There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
– Isaac Asimov, in his 1980 essay, “A Cult of Ignorance.”
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There’s another issue at hand: “Experts” have tried to persuade people that they are thoughtful, altruistic and magnanimous. In reality, they are increasingly (I hope seen as) sociopolitical pawns for larger systems, who typically care nothing for the population at large but rather for (global elite?) special interest and governments, to boot.
Certainly not all “experts” are experts. But is there a functional alternative to utilizing expertise? People tend to problematically conflate potentially objective data and science with political value judgments, but that doesn’t mean intellectual pursuits are not more valuable than pure armchair commentary or a cult of ignorance. The alternative seems pretty nihilistic to me.