The closing essay in the latest TIME makes the interesting case that America needs a healthy dose of amateurism:
We still need experts. But we can no longer abdicate judgment to them or to the system they’ve cobbled together. This country, after all, was created by passionately engaged amateurs. The American spirit really is the amateur spirit. The great mass of European settlers were amateur explorers, and their grandchildren and great-grandchildren who created the U.S. were amateur politicians. “I see democracy,” the late historian Daniel Boorstin wrote, as “government by amateurs, as a way of confessing the limits of our knowledge.” In the early 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville approvingly noted the absence of “public careers” in America ? that is, the scarcity of professional politicians.
The ?amateur spirit? certainly would offer a nice corrective for those who believe professional politicians and other government ?experts? should control as much of our day-to-day existence as possible.
