Expert Management by Stephen Potter

Counter Expert

I ALWAYS BELIEVE that some kind of ABC of counter expert play is the best grounding for the young Lifeman. Without any special knowledge, without indeed any education whatever, it is possible not only to keep going in conversation, but, sometimes, to throw grave doubts on the value of expert knowledge in general. There is no finer spectacle than the sight of a good Lifeman, so ignorant that he can scarcely spell the simplest word, making an expert look like a fool in his own subject, or at any rate interrupting him in that stupefying flow, breaking the deadly one upness of the man who, say, has really been to Russia, has genuinely taken a course in psychiatry, has actually read history at Oxford, or has written a book on something.