The better than Thee debate

I am witnessing some arguments over a discussion list within a translators association.
Things have turned nasty. The argument evolves around the matter of competence and the lack of it and whether it is appropriate to talk about the matter, and the difficulty not to tell names.
It is easy to claim being more competent than the next door guy. I am not immune to this. But I have noticed over the years this tendency to be true with many stellar specialists here. I see several facts fueling this :

- The strong unbalance of the spread between non-Japanese and Japanese interpreters that make the former having developed over the year a discourse centered on me versus them.
- However, this discourse goes beyond matters of nationality and is standard within same nationality interpreters.
- The issue is fueled by real or perceived limitation in access to work and the volume of it. But it tends maybe to persist even after one has carved a legitimate high position and secured regular work flow.
- The struggling to get better, find work more and often, what with the need for recognition entertain the original sense of precarity even when one should be satisfied.
- Apparent accessibility to the field by newcomers with or without competences is a cause or worry an scorn, even if the interpreter stands so high in the hierarchy and deliver in highly specialized context that the newbies do not stand as competitors.
- Scorn from the client's side seems rampant on the Japanese side for cultural reasons I won't dip into here. It affects Japanese interpreters maybe more than non-Japanese, in a sense.

The better than thee discourse leaves few room to the more interesting subject of how to get better than the current self.

I have more experience than Thee is a founded and at the same time inappropriate way to expose the issues at stake. There is a thin line between boasting and giving away at the same time value to those with less experience than oneself.

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