Showing results for "The Politics of Expertise" in All Categories

Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

We are moving beyond a natural skepticism regarding expert claims to the death of the ideal of expertise itself. This is a bad thing. If trust in experts dissipates, expertise will serve not the public interest, but the interest of whatever clique is paying its bills. And such an outcome is already perilously near.