Growing up there was this phrase on TV about notifying the authorities. This usually referred to the police but it was open-ended enough that the adults might mean someone even more important. In this past year I have come to believe that authority is born out of ambition rather than skill. Authorities are people who can persuade people they are authorities. At work it's about convincing your boss. This works really well when your boss is not an authority on the things you want to represent.
On TV authorities are whoever you can get that agrees with the point of view that supports this particular news program. There was a time I would have said cable news, but all electronic news is more or less the same anymore. They all have a point of view and each is less uncomfortable presenting it than times past. A lot of this never occurred to me until news started finding Covid-15 experts to come on their programs. How can you be an expert on a disease that we don't yet fully understand. Now, if you develop a vaccine or come up with a therapeutic treatment then you are getting into expert territory. But these guys were on TV from the strength of knowledge of other viruses. If you wrote a book about Ted Williams do you automatically become an expert on this kid tearing up A ball?
Experts are just trope in news so that the viewer can listen to an authority say things that agree with their personal views. If you are person who seeks government mandates then some stations will have experts that praise mandates If you are a person that seeks personal freedom there will be experts that like that on your preferred channel. In some cases maybe these guys are experts or maybe they just know the appropriate rhetoric for their audiences. I tend to think the world has very few experts and the true experts are often times speaking outside of their expertise. How often is a narrow expertise really going to be called on for comment? An expert on a certain blood thinner drug can tell you all of the possible side effects, but he can't tell you which ones will both you. You'll need your common sense to decide whether that blood thinner is worth the cost. I think this is a true in many things. They use to have a tip sheet at the dog track you could buy for $5. As we started going weekly and seeing the same dogs our imperfect picks were not any worse than the expert.
But experts exist and will always exist because experts comfort people. We all want there to be somebody out doing something about the things we hate so we imagine experts are out there right now doing it for us. The way that Dr. Fauci can tell us that Covid is nothing to worry about or that masks don't work only to later say without embarrassment, the opposite, is about our need to listen to a guy rather than make our own decisions. It's like flipping a coin when we are unsure and it always landing on the expert. Of course, listening to conventional wisdom is how you ensure yourself an average life. The people that get rich do so listening to their own inner voice rather than the collective one. They become the experts of whatever it is that made them rich. But they still can't tell you how to be rich because only you know your own circumstances and opportunities.
The narrowness of expertise is really no match for a person of great analytical ability. I believed the experts that said Trump couldn't win the Republican primary or the presidency in 2016. But after being shocked I went back and read the people who said the opposite. The difference is that the expert was caught on the idea that no one like Trump had ever won before and therefore history would be consistent. The analytical guy said that no one like Trump had ever won because the circumstances that would bring a win for a Trump type had not existed previously.
When I was around 11, I started experiencing pain in both of my feet. Our pediatrician said that it was growing pains. It grew worse over a course of a year and with the doc blowing it off my mom eventually took me to a podiatrist that took xrays that revealed a condition. This was an actual expert but my mom took it for granted that any doctor would have this skill. Just like we took if for granted that Dr. Fauci was an expert.
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