This obsession with expertise is such that the discussion of public affairs on a reasonable level is now almost impossible. .. Their standard procedure when faced by outside questioning is to avoid answering and instead discourage, even to frighten off the questioner, by implying that he is uninformed, inaccurate, superficial and, invariably, overexcited. If the questioner has some hierarchical power, the expert may feel obliged to answer with greater care. For example, he may release a minimum amount of information in heavy dialect and accompany it with apologies for the complexity, thus suggesting that the questioner is not competent to understand anything anymore. And if the questioner must be answered but need not be respected- a journalist, for example, or a politician- the expert may release a flood of incomprehensible data, thus drowning out debate while pretending to by cooperative. And even if someone does manage to penetrate the confusion of material, he will be obliged to argue against the expert in a context to such complexity to the public, to whom he is supposed to be communicating understanding, will quickly lose interest. In other words, by drawing the persistent outsider into his box, the expert will have rendered him powerless. (John Ralston Saul, Voltaires Bastards, p477)
Posted on: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 14:43:06 +0000
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