The Death of Expertise

The Death of Expertise
ISBN-10
0190469412
ISBN-13
9780190469412
Series
The Death of Expertise
Category
Political Science
Pages
272
Language
English
Published
2017
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Thomas M. Nichols

Description

People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. 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. As Tom Nichols shows in The Death of Expertise, this rejection of experts has occurred for many reasons, including 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. 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. Nichols has deeper concerns than the current rejection of expertise and learning, noting that 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. The Death of Expertise is not only an exploration of a dangerous phenomenon but also a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age.

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Other editions

Similar books

  • The Crisis of Expertise
    The Crisis of Expertise
    By Gil Eyal

    In this new book, Gil Eyal argues that what needs to be explained is not a one-sided “mistrust of experts” but the two-headed pushmi-pullyu of unprecedented reliance on science and expertise, on the one hand, coupled with increased ...

  • Our Own Worst Enemy
    Our Own Worst Enemy
    By David G. Bowman

    This book is comprised of two tales with a similar group of young adults trying to make their place in the world while dealing with relationships within the group.

  • No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security
    No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security
    By Thomas M. Nichols

    Janne E. Nolan and James R. Holmes, ''The Bureaucracy of Deterrence,'' Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 64, no. 1 (March–April 2008): 42–43. 14. Janne Nolan, An Elusive Consensus (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1999), 45. 15.

  • The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
    The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
    By Michiko Kakutani

    A Pulitzer Prize-winning critic takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to the gathering storm of fake news and presents a path forward for truth-challenged times.

  • The Areas of My Expertise
    The Areas of My Expertise
    By John Hodgman

    Imagine if The Book of Lists had been rewritten by Peter Cook and Jorge Luis Borges under the pseudonym of “John Hodgman” and then renamed The Areas of My Expertise, and you will only begin to have a sense of the dizzying, uproarious, ...

  • The Far Right Today
    The Far Right Today
    By Cas Mudde

    In this timely book, leading global expert on political extremism Cas Mudde provides a concise overview of the fourth wave of postwar far-right politics, exploring its history, ideology, organization, causes, and consequences, as well as ...

  • Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy
    Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy
    By Chris Hayes

    Analyzes scandals in high-profile institutions, from Wall Street and the Catholic Church to corporate America and Major League Baseball, while evaluating how an elite American meritocracy rose throughout the past half-century before ...

  • Medicolegal Death Investigation System: Workshop Summary
    Medicolegal Death Investigation System: Workshop Summary
    By Institute of Medicine, Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, Committee for the Workshop on the Medicolegal Death Investigation System

    The US Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of The National Academies to conduct a workshop that would examine the interface of the medicolegal death investigation system and the ...

  • The Book of Dead Philosophers
    The Book of Dead Philosophers
    By Simon Critchley

    From the self-mocking haikus of Zen masters on their deathbeds to the last words (gasps) of modern-day sages, The Book of Dead Philosophers chronicles the deaths of almost 200 philosophers-tales of weirdness, madness, suicide, murder, ...

  • The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education
    The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education
    By Diane Ravitch

    New foundations, created by astonishingly successful entrepreneurs, took on the mission of reforming American education. ... In 1998, the top four foundations contributing to elementary and secondary schooling were the Annenberg ...