Things that drive me crazy about bonsai people

[Gabler]

And of course you’re not allowed to question her since she has a masters.

I ran into a similar problem with a club member last weekend. Well, I guess "problem" is a bit of an overstatement. It was just a couple of rude comments, but I was troubled by it nonetheless.

To summarize our exchange: I mentioned that I admired the work of Nick Lenz and other unorthodox growers in part because they expanded the conceptual space of what we consider to be bonsai. By pushing the boundaries of bonsai as an art, he and others have widened the field and given us humble hobbyists more room to play, so to speak. The aforementioned club member told me I was "acting arrogant" because he knew Nick Lenz, spent time at his garden, and owned four of his works, and I didn't, so I certainly wasn't qualified to talk about his work.

Setting aside the hypocrisy of that statement, I don't think that kind of (mis)behavior is an issue unique to the bonsai community or even to the broader gardening community, but, as you implied, it seems to be an issue endemic to the human condition. You weren't allowed to question the expert because you weren't qualified. Yet, a degree isn't meant to be wielded like a stick. On the contrary, it's meant to signal you know better.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Not particularly Bonsai, but I joined the local community garden. Figured I can then use my backyard gardens for perennials, and veggies that need more care. So pert of it was having to go to the rules meeting. The expert was just weird. Weed barriers are bad because the micro plastics will break down and get sucked up by the roots & end up in your tomatoes. Tilling is bad because you should fork! I guess us crippled folk don’t deserve gardens. Square foot gardening is bad because it’s abusive. And of course you’re not allowed to question her since she has a masters. I don’t know. We will see what happens. I’ll garden like I always garden and if I get run out with torches and pitchforks, so be it.

Ugh, I hate it when people flaunt around their degrees. As if I, without a masters, am not discussing and correcting professors on a daily basis at a university. Heck, I'm making sure our students get their masters degree and none of them think I'm stupid. Quite the opposite actually.

Do your gardening as you please my friend, you have my support! I do make an exception though, and that's unneeded spraying of whatevercides, and not reading labels.

If you want to have a couple arguments to slay this paper tiger queen, I think I can come up with some witty gardening questions to render her toothless.

 

[Mad Tabby]

Setting aside the hypocrisy of that statement, I don't think that kind of (mis)behavior is an issue unique to the bonsai community or even to the broader gardening community, but, as you implied, it seems to be an issue endemic to the human condition.

Oh you’re absolutely correct it’s not just Bonsai or Gardening. Heard of Stanley Coren? Author of ‘The Intelligence of Dogs’? I’ve had multiple run ins with him personally and am glad he’s quit doing anything CKC related. First, I had issue with him equating blind obedience with intelligence. As I pointed out to my husband, the most obedient dog we ever owned was also the one that almost drowned twice because he wasn’t smart enough to figure out that he couldn’t breathe underwater. Then I watched him at an obedience trial where he pulled the “do you know who I am?” On a judge that dismissed him. The last incident was a friend who had the top obedience Brittany in Canada. Well she was doing the off leash heel, a pigeon decided to land in the middle of the ring and the dog went on point. So she flushed the pigeon, praised her dog for “steady to flush” and heeled the dog out of the ring muttering about never entering an outdoor trial again. Coren came up to her & started ranting about everything she did wrong. Boy did he pick the wrong person. But he’s “the expert”.

And don’t get me started about horse experts. But I’m even weaker in that subject. I’m not even sure if I can ride anymore.

You weren't allowed to question the expert because you weren't qualified. Yet, a degree isn't meant to be wielded like a stick. On the contrary, it's meant to signal you know better.

Sadly degrees are weilded like sticks these days. With people making the most insane statements (like microplastics in your tomatoes or you have to fork, not till). I mean I could see her saying that the microplastics could become an issue over the years as different people add their plastics to the soil. Or something like that, but whatever. As I said, I’ll garden like I garden. I mean it’s a 3X6’ raised bed, not like the 1/4 acre we used to get through the church when I was a kid.

 

[Gabler]

There is a problem with non-experts "challenging" experts by taking nonsense, but there also needs to be room for outsiders to a discipline to offer their perspective. It's a very difficult balance to strike. You should never use your degree as a sword to cut someone down, but, sometimes, it becomes necessary to wield a degree as a shield to defend against stupid people who think they know better than you because they watched a few YouTube videos or read the Wikipedia article on the topic of your expertise. You could spend an hour dismantling everything they just said, or you could respond, "You don't know what you're talking about. Nothing you said makes any sense. I do know what I'm talking about. Here's my degree to prove it." It's tricky to know when that maneuver is warranted.

 

[Mad Tabby]

There is a problem with non-experts "challenging" experts by taking nonsense, but there also needs to be room for outsiders to a discipline to offer their perspective. It's a very difficult balance to strike. You should never use your degree as a sword to cut someone down, but, sometimes, it becomes necessary to wield a degree as a shield to defend against stupid people who think they know better than you because they watched a few YouTube videos or read the Wikipedia article on the topic of your expertise. You could spend an hour dismantling everything they just said, or you could respond, "You don't know what you're talking about. Nothing you said makes any sense. I do know what I'm talking about. Here's my degree to prove it." It's tricky to know when that maneuver is warranted.

Maybe it’s because I used to debate that I’d rather have that hour long discussion. Especially when it’s something popular (like square foot gardening). Yes I get your point on the stupidity, had someone tell me that drugs, not light, make pupils change size (trying to explain why looking at the eclipse was different than looking at the sun any other time), and most of them are just as determined as the “I’ve got the degree, so I’m right” group.

I miss debates. And maybe Im in a minuscule minority, but if you show me data, I’m willing to change my mind on pretty much anything.

 

[BrianBay9]

I miss debates. And maybe Im in a minuscule minority, but if you show me data, I’m willing to change my mind on pretty much anything.

I used to believe that people made decisions based on facts and data. Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that most people make decisions based on emotion and previously held beliefs.

 

[Cmd5235]

There is a problem with non-experts "challenging" experts by taking nonsense, but there also needs to be room for outsiders to a discipline to offer their perspective. It's a very difficult balance to strike. You should never use your degree as a sword to cut someone down, but, sometimes, it becomes necessary to wield a degree as a shield to defend against stupid people who think they know better than you because they watched a few YouTube videos or read the Wikipedia article on the topic of your expertise. You could spend an hour dismantling everything they just said, or you could respond, "You don't know what you're talking about. Nothing you said makes any sense. I do know what I'm talking about. Here's my degree to prove it." It's tricky to know when that maneuver is warranted.

I’ll give you a personal example of just that- I am an archeologist, with multiple degrees. I have to constantly wage that battle specifically against people who have watched one or two shows on Netflix, read a few pseudoscientific articles, and now think they are experts. I try to engage in meaningful debate, provide well documented, peer reviewed and both academically and culturally based facts, yet sometimes you have no other option.

 

[Mad Tabby]

I used to believe that people made decisions based on facts and data. Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that most people make decisions based on emotion and previously held beliefs.

This is true. But mostly because they’re not taught how to think. I’ve been crippled up the last couple of months so spending way too much time on social media. I had one person tell me debate is bad because it spreads misinformation.

But even back in the 90s, I was helping my nephew with his science homework (middle school) and he was doing the scientific method. I told him that the one step was to design an experiment to disprove your hypothesis. The reason you try to disprove it is to try and minimize confirmation bias. Two days later, he’s mad at me and showing me that it got marked wrong with a “why would you disprove your own hypothesis?” Written in red.

I never wanted to beat someone with a science text book before and I’ve got some big ones!

 

[Cajunrider]

I used to believe that people made decisions based on facts and data. Sadly, I've come to the conclusion that most people make decisions based on emotion and previously held beliefs.

I got two friends that help me make decisions: "Willy and Nilly"
Kidding aside. I prefer the thinking man approach to decision making.

 

[Mad Tabby]

I got two friends that help me make decisions: "Willy and Nilly"
Kidding aside. I prefer the thinking man approach to decision making.

I think bonsai attracts the mad scientist type. We like experimenting.

 

[snowman04]

I’ll give you a personal example of just that- I am an archeologist, with multiple degrees. I have to constantly wage that battle specifically against people who have watched one or two shows on Netflix, read a few pseudoscientific articles, and now think they are experts. I try to engage in meaningful debate, provide well documented, peer reviewed and both academically and culturally based facts, yet sometimes you have no other option.

I watched seven years of Oak Island and I'm still waiting for them to send me my diploma!!!

 

[Cajunrider]

I’ll give you a personal example of just that- I am an archeologist, with multiple degrees. I have to constantly wage that battle specifically against people who have watched one or two shows on Netflix, read a few pseudoscientific articles, and now think they are experts. I try to engage in meaningful debate, provide well documented, peer reviewed and both academically and culturally based facts, yet sometimes you have no other option.

This happens all the time with every field. I grew up during the Vietnam war, with close family members living and fighting in the conflict who had plenty of connection with US government. Yet, yesterday on the 49th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam war, which is the bitterest day for me since 1975, I was lectured on the war by a person who wasn't even born before the war ended, who never set foot in Vietnam. I guess watching a few documentaries and reading a couple books were enough to be an expert.

Here, I will listen to people who present facts that are congruent with scientific knowledge in biology, chemistry and that are backed up by their own experiences with the trees they own and have progression information. Without all that, I regard whatever they say as conjecture yet to be proven. I don't disregard anything, but I put it in the category of things of which I have reasonable doubt.

 

[Cajunrider]

I watched seven years of Oak Island and I'm still waiting for them to send me my diploma!!!

 

[We're all Mad Here...🎩]

But they do not do it that way in Japan!

One thing I've learned from Ryan at Mirai, who obviously trained in Japan, is that breaking that mold and mindset allows for endless creativity outside of the , but also striving toward creating trees the way you may see them in nature, not in a Japanese exhibition.

 

[We're all Mad Here...🎩]

I’ll give you a personal example of just that- I am an archeologist, with multiple degrees. I have to constantly wage that battle specifically against people who have watched one or two shows on Netflix, read a few pseudoscientific articles, and now think they are experts. I try to engage in meaningful debate, provide well documented, peer reviewed and both academically and culturally based facts, yet sometimes you have no other option.

What could people possibly try arguing with an archaeologist? That dinosaurs didn't exist?

 

[ShadyStump]

When I was in college finishing my bachelor's in communications (turns out I can't work in the field; too many scruples) I took human conflict course. Of everyone in the class - including the lecturer - there were a total of two with actual firsthand experience in the topic; myself as an Iraq war vet, and an international student from Ghana who grew up during the last years of the bush wars.
We gave that poor prof so much hell! Dude was so bourgeois, and could not wrap his poor spoiled brain around the idea that conflict is much simpler than the partisan philosophy he approached everything in the class with.
I just needed a poli-sci credit, but the other guy had to quit the class. It was too infuriating. Don't blame him.

Anyways, all that to say; I don't give damn about your degree, especially if it obviously didn't make you any smarter.

 

[BrianBay9]

A degree meant a lot more before you could find all the world's information on a screen in front of you.

 

[Weta]

A degree meant a lot more before you could find all the world's information on a screen in front of you.

Lol yup.
I think back to the 80s researching topics of interest.
The local library if you were lucky had one book on the subject published 30 years ago.
I was always in awe of massive overseas libraries and the knowledge available.

 

[Weta]

 

[ShadyStump]

A degree meant a lot more before you could find all the world's information on a screen in front of you.

A degree still means allot, depending on the personality of the person holding it. It denotes a reasonable level of self-discipline by the fact that you could dedicate years to achieving a goal, and a certain willingness to accept challenges and criticism just by having your work subject to judgement by others.

But as we've seen, there are way too many narcissists who think that means that now THEY get to pass judgement on EVERYONE ELSE, all of the time.
Weaponizing your education is a clear sign that you didn't get much out of it, and certainly not the most important things.