Death examination

Original author: Tom Nichols
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I am an expert. At least I think so. Not in all things, of course, but in a separate area of ​​human knowledge - in state policy and social science. When I speak on these topics, I expect that my opinion will have more weight than that of most other people.

I have never thought that this is something controversial, but now it turns out that this is not so. Today, any statement by an expert provokes an outburst of anger for a separate group of US citizens who immediately begin to complain that such statements are nothing more than a “appeal to authority”, a guaranteed sign of eerie “elitism” and an obvious attempt to use the title in order to stifle the dialogue required “ real "democracy.

But democracy means a system of government, but not a state of universal equality. This means that we have equal rights with the government and other citizens. Equal rights are not equivalent to having the same talents, abilities, or knowledge. And it certainly does not mean that "the opinion of any person on any matter is as important as the opinion of other people." This is an obvious nonsense, but, nevertheless, a significant number of people steadfastly adhere to just such a position.

What is going on?

It scares me that we may witness the death of expertise: cultivated by Google and Wikipedia, the blogosphere fertilized by the disappearance of the difference between professionals and amateurs, students and teachers, knowledgeable and curious, in other words, between people with achievements and people without them. Saying this, I do not mean the death of classical expertise as knowledge in various fields that distinguish people of different professions from each other. Doctors, lawyers, engineers and other specialists will always be. Rather, I worry that the perception of an examination has died as something that should change our beliefs or the way we live.

This is very bad. Yes, the experts can also be mistaken: examples with the explosion of the Challenger or Talidomid tragedysadly remind us of that. But in the general case, experts are still better than incompetent people: doctors, despite all their mistakes, cope with the treatment of most diseases better than spiritual healers or your grandmother with her particular chicken chicken intestine poultice. To reject the notion of expert knowledge and replace it with a hypocritical demand to protect the right of everyone to their own opinion is silly.

Moreover, it is dangerous. The death of an examination is not only a rejection of knowledge, but also of the very method of obtaining this knowledge and studying things. Basically, it is the rejection of science and rational thinking, which are the mainstream of Western civilization. Yes, I said “Western civilization”: with its patronizing, racist and ethnocentric approach to knowledge, which created the atomic bomb, Edsel, and New Coca-Cola, but which also gives life to diabetics, and lands gigantic planes in the dark, and writes such documents like the UN Charter.

And I am not only about politics, even though this would already be enough. No, everything is much worse: the sophisticated effect of the death of the examination is that without real experts, any person is an expert in everything. Here is one horrifying example: we live today in an advanced post-industrial country, which is now battling with the rebirth of whooping cough - a disease that was almost eradicated a century ago - simply because other people who are intellectual in other matters questioned the decisions of their doctors and refused to vaccinate their children. Having read articles written by people who know absolutely nothing in medicine.

In politics, the scale of the problem is also terrifying. People in political discussions do not distinguish the difference between the statements “you are wrong” and “you are an idiot”. To disagree is an insult. To correct another - to become a "hater." And the refusal to agree with alternative views, no matter how fantastic or stupid - is to be “narrow-minded”

As the conversation became debilitating

Critics may argue that everyone should have the right to participate in public discussions. It's true. But any discussion should be conducted within certain limits and imply a basic level of competence of the participants. And that competence is terribly lacking in the public sphere. People firmly convinced of the need for war in other countries can hardly find their nation on the map, people who want to punish Congress for this or that law cannot even name their own members of the House.

But this ignorance does not prevent people from arguing as if they were research scientists. Try to discuss a difficult political problem with a man in the street and you will immediately encounter stinging and sophistic demands to present more and more “evidence” or “evidence” supporting your arguments, even though the average interlocutor in such a debate is hardly able to understand that generally is “evidence” or see it when it is presented. The use of evidence is a special form of knowledge that takes time to study, which is why articles and books are reviewed by scientists and not reviews by everyone. But do not try to tell it to someone who intimidates you with tales of how things really work in Moscow, Beijing or Washington.

It kills all hope for dialogue, simply because it is very tiring - at least for me, as a political expert - to start any argument every time from the very beginning and set at least some basic line, and now and then return to the discussion of the basic rules discussions. (Most of the people I meet, for example, do not understand the difference between a generalization and a stereotype) Many people are offended and offended even before the discussion of the main issue of the discussion begins.

Once upon a time, in the dark ages until the 2000s, people seemed to understand the difference between experts and ordinary people. In the political debate, the line was drawn, and experts were criticized by their reviewers - people armed with the same set of knowledge, while the public was, to a large extent, mere observers.

It was both good and bad at the same time. This state of affairs reduced the number of psychos in discussions (the editors filtered “letters to the editor”, which they would call “moderation”), but sometimes only the initiates could understand the conversation, and it was conducted not so much to educate the public as to professional jargon

No one — not even me — would like to come back at this time. I love the 21st century, the democratization of knowledge and the fact that people are involved in more issues. But this participation is nevertheless endangered by a highly illogical conviction that the opinions of all people have the same weight, since people like me will ultimately have to simply ignore those who claim that we are “intellectually are equal ”(Spoiler: we are not equal). If this happens, experts will be forced to discuss issues only with each other. And this is bad for democracy.

Disadvantages of the lack of overseers

How did this irritability arise towards the experts, and how could she have become so rampant?

To some extent this is due to the globalization of the means of communication. There are no more overseers: magazines and articles on the back of editorials, once edited strictly, drowned under the weight of self-published blogs. Once there was a time when to participate in public debates, even on the pages of local newspapers, you had to write a letter or article, and this essay should be written correctly, be checked by the editor, and eventually be printed and signed by the name of the author. Even then it was a great achievement - to be published in a serious newspaper.

Now anyone can break into the comments of any online publication. Sometimes this attraction contributes to thinking. But in most cases, this means that anyone can write whatever he wants, hiding his name under a nickname, without any obligation to defend his opinion or be called up to account for false statements.

Another reason is that political campaigns in the United States are becoming increasingly emotional. There was a time when the president, having won the election, was combing universities in order to organize brain trusts ; just so Henry Kissinger, Samuel Huntington, Zbigniew Brzezinski and others found themselves in public service, moving between places like Harvard and Colombia.

These days are over. Without a doubt, part of the blame rests on increasingly irrelevant to the case-study of research in the social sciences. But also on the fact that the answer to the question “What did you do during the election campaign?” Became the main demand for success in the political world. This is the code of a samurai, but not an intellectual, and he exalts the adherent of the campaign over the expert.

For example, it’s hard for me to imagine that I was suddenly invited to Washington now, as they did in 1990, when a senior senator from the state of Pennsylvania asked the former US representative to the UN who she could recommend to him as an adviser on foreign policy and she called my name. Despite the fact that I had no connection with Pennsylvania and did not work with him during his campaigns, he visited me at the university where I taught and later invited me to join his team.

Universities, no doubt, are partly to blame for all this. The very idea of ​​calling professors wise managers as an experience seems to students to be insolent from servants, and therefore many teachers do not. (One of the best teachers that I had, James Shal many years ago wrote that “students have duties to teachers,” in particular, “trust, humility, diligence, and deliberation,” a statement that would cause outcry from current students behaving as if they all should. As a result, many academic departments are like shops, where the role of the professor is like the seller of intellectual “clothes.” Nothing but a dangerous misconception about the intellectual usefulness of children does not bring. Must be trained, not served.

Fool confidence

There is also the invariable problem of human nature: the more stupid a person is, the more he is sure that he is not stupid. And when a stupid person is also aggressive, the last thing he would like to stumble upon is experts with opposite opinions, so he tries not to pay attention to them in order to maintain his unwarrantedly high opinion of himself. (There are a lot of such people in social media)

All these are symptoms of the same disease: a maniacal representation of democracy, as something where everyone has to speak and where everyone’s opinion must be respected. This thirst for respect and equality, even if (or rather, especially if) they are undeserved, is so strong that it does not tolerate any objections. It demonstrates the flourishing of culture, where self-esteem is the highest value of a person, but not his achievements, and this makes us sillier with each passing day.

Thus, at least some people who deny the expertise do not show, as they consider, their independence. Instead, they deny everything that can demonstrate the true value of their opinions.

Experts: servants of democracy, not the masters

What can we do? Unfortunately, not much, since it is a problem of culture and a whole generation, which requires time to be fixed. Personally, I do not think that intellectuals and technocrats should rule the world: after all, besides intellectualism, political common sense is needed for effective government. In truth, in an ideal world, experts are servants, not masters.

But if people do not want to fulfill their basic duty - to be smart enough to keep themselves behaved, and instead remain stubbornly prisoners of their fragile ego and a sense of their own chosenness, experts will do business as they know. And this is a terrible outcome for all.

Expertise is necessary, and it will not go anywhere. Until we return it to a deserved place in public policy, we will have more and more stupid and unproductive disputes every day. So here are some of theses presented without undue modesty and political correctness, which are worth considering when entering into an argument with an expert in his area of ​​expertise:

  1. We can agree immediately: the expert is not always right
  2. But an expert is much more likely to be right than you. In questions of explaining or evaluating something, you should not be surprised or disturbed by the idea that the expert’s opinion is more likely to be weighed than yours. (Because the way it is)
  3. Experts are different. Education is already sufficient, but practicing experts also gain knowledge through experience. Usually a combination of both is a sign of a true expert. If you have neither experience nor the appropriate education, you can think about what you can bring to the discussion.
  4. In any discussion, you have a direct duty to possess at least basic knowledge in order to make it possible in principle. University of Google is not considered. Remember: to have a firm opinion on any matter does not mean to have knowledge.
  5. And yes, your political opinion matters: if you are a member of a democratic society, what you want is just as important as what another voter wants. However, your non-professional political analysis is likely to be much less valuable, since it is most likely (yes, there, almost certainly), not as good as you think.

  6. And how do I know all this, you ask? Who am I anyway?

    Of course, I'm an expert.

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