The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters

by Thomas M. Nichols

Politicians will never stop relying on experts; they will, however, move to relying on experts who will tell them—and the angry laypeople banging on their office doors—whatever it is they want to hear.

Pander

British writer C. S. Lewis warned long ago of the danger to democracy when people no longer recognize any difference between political equality and actual equality, in a vivid 1959 essay featuring one of his most famous literary creations, a brilliant and evil demon named Screwtape. As one of the Inferno’s most senior bureaucrats, Screwtape is invited to give the commencement address at Hell’s training college for new tempters. During his speech, Screwtape leaves aside what, for him, is the dull business of individual

Lewis

This was the same warning José Ortega y Gasset gave when he wrote Revolt of the Masses in 1930: “The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated.”24

Asses

believe the people of the United States are still capable of shrugging off their self-absorption and isolation and taking up their responsibilities as citizens. They did it in 1941, and again after the trials of Vietnam and Watergate, and yet again after the attacks of 9/11. Each time, however, they slid back into complacency, and each time, the hole of ignorance and disaffection they dug for themselves got deeper. At some point, they might no longer see daylight. We

Today

Every single vote in a democracy is equal to every other, but every single opinion is not, and the sooner American society reestablishes new ground rules for productive engagement between the educated elite and the society they serve, the better.

Better

See, for example, Jennifer Kerr, “Educational Divide in GOP White House Race: What’s behind It,” Associated Press, April 3, 2016; Max Ehrenfreund, “The Outlandish Conspiracy Theories Many of Donald Trump’s Supporters Believe,” Washington Post online, May 5, 2016; Scott Clement, “Donald Trump Is Splitting the White Vote in Ways We’ve Never Seen Before,” Washington Post online, May 31, 2016.

Reference