The Death of Expertise
Books | Political Science / General
3.7
Thomas M. Nichols
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. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both. An update to the 2017breakout hit, the paperback edition of The Death of Expertise provides a new foreword to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise issues a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age that is even more important today.
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Author
Thomas M. Nichols
Pages
252
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Published Date
2017
ISBN
0190469412 9780190469412
Ratings
Google: 3.5
Community ReviewsSee all
"A timely but excessively cranky book. Nichols' "The Death of Expertise" rails against the public's rejection of expert authority. Nichols' goal was to present the strongest possible case for his point of view - namely that democratic "equality", sloppy news-ertainment, coddled university students, and universal internet access have created a society that increasingly relies on feelings rather than facts to make major decision.<br/><br/>There are many aspects of his critique that hit home. Yale is actually singled out for criticism in Nichols' section on "Higher Education", with references to both the Silliman screamer and the revolt against the Major English Poets course. He points out the "bizarre paradox in which college students are demanding to run the school while at the same time insisting that they be treated as children" and quite correctly writes that:<br/><br/>When feelings matter more than rationality or facts, education is a doomed enterprise. Emotion is an unassailable defense against expertise.<br/><br/>Another fun Yale connection is that Nichols' cites David Broockman (Yale '11) and Josh Kalla's (Yale '13) takedown of LaCour and Green's "An Experiment on Transmission of Support for Gay Equality".<br/><br/>But there were other parts of the book that I thought were quite unfair. Summoning his best crotchety old professor voice, Nichols inveighs against the false confidence of those who teach themselves without professional oversight. But it's never clear to me why he so disdains autodidacts. He places a high premium on experience, but as I read the book I was constantly reminded of Otto von Bismarck's famous quote, "Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others."<br/><br/>While making his case for the importance of experts, Nichols distinctly fails to acknowledge major recent "expert" failures like the chemical weapons justification for invading Iraq or the 2008 financial crash. Going back to Vietnam, the long history of "experts" making poor decisions - particularly in policy circles - probably goes a long way in explaining the public's hesitance to accept their word at face value. But this facet of the issue is ignored in Nichols' book.<br/><br/>Furthermore, his chapter on journalism wasn't nearly as strong as its counterpart in <a href="http://books.max-nova.com/war-on-science/">"The War on Science"</a>. The most interesting parts were his warnings to experts to be responsible about what they say to the media.<br/><br/>This is a book that came out at the right time, lands a few punches, but ultimately feels incomplete and unfairly pessimistic.<br/><br/>Full review and highlights at <a href="http://books.max-nova.com/death-of-expertise/">http://books.max-nova.com/death-of-expertise/</a>"
Max Nova