Dave's Blog

David Brin, on his blog “Contrary Brin,” describes what he calls the war against expertise and portrays it convincingly as the most important problem in the US right now. He points out that all fact-centred professions are under assault. How could “tens of millions of Americans — who benefited spectacularly from the rise of science and other kinds of expertise — let themselves get talked into bilious rage toward all expert professions”? He cogently lists 8 reasons, with links to further information, from suspicion of authority to fear to racism and bigotry to the June trauma (when high school kids graduate to leave rural areas and go to city universities):

Declining trust in our expert castes: what are underlying causes?

I’m not sure I understood this quotation from Frank Herbert’s Dune until I read this post: “Fear is the mind-killer.”