But we argue that the age of this kind of professional dominance is coming to an end. Nowadays it is counselors and facilitators who burgeon much, as experts and professionals a generation ago. They induce their clients to make crucial decisions that were of strictly professional competence in the past. These facilitators see themselves as defenders of the freedom and autonomy of their clients. They consider it their task to persuade patients, students, couples, investors and job-seekers not to get managed but to manage themselves.
Medical counselors coax their patient to take responsibility for their own optimal functioning.
The action might be to take pharmacological treatment, lose weight, undergo an operation or move to a healthier neighborhood. At the Table talks in April and May, we want to take a critical look at the beliefs evoked when facilitators introduce statistical and technogenic critters into the deliberation of people. We want to question the assumption that the art of dwelling and mutual commitment can be mediated through counselors and facilitators. Facilitating self-management is an attempt to put a human mask on space. Instead of liberating us from the assumptions and needs experts formerly imputed to us, it generates the illusion that we can regain the art of dwelling and being hospitable if we would only learn to supervise ourselves in the way statistical and technogenic critters demand.