THE RISE OF PROFESSIONALISM

Abstract

Professional work conditions (and not only the general ideology) foster individualism. The professional's sense of power and authority flows not only from his actual command over special knowledge but also from his control over interpersonal situations. The first established professions—medicine, law, the ministry, and architecture—were typically concerned with the problems of individuals. Only indirectly did they define society as their client. Today, individualized service becomes an ideological remedy for the ills of a social situation, a screen for the social problems caused by the bureaucratic systems through which services are delivered—most notably in the medical and teaching professions. The ideological insistence on individual aspects, the neglect of the whole, merges with specialization to confine the professional in an ideological conception of his role: the importance of narrow responsibilities is consciously and unconsciously emphasized, exaggerating the "dignity" of the functions. The dominant ideology attributes to professionals and experts special prestige as well as "moral and intellectual superiority": sharing in this ideology, professionals can easily mystify to themselves their actual power. Moreover, they are locked into conformity with the role society offers them to play—locked in by their vocational choice, by the particular mystique of each profession, and by their whole sense of social identity. Finally, the technocratic ideology of science and objectivity excludes from the specialist's concern the social and political consequences of his acts. Nowhere is this truer than in the technical and scientific fields.