From science to industry to academia, the governing class is crawling with incompetents, fraudsters, and fakes — and people are beginning to notice.
The Brexit vote, suggests analyst Aaron Renn, demonstrated that arrogant urbanites, seeing themselves as the exclusive centers of civilization, ignore those who live outside the “glamour zone” at their own peril.
h/t Jean
Excellent article!
Where will the people go? To a Soviet style socialist dictatorship or a Caesar style autocracy? The crony capitalists and their liberal and conservative enablers have led us almost to where Maurice Strong wanted us to go, the deindustrialization of the west.
Specialization is at the core of civilization, from the earliest flint knappers to pin-makers to today’s engineers of artificial intelligence. Experts are essential to civilization.
Notably, the linked article puts ‘experts’ in scare-quotes, which could either mean there are no such thing as experts (which is nonsense), or that the elites claim to expertise they do not have (which is the likely sense).
from article:
“Nationalism gets a bad rap in Europe, for historically sound reasons.”
Rubbish. There is nothing historically sound about blaming war on nationalism.
This is merely Internationalist/Globalist propaganda. It was the elites which took their nations to war.
If they want to put specific blame for WWII on anything, then socialism was the cause, not nationalism.
Socialism lit the fire and now socialism pretends to be the firemen. How convenient.
Meanwhile … America is breeding and importing (illegally) a permanent underclass of poorly-educated, hopeless, government dependents. A permanent voting bloc. for leftists who promise “Hope and Change” … that also happens to out breeds the productive class by 5:1 (due to Aid for dependent children and other “child” supports). As is typical of the left … they have not calculated the unintended consequences of their actions. They are breeding Revolution. Only it isn’t the 1960’s “happy” Revolution they envision. It will be a bloody Revolution against THEM ! Once again, the left demonstrates its poor math skills.
Written by a cuckservative or as the author himself described “corporate shill wing of the GOP” but in his case more like “intellectual shill wing of the GOP”. I am sick and tired of hearing that the ultimate sin is so-called “racism”!
Further to my point, read this and then come back and either admit you have been duped yet again by the left (for believing in the “racist” bogeyman) or have finally seen the light.
http://www.amren.com/features/2016/04/is-diversity-a-strength-for-america/
“Knowledge is NOT Wisdom” General Curtis LeMay (US Air force SAC)
Those that claim superior Expertise are delusional.
The problem with ‘experts’ is that too many people fail to grasp that you must also attain a certain level of knowledge in the field of the experts upon whom you are relying in order to assess their validity. I’m personally acquainted with a couple of guys who build hard core race engines. Despite being builders of Stock and Super Stock drag engines, which have very tight limitations as to what can be done, I know these guys would build somewhat different engines for, say, an H/SA 68 Camaro. It would be up to the car owner to determine which builder is best for them, and the only way the car owner is going to figure that out is by becoming WELL INFORMED about what goes into a stocker engine. Not being well informed means you could find yourself in class elims with a car that couldn’t pull the hair off of a dogs ass, while the nearly identical car in the other lane is pulling a 2 ft. wheelstand.
If, like me, you find that far too many of our elected leadership exhibits a gross lack of broad, general knowledge and seems unable to gain an above average level of expertise on a broad number of subjects in a short time, then you see the problem. There is often little difference between an expert and a quack. (Climate change theory, anyone?) Unchallenged deference to “experts” is a recipe for disaster.
Case in point- Stephane Dion is apparently an “expert” in something. Read it a couple of times, but it hasn’t stuck with me. He’s also a full blown dummy. I would wager he can’t tie shoes without instructions nearby. But, he’s an “expert” and too many would defer to his opinion in spite of his readily apparent lack of knowledge about any other thing in the world. Thus, his expertise exists in a vacuum, untempered by reality, and therefore wholly useless in the real world.
By the way, “Zachriel” is a noted apologist and dissembler for the progressive mindset.
He/she has been rather quiet in the Maggie’s Farm blog since the “Careless Clinton Email Caper”, no doubt summoning his/her wits for the job of trying to explain away why Hillary will still make a great president regardless.
Oh, and look for him/her to use the “Royal We” now and then. I’m not kidding: he/she often posts in the first person plural as if he/she were a committee.
The problem with experts is that they live in intellectual silos. As anyone who has worked in complicated systems realizes, it takes a team effort. You must get the knowledge and experience of many different crews to be effective. That means the professional staff “experts” (managers, accountants, engineers) must listen to the front line staff “working class” (trades, techs and unskilled labourers). Otherwise, the experts are making decisions without all the information and they make ignorant, not stupid, decisions.
This is an industrial example but I can’t see how it’s much different in politics, higher ed, journalism,etc. That’s why experts are failing. They are ignorant, not stupid. They have no respect for the working class and non-professional middle class so they refuse to learn about or acknowledge any issues arising from these groups. They rely on data but the statistics (lies, damn lies and statistics) do not tell the whole or even honest story in many cases. The data also omits the intangible that can only be learned from direct contact (think of the failure of Brexit polls and betting pools).
Unfortunately, the arrogance of the experts keeps them ignorant. Despite the working class and non-professional middle classes ability to keep our society humming along, the experts ignore or even despise people they see as stupid and inferior while ignoring the corruptness of the ruling class and their cronies. Personally, I think the backlash is just starting. I think the message regular people are sending the establishment and experts is overdue and necessary but I don’t like some of the messengers they are using to send it.
X – an unknown quantity. Spurt – a drip under pressure. Or a guy from another town. But have no fear , our Einstein clone is converting with the elites . Hopefully someone will ask him a question from his submitted playbook so he can answer with no more than a dozen ums or ahs . I wonder how much this trip will cost and how many went this time . I’m sure we will get some great selfies !
Many of the areas of expertise have been increasingly politicized for decades.
Due to this politicization, experts have been rendering increasingly bizarre positions in order to receive funding.
This obvious politicization breeds distrust of the experts and their findings.
To the common person, not everything is seen through a political lens.
When things which the common man views as non-political are politicized or approached from a political angle, this causes a disconnect that breeds distrust.
The cities voted Remain in the Brexit referendum? Not a surprise.
Cities are where the enclaves of vismins live. The socialists told them that the Leave people were racist.
I saw a clip where Christiane Amanpour interviews pro-Brexit MEP Daniel Hannnan and she hammers on that point.
It never occurs to those who want change in immigration policy to point out to socialists that their immigration policy is racist and that those that oppose socialist immigration policy are opposing that racism to protect their own culture and way of life.
“From science to industry to academia, the governing class is crawling with incompetents, fraudsters, and fakes — and people are beginning to notice.”
Well said Kate, well said indeed!!
“From science to industry to academia, the governing class is crawling with incompetents, fraudsters, and fakes” – oh Gawd YES!
But they wash regularly, and smile sweetly, some of the time.
Here is one that would like to suggest that the ruling class are not liberal or neo-liberal. They are socialists / fascists, to say something like crony capitalists is just to mask real fascism.
Many of the large corporations and big time capitalists live off the generosity of the irresponsible political ruling class.
Take the Exxon. The ruling class is taking them to court because they don’t agree with the doctrine of global warming. One wouldn’t suggest that the outcome will be that Exxon will bow to the political class enforced by the corrupt justice industry and beat their chest with loud mea culpa, mea culpa.
Another one down. How many to go?
Socialism/fascism is on march into the “sunny” future.
Anybody that does not agree will be sent to reeducation camp.
I noticed a lot of what Bill Greenwood and LC Bennett wrote about while I was a grad student. Most of the professors I dealt with didn’t have much knowledge about things outside of their immediate environment or area of expertise.
Part of the reason is that academe encourages compartmentalization. One has one’s area of research and research facilities–who could ask for anything more? Why bother with the outside world when the only real concerns are that one publishes often and has and maintains nice research grant. Add to that tenure, which offers the much-touted job for life, so there’s nothing to worry about.
That partly explains why academics often aren’t aware of what consequences the results of their research might be, not that many of the ones I knew worried about it. After all, their main pre-occupation was the search for truth and knowledge, so let the chips fall where they may.
very well said. I worked as a service technician in the plastics industry, and it would surprise many how often I found the answer to the problem from the operators of the equipment. I would say 75-80% of all tech problems were actually people problems.
Sometimes they are the problem and often they have their reasons. My foreman used to have to smooth things over with operators because a couple of our chemists’ obnoxiousness (one had a masters degrees, other a Ph.D.). Surprise: if you piss operators (people) off, they will get even.
Sometimes they have the solution. We had a mechanical/chemical problem in a WTP that irritated us for years. Then a new mechanic transferred in and he and one of the old machinists solved our problem in a couple of hours. In my experience, experienced field staff often outperform inexperienced but credentialed desk jockeys. 🙂
today there are far too many faux experts.
I grew up a tradesman’s kid, so I knew that I better listen to what the people who either build or run the equipment have to say. I know a lot of my fellow engineers didn’t think so and it was because of those knuckleheads that tradesmen and operators often hurled abuse at me, even though I may not have deserved it.
A long time ago, I was working on a prototype for a piece of hardware for our client. I knew by then that since I wasn’t the one who was going to build it that I should find out what someone who might would think about the design.
I made a cardboard mockup which approximated a particularly difficult part and I took it down to the company’s welder. I let him look at it for a while and he imagined what he would do if he was going to make the piece. He made some suggestions and I told him that I would try to see if they were possible.
I did that at least one more time and we finally got something that was workable. By doing that, I got information that I might not have obtained otherwise and I scored a few points with him and many of his colleagues. He understood that I, as an engineer, might not have all the answers and he also appreciated that I sought his advice.
Our tradespeople and techs got along quite well with the plant engineers. All of those groups are basically applied science and have the same goals: keep everything running smoothly and keep upper management from interfering. There was certainly some hazing and insults but almost always in a good natured way. Arrogant, obnoxious engineers really didn’t last very long. They’d quit or transfer into office type jobs. No one likes being dictated to or be treated badly. Respecting others, being polite and not acting superior/snobby goes a long way and requires very little effort.
Note: never ask an engineer to explain something right before lunch or coffee. I did and by the time I left his office there was two whiteboards full of info and a very hungry lab tech.
I’ve never filled boards with my scribbling while I was in industry, but, then again, few people ever placed enough value on what I said to ask me to explain something to them. They usually thought I was an over-educated idiot.
Criticizing the proliferation of “experts” is not due to anti-intellectualism. It’s an acknowledgment that much of what passes for expertise is really nothing more than credentialism and the imposition of a guild mentality — the walling off of an entire domain and allowing only the credentialed to possess opinions on it. It’s self-serving obscurantism.
No one scoffs at experts when expertise is clearly genuine and necessary. I doubt anyone being prepped for surgery would dispute the fact that their surgeon must be an expert and vetted by other experts. What people scoff at are the increasingly dubious forms of “expertise,” particularly when paired with the assertion that your important life decisions are now their prerogative and not yours.
You see this in pop culture. How many TV commercials do you see depicting the cliche oaf of a husband, the daddy-doofus who can’t do simple household repairs without destroying something? His invariably cool and with-it, but long suffering, wife enters the picture and either shows him up with her own skill, or ridicules him and tells the viewer why they should depend on “experts” or “professionals.” This may seem trivial, but it’s really not. It promotes the incurious and dependent mentality, the learned helplessness that pervades the West today.
We could do with less experts in the public sector, and more jack-of-all-trades in the private sector.
On faux experts:
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.”
Michael Crichton
http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/
Nicely done. I love that Crichton story. My favorite part is how the newspaper reader then goes on to read other articles as though there is genuine information to be found in them.
It reminds me of a legal phrase that I can’t seem to remember.
It’s Latin and it means: untrustworthy(or false) in part, untrustworthy in whole(or false).
Wish I could remember.
much of what passes for expertise is really nothing more than credentialism and the imposition of a guild mentality — the walling off of an entire domain and allowing only the credentialed to possess opinions on it. It’s self-serving obscurantism.
So very true. Most of the technical experts in my generation got their expertise from job experience, not by how many certificates they had on their office wall. When certification became important in the last two decades, many of us were simply ‘grandfathered’ based on our work experience. For our generation, credibility was determined by what you did, not by who you thought you were.
reminded me of a sign I saw on the 401 outside of Trenton on once. it was at a construction site. road may have water on it during rain. what they were shooting for was, caution excess water may cause hydroplaning.