Now in retirement, I am a true “amateur,” doing things only as my spirit commands. Up to the 19th century, before the advent of what we today call “professionalism,” most activities — intellectual, artistic, scientific, spiritual — were carried out by amateur scholars and adventurers, who pursued their dreams only for the love of pursuing them.
But times change and modern science marched on and, along with it, came the “profession” that inevitably replaced amateurism. In professionalism, unlike amateurism, everything has to be established as rules to follow — scientifically tested, democratically debated and institutionally established as unquestionable orthodoxy. In this new era of science, consensus and bureaucracy, the amateurs — high-strung individualists — became relics of history. In America, which has always favored science and technology, professionals quickly became the new heroes of high social prestige and higher financial rewards. Naturally, amateurs became intellectually irrelevant and occupationally obsolete — even culturally ridiculed. Nowadays, it survives in the fringes of recognition, say, in “amateur theatre” or “amateur ham-radio operator.” The hapless amateur is often used for an effective foil for the competent “professional” as in “(a bunch of) amateurs.”
As amateur America was passionate, daring and irregular, professional America is stable and safe in which rules are firmly institutionalized and predictably enforced in all sectors of society. Professional America is technically competent and its citizen conduct is voluntarily civil and law-abiding. No wonder money investors and managers the world over consider America as the “safest place” to invest and keep their money. With no political-social turmoil anticipated in America, it becomes a perfect place to watch your money, and grass, grow — in exquisite security, predictability and uneventful repetition of days and lives. In a blessed nation of unfailingly trustworthy professional-scientific standards, efficient Wall Street corporations keep their nation’s businesses uneventful, safe and reliable.
However, in real life, there was a dark side to such a technocratic society. With no more amateurs running loose creating excitement and adventure, America fell slowly but deeply into a predictability rabbit hole. Its professionally controlled lifestyle of security and comfort went hand in hand with a mental stupor in indolence: America was just too stable and predictable. The only excitement you could expect came from either reality TV, Hollywood or internet browsing and, for the poor, spectacular lottery wins: A lot of euphoria and fantasy, but all ultimately childishly stupid daily pursuits. As America is now run under professional care and management in all walks of life — government, business, healthcare, academia, the military, the arts — it becomes a very lazy and unexciting, even boring, country.
Individually, to become a professional technocrat in something, you must master a lot of grubby details in facts and figures, requiring a particular kind of cleverness but little of your own imagination or creativity. Naturally, we seldom see exciting, creative personalities among professionals, such as doctors, scientists, lawyers, accountants, professors or elected officials. They are — compared to amateurs of the bygone era — singularly uninspired and monotonous: overall, very uninteresting people. America was facing the danger of professionalized stupor in what they called “the cult of specialists,” too many experts in narrow specialties trying to decide how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Then, something unbelievable, even shocking, happened in America’s cultural rut: amateurism, thought dead and buried, made a dramatic comeback in the persona of Donald Trump. With his political daring and personal recklessness, Trump brought back the glamour and excitement of amateurs. America suddenly wakes up from its long profession-safe, fantasy-driven slumber. Under Trump’s amateurism, life in America is suddenly alive again.
With Trump, everything in America is dangerous but exciting. After generations of trustworthy professional agencies telling us what’s safe and healthy, Trump’s “government” contradicts everything: His contrarian amateurs tell us vaccines cause illnesses, war brings peace, lies become truths, and so on, all quite shocking and unprecedented. Even soldiers and policemen, long admired as our protectors, dress like Nazis and act like Gestapos. With not a single “professional” to be found in his government, he wants to “amateurize” the whole country: The Justice Department fights justice; the Health Department attacks health; the War Department loves war and its military is the commander-in-chief’s private army; presidential pardons are for sale, and so on. Our predictable world is now turned upside down. Flustered, Democrats are certain that Trump’s political amateurs and their supporters are insane. (Actually, amateurism and insanity have always been close historical cousins; many amateurs were insane).
In our reality of mutually enforcing insanity, the amateur president goaded by mob citizens must face a rather unpleasant but inevitable problem: Trump — one who disdains established rules and traditions — has to keep his nation constantly energized and excited with his inventively surprising antics. But eventually, even the shock of circuses on White House lawns gets old. Sooner than later, Trump will exhaust his bag of tricks and will have to resort to his ultimate, last-chance toy that belongs to him alone: the nuclear bomb, which, with its spectacular mushroom fireworks would surely delight an amateur president.
Indeed, nothing would be more shocking and awe-inspiring than the nuclear incineration of an unsuspecting country that Trump would name on prime time Fox TV. It could be Iran, Canada, or even California: Given our abundantly available warheads and their targets, these nuclear surprises could be repeated a few more times.
In Trump’s reign, a thousand days still left is an eternity and nothing is ever too far-fetched to imagine. So, America is in a race between the end of what’s left of Trump’s presidency and the end of what’s left of his sanity.
It’s a close race.
Jon Huer, retired professor and amateur columnist for the Recorder, lives in Greenfield, and writes for posterity.