THE GREAT SWINDLE

During the past century, the sophistication and complexity of human life has increased by geometric proportions. In fact, just during the past fifty years the amount of complexity introduced into the world has been as much as, or more than, all of the complexity engendered during the totality of human experience prior to then.

As a result of all this recent complexity, and as a result of the sophisticated division of labor and knowledge which have accompanied and contributed to that complexity, we have all come to accept and expect the development of experts whose knowledge of specific areas of activity is beyond that of the average layman (non-expert).

The reasons and need for such specialized and diverse expertise are generally known and understood, and needn't be gone into in great detail here. For our purposes, it will be enough to simply acknowledge that no one human being is capable of dealing with all the aspects of knowledge that have recently opened up to us, and to deal with all those aspects well.

In order to make the highest and best use of all the knowledge that is now open to us, it is often necessary for certain individuals to specialize and become expert in certain areas, and to devote themselves to the development of their particular expertise.

Consequently, an expert in one area of knowledge will not have the time to become expert in some other area, and, those who are not expert in any given field will not be as adept in that field as one who is.

However, what needs to be brought clearly to our attention is that the relatively recent validity and legitimacy of the role of the expert in our lives tends to conceal even further from our view the fallacy underlying the BELIEF as to the need for experts in aspects of life where they really aren't necessary, or even useful, at all.

Even before life became so complex that experts came to play as wide a legitimate role as they do today, the Grand Distractor of the BELIEF in the need for experts, when they aren't needed  at all, was already well in place.

This Grand Distractor is one of the several modes of fallacious thinking which permits us to absolve ourselves of the responsibility for thinking for ourselves and for making decisions for ourselves. Through this Grand Distractor, we can place all the responsibility on someone else, ie., the 'expert'.

Sometimes, the amount of thought required in making a decision can appear to be vast, and trying to the extreme. And, the responsibility inherent in some decisions which confront us can seem awesome, frightening and painful. If, because of a BELIEF that a decision requires more expertise than we possess, we can justify to ourselves our avoiding, and passing on to someone else, all the effort and discomfort involved in making the decision, we will often do just that, and for that reason.

This Grand Distractor was, and still remains, a major buttress for the authority of The Shaman and played a major and direct role in the beginning and subsequent entrenchment of the Great Swindle in our basic social institutions.

The details of the workings of this particular Grand Distractor in the Great Swindle will be gone into in the section on The Institutional 'Sting'.

For now, it will be enough to have simply pointed out that it is a Grand Distractor, and to have defined it.