Just Finished Reading: The Death of Expertise – The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters by Tom Nichols (FP: 2017) [238pp]

It is arguable that we need our experts now more than ever. With a global Pandemic still raging across the globe, political unrest (and not just in the US) on the rise, with a world still reeling from a financial meltdown over a decade old and already feeling the effects of devastating climate change its understandable that people are looking for answers. What is less understandable is that our experts are increasing NOT being asked to provide them. In some quarters those who profess expertise in almost any area are seen as elitist (as if the idea of elites is in some way offensive. No one seems to have any problem with elite athletes for instance) and, once labelled as such, dismissed or denigrated. It is as if the democratic ideals of the sovereignty of the individual, equality before the law and one person, one vote has been extended into the knowledge sphere to state that all opinions are equally valid. Unfortunately they’re not. Firstly there is the obvious difference between opinion and informed opinion. Then there is the even more obvious difference between expert opinion and the opinions of random people being interviewed on the street or giving their opinions freely on Twitter, Facebook or even Blogger. They are not the same thing and are not equivalent. This is the argument, admittedly rather polemic at times, the author (a self-confessed expert) makes throughout this short book.

Interesting in the preface to the paperback edition he admits that he thought the rejection of expertise was a purely (or at least largely) American phenomena. Of course this is not true, although I do think that the US has gone down this road more than most other countries for a whole host of particular and cultural reasons. But America is definitely not alone in this. I still remember a government Minister saying during a debate on Brexit, in order to win his point against an expert in Economics, that the British public had had enough with experts. Unfortunately he won his point. The author points to several areas or trends that have ensured we have arrived at a place where there is apparently no final answer to anything. One I do think is mostly American is education (though I admit I have been out of the educational sphere for some time now so haven’t been exposed to some of the ‘culture’ apparently dominating University life presently). He proposes that because parents, and their pampered children, see their time in higher education as largely transactional that colleges and universities bend over backwards to ‘support’ students in their feeling of being ‘special’ which apparently includes not marking harshly and never telling a student that they’re wrong. We can all see how this can, and apparently has, get out of hand. Inevitably the Internet comes in for a lot of criticism here too. Having a question and Googling the answer (if it actually is an answer that is!) is not the same as getting an advanced degree in a subject and then spending 20-30 years researching it further and teaching it in university. Again the two activities are not equivalent. Likewise the proliferation of ‘news’ sites and, dare I say, Blogs that call themselves NEWS are not equivalent to global news agencies with highly trained, educated and experienced professional journalists. No matter how well you craft a Blog post that doesn’t make you the same as a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist - sorry.

Despite its sometimes polemic nature and the fact that it was essentially preaching to the choir (not that I’ve ever been a choirboy!) this was an interesting read that deserves to be as widely read as possible if only to slow down the seemingly unstoppable advance of the uninformed majority who, most dangerously, actually think they know what they’re talking about. Acquiring knowledge and especially a level of expertise is difficult and takes time and effort – which is why experts are rare beasts indeed. Recommended.