Far, far too often it isn’t society harnessing experts–it is experts harnassing society.
6 thoughts on “A sentence from the comments”
Seems pretty clear to me that this is a prime reason lots of people make the sacrifices and jump through the hoops so that they can have a shot of being perceived as prestigious ‘experts’ in certain fields in the first place. So they can harness the social deference to their credentials and experience to attain a little slice of influence, impact, control .. i.e. power. Which, in the nature of things, tends to go along with a shot at fame, status, etc.
It’s a symbiotic arrangement with the government: the relationship between patron and loyal client . The professional expert advisor can’t achieve much via mere public persuasion and thus needs ‘public policy’ so he can leverage the coercive apparatus of the state to effect his prescriptions. On the flip side of the coin, the state requires the sanctification of science (as mediated by the priestly expert) to legitimize the policy in the minds of the public.
The use of this psychological device achieves a purpose well known to the ancients, which is to convince people that a rule is not a naked exercise of the arbitrary power of domination, but originates in some transcendent sphere above and beyond the whims of the humans who rule over them, below which everyone, even the highest human powers that be, are theoretically subordinate and to which they must submit.
This is a big part of the answer to why most intellectuals favor state power.
Even conservatives and libertarians who should recognize that the state will never be their friend are tempted like Boromir to wear the ring of power when they think they can use it to accomplish their own vision of the good. There are the 14th Amendment Libertarians who celebrate when the central government forces some local jurisdiction to comply to some federal mandate – so long as they are the ‘right’ mandates – and the ‘compassionate conservatives’ who think the state could be a useful tool for social moral uplift. E.g. the latest David Brooks:
For years, middle- and working-class Americans have been suffering from stagnant wages, meager opportunity, social isolation and household fragmentation. Shrouded in obsolete ideas from the Reagan years, conservatism had nothing to offer these people because it didn’t believe in using government as a tool for social good.
This reminds me of your great metaphor of pursuing the strategy of a mistress hoping that her lover will leave his wife.
This is just silly.
Do experts make mistakes? Of course they do.
Do they pursue knowledge in their are of expertise in order to pump up their ego and to make a buck? Of course they do. Some of them will even bury their knowledge to make a buck.
Does that mean anyone is going to ask their non-expert neighbor to take out their appendix? Have their non-expert neighbor to redo their roof?
What a waste of time this is.
That you think it silly simply demonstrates you completely missed the point of Kling’s original post.
To make it clear to even the intentionally dense- we aren’t talking about doctors performing surgery here, or even roofers redoing a roof.
My favorite ridicule of the “social planner” mentality is this:
A: Well, we just need experts to tell us what’s best for society.
B: “Who is this guy ‘society?’ Sounds like a real megalomaniac.”
It’s a two-way street. Society is all too willing to be harnessed by experts.
Misread harnessing as harassing and made me think of:
Most often, it is some in society using arguments from experts to justify harassing others in society.
Seems pretty clear to me that this is a prime reason lots of people make the sacrifices and jump through the hoops so that they can have a shot of being perceived as prestigious ‘experts’ in certain fields in the first place. So they can harness the social deference to their credentials and experience to attain a little slice of influence, impact, control .. i.e. power. Which, in the nature of things, tends to go along with a shot at fame, status, etc.
It’s a symbiotic arrangement with the government: the relationship between patron and loyal client . The professional expert advisor can’t achieve much via mere public persuasion and thus needs ‘public policy’ so he can leverage the coercive apparatus of the state to effect his prescriptions. On the flip side of the coin, the state requires the sanctification of science (as mediated by the priestly expert) to legitimize the policy in the minds of the public.
The use of this psychological device achieves a purpose well known to the ancients, which is to convince people that a rule is not a naked exercise of the arbitrary power of domination, but originates in some transcendent sphere above and beyond the whims of the humans who rule over them, below which everyone, even the highest human powers that be, are theoretically subordinate and to which they must submit.
This is a big part of the answer to why most intellectuals favor state power.
Even conservatives and libertarians who should recognize that the state will never be their friend are tempted like Boromir to wear the ring of power when they think they can use it to accomplish their own vision of the good. There are the 14th Amendment Libertarians who celebrate when the central government forces some local jurisdiction to comply to some federal mandate – so long as they are the ‘right’ mandates – and the ‘compassionate conservatives’ who think the state could be a useful tool for social moral uplift. E.g. the latest David Brooks:
This reminds me of your great metaphor of pursuing the strategy of a mistress hoping that her lover will leave his wife.
This is just silly.
Do experts make mistakes? Of course they do.
Do they pursue knowledge in their are of expertise in order to pump up their ego and to make a buck? Of course they do. Some of them will even bury their knowledge to make a buck.
Does that mean anyone is going to ask their non-expert neighbor to take out their appendix? Have their non-expert neighbor to redo their roof?
What a waste of time this is.
That you think it silly simply demonstrates you completely missed the point of Kling’s original post.
To make it clear to even the intentionally dense- we aren’t talking about doctors performing surgery here, or even roofers redoing a roof.
My favorite ridicule of the “social planner” mentality is this:
A: Well, we just need experts to tell us what’s best for society.
B: “Who is this guy ‘society?’ Sounds like a real megalomaniac.”
It’s a two-way street. Society is all too willing to be harnessed by experts.
Misread harnessing as harassing and made me think of:
Most often, it is some in society using arguments from experts to justify harassing others in society.