The role of experts

2 months ago 8

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DOUGLAS MURRAY TOOK OVER Joe Rogan's podcast recently to call him out for platforming "revisionist, amateur historians who inflate their own importance while disavowing any expertise." In other words, ignoramuses on the very topic of their alleged speciality.

I wouldn't know if Rogan fits that bill because I've never listened to his podcast. But I do know it's widely influential. So bullshit begun there and in similar fever swamps elsewhere ('Hitler was right,' they might nod sagely, while laughing that 'the Holocaust never happened') spreads far and wide. So he's right to criticise these non-experts who swing their dicks in total ignorance of their topic — as if it's their ignorance, rather than their expertise, that demands they have a hearing.

This problem is everywhere right now. Just take a look around, and you can see the crisis playing out in real time.
There’s plenty of noise and spin. But people want something rock solid, and as reliable as a Swiss watch.
But where can you find it now? Who can you really trust? Who do I really trust?

Yes, there is a role for those with expertise in a subject. But as Ted Gioia asks, Who Are the Real Experts Now?

Q: Do you distrust experts?

TED: No, the exact opposite is true. I respect expertise. But I think that some outsiders have more expertise than insiders. ... I never make distinctions on the basis of titles and degrees. Sometimes they correlate with expertise, but many times they don’t.We all know that. Don't we.

Here’s an interesting fact—if you made a list of the Stanford and Harvard students who have had the biggest impact on technology, at least half of them would be dropouts.

Expertise doesn't necessarily come wrapped in a degree.

Th[is is] how the world should work. Your expertise should be your credential. Instead we pretend that your credential is your expertise.

There’s a huge difference between those two approaches. And I’m a firm advocate of the former. ...Many of the intellectuals who shaped my own thinking were outsiders without PhDs. Consider the case of Susan Sontag, who never got her doctorate, but was the most celebrated literary critic of her generation. The same is true of Northrop Frye and Edmund Wilson, both of them critics of immense stature.

C.S. Lewis is still another example. ... He taught at Oxford for 29 years, and was famous all over the world. But his title was just tutor. ... Consider the case of George Steiner—one of the most illustrious polymaths of my lifetime—but his doctoral thesis was initially rejected at Oxford.

He turned it into a famous book, The Death of Tragedy, and eventually received his doctorate, but he never really got accepted by insiders. Even after a half-century of publishing and lecturing at the highest level, he faced intense hostility from professional academics.

I think it was due to envy. ...Steiner was an intellectual superstar—an expert at the highest level.

Expertise is the credential. The credential is not the expertise.

Gioia's own insights come from a lifetime shared between jazz ("I didn’t have a music degree. But I had ability, and I could back it up.") and corporate consulting.

I learned a big lesson from [consulting]. I learned that positional power is not the same as true expertise. And expertise always earns respect, even if it doesn’t come with a fancy job title.

I believe that is true in every field. There are experts who don’t have elite credentials—but everybody trust them. And, if you ask around, you will find out who they are.

Let me blunt. People with the highest level of expertise are very rare. So they stand out, even if they lack an impressive degree or prestigious institutional affiliation.So you need some expertise to find the genuine experts. Gioia suggests five ways to judge the reliability of what he calls "indie experts" — that is, folk who aren't just talking their book, who don’t have institutional overseers or gatekeepers controlling what they say. They could be outsider academics, bloggers, or even big-mouthed podcasters. But they first and foremost need a grip on reality. And then:

Pay attention to which indie voices correctly predict the future.
See which ones identify key issues before others notice them.
See which ones tell you truths that insiders won’t mention.
See which people offer coherent explanations of situations that others find confusing.
And, finally, see who is willing to speak out bravely in the face of powerful embedded interests.

When you find people who do that, you are in safe hands. They are the real experts.

It's unlikely they're going to be supporting, or promoting, Holocaust denial.

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