At the time of the Brexit referendum, Michael Gove (in)famously declared that people had 'had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms saying that they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong'. Critics of Gove - I was one (!) - accused him of embracing anti-intellectualism, indicting the wider Brexit movement. Louise Richardson, the Oxford vice-chancellor,
I was happy when I read the title of this article. Since I first heard Gove's statement about experts I have been a fan. In fact it is one of my favorite quotes and I use it extensively (I was about to write daily, but that would not have been entirely true).
While I do not particularly share Gove's implied standpoint, that experts are not to be trusted, I think his quote wonderfully captures the mood of the public, both in 2016 and today. We live in a complicated world and it seems like a self-serving elite of experts are not trying to make it less complicated but rather leverage the complicity for their own expert gain.
One can argue about the moral in that interpretation but the real conclusion I think should be that we have two choices: 1. to simplify society in a way that makes it more comprehensible to the average non-expert, or 2. to remove non-experts from decision making to a larger extent than is done today.
Personally I would rather see 1. even though 2. is probably possible as well. In the meantime I will continue to throw around the Gove quote as soon as I encounter an expert whose opinion I for some reason do not share.
I was happy when I read the title of this article. Since I first heard Gove's statement about experts I have been a fan. In fact it is one of my favorite quotes and I use it extensively (I was about to write daily, but that would not have been entirely true).
While I do not particularly share Gove's implied standpoint, that experts are not to be trusted, I think his quote wonderfully captures the mood of the public, both in 2016 and today. We live in a complicated world and it seems like a self-serving elite of experts are not trying to make it less complicated but rather leverage the complicity for their own expert gain.
One can argue about the moral in that interpretation but the real conclusion I think should be that we have two choices: 1. to simplify society in a way that makes it more comprehensible to the average non-expert, or 2. to remove non-experts from decision making to a larger extent than is done today.
Personally I would rather see 1. even though 2. is probably possible as well. In the meantime I will continue to throw around the Gove quote as soon as I encounter an expert whose opinion I for some reason do not share.