Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see

Almost nobody's competent, Paul. It's enough to make you cry to see
how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed
job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
(Kurt Vonnegut)

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A brief (?) response to A Gopher Hole of Verisimilitudes on the
subject of impostor syndrome from 5 March[0] follows.

That post claims that impostor syndrome is "most often felt by real
imposters" and "most often used as an excuse to avoid improving
oneself...". No evidence for either 'most' is provided in the face
of serious academic study and reports from well-known individuals
with solid reputations in their fields that they have experienced
it.

Is it possible that posting was in response to incompetent
individuals claiming that they in fact suffer from impostor
syndrome? Many things are possible and folks will claim any damned
thing if you let them. However I can't say as I've experienced even
one person claiming to have impostor syndrome as a cover for actual
incompetence. Perhaps I need to get out more. In fact I'm sure I do
need to get out more for a variety of other reasons. But back to
that thesis - which appears to be that if you're claiming to
have experienced impostor syndrome then you're an incompetent
individual looking for "...a shield against reality and against
their observations."

I won't deny its existence, but have never seen even one example of
it.

I was taught to try to give as much credit to an opposing viewpoint
as possible, to take the most charitable view of what's presented.
What is offered here seems to be one individual's anecdotes of an
at least uncommon situation that appears to make little sense. If
you are claiming to have impostor syndrome one of the requirements
would seem to be that others behave as if you are competent - the
syndrome is /defined/ by being accepted as competent but having
serious feelings that one is not. Thus if one is being accused of
incompetence then claiming to have impostor syndrome doesn't seem
like any defense at all ... unless no one in the room knows what it
is. Which doesn't really say anything about impostor syndrome or
its validity.

The reality of course is that everyone's knowledge no matter how
vast has gaps unless their area of knowledge is surpassingly
small indeed. Letting your knowledge gaps drive you to paranoia
with self-doubts is impostor syndrome and seems to bear little
resemblance to what the author of A Gopher Hole of Verisimilitudes
describes.

Similarly there are plenty of folks who do misjudge their
own competence or incompetence - often significantly. The
Dunning-Kruger effect[2] has a name for a reason and even people
who have studied it professionally have stated that they're not
immune to it, even though they're well aware of it. So plenty of
people do not know they're incompetent and may come across as
impostors when they are in fact just victims of general traits of
human psychology.

Further advice is offered that impostor syndrome is 'easily
corrected' by making oneself competent through effort. If one is
actually suffering from impostor syndrome - and in fact seriously
underestimating one's competence - then this is terrible advice
likely to drive the poor individual into a cycle of ever-greater
efforts to improve in order to feel competent and drive out the
feelings of insecurity that don't go away. It is like telling
someone with depression they ought to just get over it - unhelpful
at best and probably destructive at worst. Telling an actual
impostor to improve themselves through effort seems to be gnawing
at the wrong end of the problem - getting them to stop /lying/
would seem to be the best first step.

I of course admit there is the possibility of something here that
I'm just not understanding.

'It's an old story, 'Ryumin said. 'Something like that actually
happened once; I feel sure of it. But I filed off the serial
numbers and made it my own. (Bruce Sterling)

[0] gopher://verisimilitudes.net:70/02022-03-07
[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome
[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

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