The Death Of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge And
Why It Matters

Product Description

People are now exposed to more information than ever before provided both by technology & by increasing access to every level of education These societal gains however have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic & misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues Today everyone knows everything with only a quick trip through Web MD or Wikipedia average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors & diplomats All voices even the most ridiculous demand to be taken with equal seriousness & 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 & 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 & angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement Nichols has deeper concerns than the current rejection of expertise & 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 & survival of modern democracy in the Information Age