The Death of Expertise (2nd Edition)

The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters

De: Tom Nichols

Narrado por: Tom Nichols

Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise, Second Edition, follows up on how this rejection of experts has occurred: 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, and importantly, the election of Donald Trump. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. 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.

©2024 Oxford University Press (P)2024 Tantor Media

Insightful

An important and engaging audiobook on a timely subject, clearly explained and thought-provoking. However, it can feel a bit repetitive and pretentious at times. The perspective is also very U.S.-centric. Still, it’s worth a listen and recommended overall.

Facts matter

Uninformed opinions and charisma are no substitute for facts and expertise. The desire for equality has been adulterated to assume that all opinions are equal, despite facts that dispute opinions.

Listen twice, there's SO MUCH great information

This really opened my mind to what is going on around me. I'm about to listen again!

Maybe 10 hours of Tom Nichols is too much?

I don't particularly disagree with any specific item brought up, even if he does spend a bunch of time up front defining generalizing so he can then generalize with reckless abandon. But 10 hours of being told you don't have standing to disagree with him because he was a college professor... a profession that doesn't come with a reputation for being rooted in daily reality of those outside of the university... is too much.