidam' in Pliny's Latin).
Hence the mouthful of ultracrepidarianism − giving opinions and advice on matters beyond one's knowledge or competence. It's a thought that has become proverbial in many languages, including English - 'a cobbler should stick to his last'. Fair enough, but I suspect a tinge of elitism. Would 'a surgeon should stick to his scalpel' have quite the same ring about it? That aside, we need to recognize an occupational hazard for just about all of us. Cobbling of sorts is a pretty common pastime for politicians and party-bloggers, CEOs and unionists, journalists and judges, editors and letter-writers to editors. Not forgetting agony aunties and uncles, and parsons and preachers. Throw in all the social media as well. Last but not least it also applies to commentators and columnists - you get the 'Connection'?
Point taken. So, does the big 'ultracrep' word warn me against dealing with matters on which I have no particular expertise? Yes. So should I refrain from getting involved in such issues? That may depend, I suggest, on the seriousness of the question and the meagreness of my grasp of the fundamentals. A few examples may help to shed light on the issues at stake.
1. Capital gains tax. Last week the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank proposed that the Government should introduce a capital gains tax as a means of helping to dampen the runaway property
prices in Auckland. The Prime Minister, the Housing Minister, the Treasury Secretary and even the leader of the Labour Party all disagree. Who's right? Don't ask me! I've only got an opinion. Decades as a taxpayer don't on their own confer enough expertise. All I know is that CGT is an important matter for public debate among those with some grasp of the pros and cons. I'll largely heed the warning on this one, while reserving the right to become more qualified.
2. Euthanasia. During this last week there has been a hearing in the High Court at Wellington arising from a 42 year-old woman's wish to end her life with medical assistance before her suffering from brain cancer becomes unendurable. A few weeks ago I attended a seminar sponsored by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society New Zealand which is opposed by the Care Alliance Trust. The seminar was addressed by a retired doctor who had helped draft the pioneering Dutch legislation on medically assisted dying. This matter is particularly relevant to the interplay between highly relevant expertise on the one hand and universal concern on the other. The medical profession cannot avoid being caught up in the debate as a deeply involved expert group, but neither can it assume a dominant position by reason of its particular expertise. This is a case where the public too has a major stake, and finally the preeminent one, in arriving at a resolution of the opposing forces. We have an equal duty to wrestle with the arguments and not abdicate our responsibility to pass judgement. Whether we like it or not, how we might die is within the proper province of us all.
3. War and peace. On the centennial of the Gallipoli landings we cannot avoid a similar tension. In the Anzac observances we mourn the loss of soldiers in battle during one horrifying episode, as an emblem of the suffering and sacrifice of a whole nation. Yet we also have to grapple with the rights and wrongs, or even just the pragmatic pluses and minuses, of warfare as an instrument of statehood. In short, we all have to ask whether a 'just war' is ever conceivable under extreme circumstances.
My attention has been drawn to an opinion story on the stuff.co.nz website, entitled 'On the brink of WWI overload.' It covered a lot of ground, including this provocative sentence: 'It seems perverse that much more ink has been spilled over Gallipoli than our Government's decision, without any public debate, to send soldiers into the war zone of Iraq this year.' 302 responses ranged from 'Totally agree' and 'Well said' to 'Very nasty' and 'Disgraceful article'. Such is the sharp division over matters on which we are all entitled to have strong views. And this too is a case where expert groups, whether coming from strategic power or peace studies perspectives, cannot expect any privileged right to decide on public opinion. Each of us has to abandon our cobbler's last on this one.
It turns out that ultracrepidarianism isn't an awful lot simpler than the word itself. But, like the word, it's well worth remembering, as is the charming story behind it. It has a cautionary value. The main problem is knowing when one is truly out of one's depth. There are many degrees of knowledge and expertise. It pays on any issue to ask oneself: how competent am I to pass some level of judgement? Should I make clear that this is only a partially-informed opinion? Would I be better to acknowledge that the question is right outside my scope?
Often enough the situation presents a challenge. Not just to weigh up one's competence, but to extend one's knowledge. What it comes down to is: Always know your limits, but never stop expanding the limits of what you know.
David Kitchingman
P.S. Was I really qualified to say all that, or should I have stuck to my knitting? Now, there's another story!