Much of our ‘guidance’ these days comes from ‘experts’ in social fields, predominately in HR departments nationwide, along with members of Academia. Huh? Let’s dig.
In yet another installment of me showing my age or my naivete, it wasn’t so long ago that ‘expert’ implied some expertise in a given subject. Someone with experience and advanced education or study upon a specific topic such that they KNEW the subject matter. Someone who confidently answers questions on said topic accurately and correctly. Depending upon how widespread the information on that topic was, we either were amazed at the expert’s knowledge, or confirmed of our knowledge, based upon the expert’s statements. At no time did we ever expect the laymen of the world to know more about a topic than the expert.
The inclusion of experience above is very important. Experience means the expert has real-world, applicable, working knowledge of his area, actually DOING SOMETHING in that field of study. He or she knows what worked, what didn’t, and via trial and error, the BEST approach at solving a problem in that field. The expert is not just book-smart, nor is he or she just regurgitating opinions—they KNOW the material, based upon performing real tasks first-hand. How else to derive fact from opinion than actually testing theories? Do you wish to be operated upon by an experienced surgeon, or the professor of surgery? Do you want an experienced builder designing and building your home, or will an architect do? I am guessing that the experienced airline pilot may be somewhat more preferable to his or her passengers than the person who wrote the safety manual. I get that SOME true experts actually write the manuals, so there’s that.
Unfortunately, the knowledge landscape has changed over the last few years or decades. More and more, we see the ‘expert’ label bestowed upon people, rather than earned. Especially in the ‘social’ and ‘political’ sciences, experience is no longer required to attain ‘expert’ status. Neither is data, confirming trends, or even scholarly work. No, all one needs is an opinion, agreed to by enough of ones ‘peers’—who then, by no coincidence, agree to the opinions of those reviewing their work (the circular firing squad comes to mind). Academia is replete with such self-proclaimed ‘experts’, who have never stepped outside of the classroom to validate their positions. Ironically, there is likely no more protective, less real-world, more self-aggrandizing, more isolated, environment on Earth than the classroom. Said classroom is usually filled with students that feel compelled to agree with the professor, lest they receive a failing grade in that course. Social sciences take the process one step further: those students eventually teach that same subject matter to others, as their degrees are usually only suitable to teaching positions. That cycle is continued, all self-contained within the classroom.
This evaluation of ‘experts’ came up out of current events. We have listened to Infectious Disease experts for the last two years, so much so that we nearly destroyed our economy and education systems doing what they said to do. Their expert opinions changed so frequently, often contradictory to prior opinions, we needed date and time stamps to determine the latest expert advice! Also note that the ‘expert doctors’ involved haven’t treated live patients in decades! I would not be terribly surprised to find, after further review, that NONE of their advice was accurate, and may have been incredibly self-serving. Only time will tell if opinion tellers were financially benefited by the positions they took, if not covering up criminal behavior on their part (paging Drs. Fauci and Birx). Stay tuned.
The only silver lining of the COVID-19 black cloud was the exposure of what teachers were teaching to the students’ parents, all because of ‘distance learning’. Ho boy. More experts, telling our children everything from race theory, to the ‘America Last’ view of History, to gender resolution. Note that not a single teacher has true expertise in ANY of those subjects, but they simply assume expert status, since up until now, no one was looking. Note to expand the curriculum to include these esoteric subjects, the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic have to take a back seat in importance—and the test scores reveal that ‘success’. The subject of History alone is a wonderful microcosm of academic self-back-patting: History professors claim to know what historical figures were thinking and doing, hundreds of years ago, without a single new document or letter to substantiate such claims. Folks, if there is no new data to contradict decades or centuries of historical thought, that is NOT new history, it is simply the opinion of the History professor in question—oddly enough, there isn’t enough data to challenge that new opinion, either (of course).
There are now more race, gender, and cultural experts than any time in history. They can claim literally ANYTHING is racist, homophobic, transphobic, or any other phobic. And no one challenges them, because to do so automatically makes you a racist, homophobe, transphobe, or any other phobe they choose to label you with. Studies? Data? Please. They PUBLISHED their opinions, what more do you need? They even got a selection of exactly-like-minded peers to ‘review’ their statements, so they must be iron-clad TRUTH! To claim to be non-racist is proof of racism, don’t you know? Apparently, all it takes to have an opinion blessed as fact is to have Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter fact-checkers agree with you. Who knew? Why waste time and money doing stupid tests, research, studies, and eliciting other expert opinion? Just get social media to agree. Done.
According to our highest level of elected officials, self-proclaimed experts all, our biggest crises facing the United States at this very moment: Climate Change and Domestic Terrorism. Just because the only place extreme climate change takes place is in failed computer models, and just because domestic terrorism is completely undefined, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take the experts’ word on them. Good thing all other problems are solved. Note that elected officials have a unique position on ‘expert’: they were deemed experts on all subjects because they received more votes than whomever was running against them. Just because they can’t balance their own checkbook doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be in charge of income tax policy, right? They are EXPERTS!
Maybe the fault lies within me. Maybe I should’ve NEVER accepted the musings of experts now or any time in the past. Maybe I erroneously attributed abilities to them that were never really earned. But as more and more current experts’ views become simply wrong on deep inspection, it truly makes arriving at conclusions in subjects we lack personal experience nearly impossible. You should listen to me—I’m an EXPERT, just because I say so! 😊
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