“By experts in poverty I do not mean sociologists, but poor men.”
– GK Chesterton, March 1911
Recently, I made the classic mistake of engaging in an online argument. It wasn’t in a hostile subreddit or on a distant relative’s Facebook page filled with conspiracy theories but in a seemingly innocuous WhatsApp discussion group. Yet, I found myself ensnared in a debate that underscored a growing trend in our public discourse: the blind deference to “experts.”
The particular argument that got me wound up on this occasion was when someone decried the trend of disagreeing with “experts” which he described as “denialism.” Variations on this argument have been hurtling around the public sphere in recent years, often described as a war on experts, or expertise.
Given there has been an increasing amount of commentary on this topic in our public discourse recently, I thought it worth addressing in a more comprehensive argument than I was able to deliver to strangers in a WhatsApp group.
To begin, if expertise is a club, it’s one that should have more stringent entry requirements. The criteria for being labelled an “expert” on a TV panel, in a news article, or during a public debate have become alarmingly loose and flexible. Often, the label of “expert” hinges on a plethora of increasingly dubious credentials based on esoteric or narrowly focused theories, rather than on practical or productive experience. Credentialism is the art of knowing everything about nothing, and nothing about everything
This problem is exacerbated by the media’s tendency to start with a predetermined thesis, and then seek out “experts” biased in their favour, constructing arguments around this shaky foundation. Those with opposing views are often dismissed as foolishly anti-expert if their position is acknowledged at all.
For much of modern academic credentialism, particularly outside the hard sciences, you could make a very plausible argument that the PhD class should have their perspectives discounted as a result of their degrees, rather than elevated.
Lest Hub readers think this an overly glib broadside against academia, I strongly encourage you to glance through this random sampling of doctoral recipients of grants from the National Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Remember, these aren’t 19-year-old undergraduates, these are for doctoral programs, the most educated of the expert class.
While I am not an expert in “Affect and Fat Feminist Futures” or “The Alternative Media Fight For Activist Visibility During The 1976 Montreal Olympics,” I feel confident in saying that these niche fields of study do not necessarily bestow a level of expertise that warrants unwavering trust in their judgement or knowledge.
Even on topics that are more germane to public life and tend to be given more credence by Canadians, an impressive-sounding credential is not a guarantor of broadly sound expert judgement.
When our families are unwell, we rightfully seek the wisdom of doctors and medical professionals. For diagnosing serious symptoms and prescribing treatments, we are fortunate to have dedicated and skilled doctors in Canada who serve our families with care and expertise.
However, when it comes to policy decisions related to public health, rather than individual medical cases, the past five years have shown that being a skilled physician does not automatically equate to expertise in public health policy.
Medical doctors worked their tails off to keep patients alive and well during the pandemic, but medical doctors also provided policy air cover for wrapping the cherry blossoms in caution tape, physically preventing children from playing pond hockey, and demanding that if you were going to sit in a park you must do so in a giant painted circle.
A young child stands outside the entrance to a playground in Montreal, Sunday, May 3, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press.
What’s more, the broader point illustrated by public health policy throughout the pandemic is that on any one of those policies there were experienced doctors arguing on both sides. These issues aren’t binary scientific facts like the laws of gravity, they are policy choices that involve trade-offs, contain dozens of overlapping factors and interests, and have implications that extend far beyond the field of expertise of the doctors recommending them.
One of the reasons those of us with experience inside government were so suspicious of giving complete dominion over our lives and societies to public health bureaucracies is because we knew that by and large these “experts” are merely policy advocates. Sure, they have training and experience, but that doesn’t mean their ideas and policies were written on stone tablets that emanated from the summit of the Mount of Objective Scientific Truth.
The same folks advocating during the pandemic that you could fly but not drive into our country(!?), that children couldn’t use a slide or a swingset, or that sitting in a restaurant for 90 minutes unmasked was fine as long as you wore a mask for the 14 steps to your table—these are the same people whose policy agenda in normal times focuses on restricting the use of smoking cessation products (but not cigarettes), wood-fired ovens, or the sale of sodas they deem to be too large.
This isn’t to argue that any of those policies are wrong (though they are), but merely to make the point that these are policy choices that should be hammered out and debated by politicians, who can and should be held accountable by voters. They should not be delegated to a supposed expert class of high priests.
Lest you think I’m too focused on re-litigating pandemic grievances, let’s take another example: economics. John Maynard Keynes was an expert economist. So was Milton Friedman. They disagreed about much of modern economics, monetary theory, and how government policy of all kinds should be crafted and implemented. If I agree more with Keynes and think Friedman is a radical who should be ignored or dismissed, am I a simple rube who is foolishly and dangerously waging war against “expertise”? How about vice versa?
Or how about those doctors who advocate for providing opioids to addicts to reduce the likelihood of drug overdose or other negative outcomes? Are they the real experts, or should that title sit with those doctors who oppose such practices? I have strong views on this topic, as there are strong views on the other side, and as much as slices of the academic, activist, and pundit class want to label those of us on one side or the other heretics for our positions, their appeal to authority should be viewed with deep skepticism.
There are smart and experienced people on all sides of major policy debates, and experts of all stripes inform those ideas. They often overlap, compete, contrast, and otherwise chafe against simple, non-nuanced solutions. Pick a fraught, contentious public policy and choose a side to argue from. You almost certainly have experts both for you and against you.
Political commentary is where this war on expertise becomes truly farcical. At the risk of offending many faculties and degree-holders, the truth is that political science is an oxymoron, not an objective discipline. Those who have the strongest academic credentials in this space are just as likely as your Uncle Dave to have a reasonable perspective on what the electorate is going to do, or why.
When it comes to political debates, life experience and common sense are at least as effective barometers of sound policy as your nearest poli-sci PhD, and your coffee shop chats with your colleagues and neighbours a better gauge of political sentiment than the latest opinion column you read (this one notwithstanding, of course).
We are not governed by experts in this country, nor should we yearn for that. We are governed by a broad cross-section of citizens from different backgrounds who bring the perspectives of their constituents to our legislatures and shape and pass laws on that basis. Experienced experts from relevant fields should inform our policies and legislation, but so should parents, business leaders, factory workers, and farmers. At the end of the day, it is not academics or the permanent bureaucracy who will be held accountable when policies succeed or fail, so Canadians should not, and do not, expect them to have the final word.
We are free people in this country. Free to inform ourselves and speak our minds. Free to research and advocate for policies and causes that matter to us. Perhaps we would take a little heat out of our public discourse and shed a bit more light if we grappled with ideas on their merits and educated ourselves deeply enough to do so, rather than blindly acceding to a notional expert class who attempt to claim the permanent and unwavering high ground.
