mavens and machers

A maven is a trusted expert in a particular field, who seeks to pass knowledge on to others. The word maven comes from the Hebrew, via Yiddish, and means one who understands, based on an accumulation of knowledge

A macher a person who gets things done, makes things happen, etc. a person who gets things done, makes things happen, etc.

During the over 25 years I was in the communal services profession working within the Jewish Community Center movement I was introduced to more mavens and macher’s than I ever care to count. The most notable trait for me was that if you were truly a maven you were from out of town and if you were a macher you never really experienced the situation in a practical manner but more on a theoretical plane of thought.

The beauty of the Jewish communal field for me was that it relied on a group effort to obtain a consensus, but getting to that point of action having to include so many mavens and machers almost made a person become brain dead. It was so easy for a maven to come in from out of town expound upon an environment for which he/she had little to no responsibility or have a macher preach the gospel to you even though he/she never quite lived the life they profess we should live. I enjoyed the varied points of view but disliked those points of view coming from so many whose own experiences was more of do as I say not as I do.

When the protestors in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya and the other Middle Eastern countries gathered in town squares chanting epitaphs, carrying signs, announcing their unhappiness with their governments and corporations, greed and gluttony every single news corporation in this country had their list of mavens on the air almost 24/7. We were interrupted with updates, bulletins, we were given catchy catch phrases, we were bombarded with the news that democracy might be coming to the Middle East.

Now we have protestors occupying town squares, bridges, neighborhoods in this country, we have Americans looking for democracy for their fair share, for justice for the end of greed and gluttony and just how many news outlets have given the Occupy Wall Street movement more than 5 minutes of air time? Suddenly the same kind of protests which happened the Middle East asking fair and equal and democratic ways has come to our own nation and just as suddenly all the mavens who spoke loud, spoke forcefully about other countries are quiet and less maven-ish. Suddenly like most mavens those in this country can be experts on someone else’s business and completely quiet and hidden when it happens in their own backyard.

I have heard a litany of experts from conservative think tanks, universities, statisticians, and journalists all speak about unemployment, the recession, and the deficit. I have heard them all pontificate from a high about the condition of the worker, the middle class the poor. I have heard men and women in their business attire, with their PhD’s, their newest of books, explain the exploits of the economy of this land and its impact on everyone who seemingly is not like them…paid a six figure income, living in a six figure home and far from the fray. The machers are everywhere, their theory honed like a piece of steel, their articulation precise and piercing, and their lectures like lullabies. But none of them has been laid off, unemployed, without a steady pay check, and none of them have had to prioritize rent, food or medical bills. They speak with great resonance but their voices resonate only to those who are just like them. Machers get paid a pretty penny in an economy that pays most everyone else nothing.

We are told this and that, good and bad, up and down by mavens and machers. We are asked to tighten our belts by people who constantly buy new suits. We are told that we all must suffer before it gets better by people who suffer having to choose which restaurant or hotel they will stay. We are lectured that the American way has changed by people who drive by the homeless, avoid clinics, eat three meals a day and move their money from one account to another. And we are led by individuals whose sole motivation seems to be their political career, political clout, potential book sales and financial bottom lines. And these folks are considered mavens and machers, knowledgeable, experiences important leaders. These are the people who constantly tell us how to live our lives when it is there life we so much want to live.

Mavens and machers, Oy Vay, I find this all so frustrating, so very, very frustrating.