Although I try to resist any urge to participate, I do sometimes follow social media discussions about current events.

Based on my limited experience, most online “discussions” are not really discussions at all, as most posters are not looking to exchange information, but are only interested in promoting their own opinion. That’s fine, but that makes it a complete waste of time to try to engage these persons with actual facts.

Being ill-informed about a topic is nothing to be ashamed of.  No one can know everything about everything. Still, a little research goes a long way, and if you feel compelled to comment on a topic perhaps you could take a moment to learn a bit about it. Worse than a lack of knowledge, though, is a lack of information paired with certainty.  “I may not know much about this topic, and I am in no way interested in learning, but, by God, I am sure I am right!”

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon. Anti-intellectualism has always been a part of the American Dream, but we seem to be entering an age now where actual knowledge of a subject – acquired through years of study and experience – is actually denigrated. As our problems are becoming more complex, we are actually disparaging the people who are best able to help us understand them.

For an enlightening discussion of this phenomena, see The Death of Expertise (Oxford University Press, 2017) by Tom Nichols.

“This book, then, is about expertise. Or, more accurately, it is about the relationship between experts and citizens in a democracy, why that relationship is collapsing, and what all of us, citizens and experts, might do about it.”

– Tom Nichols, The Death of Expertise.

December 26, 2018