A month ago we saw two major events, the inauguration of President Trump and the Women’s March in Washington.  The complete antithesis of sentiments confused me because I felt, by intuition, that everything I was watching and hearing and reading was at the surface of greater issues that ran deep and strong.  I hated to see the division of Americans who were previously friends, neighbors, and family.  Yes, it happened to me, a family member no longer is communicating with me.  As a result, I decided to do everything in my ability to understand the true core of the division in America.

I realized that the news and media were a huge part of the problem because of bias in their reporting.  A few words missing or inciting can change a story from news to “fake news”.  I’m sorry to use those words but I couldn’t help myself.  So, I went on a search for true news and it’s there but not in the mainstream.   For the time being, be selective on how you receive your information.

Knowing this, I became choosy on what I was reading.   I refused to read the opinion page of the newspaper.  I went to Reuters and the AP to get my news online.  It helped so much!  Because I could read the real story it helped me in discerning the biased news and if a story was biased to the right or left, I dropped it like a hot potato.  I refused to buy into the brainwashing, to be blunt.  The mainstream media have continued to focus on Trump did this and Trump did that, further fueling the major dislike and lack of confidence in our president.  In truth, he makes me cringe at some of the things that come out of his mouth.  I didn’t vote for him because of that. So, I searched and found information that helped me understand his approach to “Making America Great Again” (there I go again, I’m helpless) but it did not help with what comes out of his mouth.  But this is an aside.  There’s more important concepts to address.  We can’t control him but we can control our own practices.

I was not satisfied with news reports because they did not focus on what I intuitively felt was a deeper, unmentioned, core issue that has divided our nation particularly in the election of 2016. Something more important than the rhetoric, Clinton or Trump, the White House, or the government.  I inclined to believe it was dealing with unemployment, jobs, and the economy but I’m no expert.   So I started reading and ultimately stumbling into amazing websites that analyze the issues of today with great, scholarly expertise.  Yes, I need to have a dictionary beside me to understand some terms but that’s OK, I’m building my vocabulary.

Speaking of scholarly expertise, I must relay a synopsis of an article I read Sunday night, How America Lost Faith in Expertise and Why That’s a Giant Problem by Tom Nichols.   The main thesis of the article is that Americans have fell into some dangerous behaviors, I will call them habits.  To be concise:

1. Americans are dismissing and showing disdain for the information that is studied and presented by experts, scholars, and intellectuals. None of which are represented by the rhetoric of the media, celebrities, news people, or even politicians. In other words, take anything they say with a grain of salt.  Rejecting expert advice has become the norm and in the political arena at this point in time there is nothing left but butting heads, name calling, and anger.  Whereas, and I quote, “Principled, informed arguments (and debate) are a sign of intellectual health and vitality in a democracy.”  Knowledge and discussion makes an intelligent electorate. I believe we as Americans need a way to return to this condition. But how?  Well, we could try to return to expertise.
2. Americans consider themselves experts on issues when they are not.  In fact, the issues are so complex that no one person is capable of understanding them. Our presidents do not completely understand each issue, that’s why they have professional advisers. As Americans we must return to those who are informed and knowledgeable, and I reiterate, not the media, celebrities, news people, or politicians.
3. Americans are not willing to accept the fact that there is a division of labor between lay people and experts. Expert information is rejected.   Ignorance is actually seen as a virtue. (Look at the childhood immunization scare for one example)  Opinions are spouted and valued whether or not they are based on truth.  We need to redevelop trust in the smart, specialized, informed practices of the experts.  Without that trust we continue to move toward an illiterate electorate and will fall further into the grasp of factions and whoever pays the bills.  On the other hand, “Experts are the people that know considerably more about a given subject that any of us.”
4. The most prominent problem with the American electorate of today is called “confirmation bias.” This happens when the tendency of getting information leans toward seeking information that simply confirms what is already believed. I see this all the time on Facebook when people share news, articles, cartoons, videos, etc. that reiterates their particular political stance.  It is a dangerous practice.  Intellectual progress requires much more.  Those who are experts have to completely reject any such tendency in their search for truth, arguments and debates are based on findings that have extensive peer review and accountability.  Unfortunately, this is not true of  lay people who rely primarily on confirmation bias.
5. As a lay person stay away from any and all conspiracy theories.   I could go on and on but I won’t in this particular blog.
6. The communication age with the ease of the internet is accelerating the intellectual demise of an intelligent electorate. Facts are out there all over the place, but facts are not knowledge or expertise.  Facts are a dime a dozen and lead to fake intelligence.  In reality, seek out those with an expertise rather than facts.

Are there solutions to these issue?  Is there a greater underlying problem in America right now?  Well, that’s a discussion for another day.  In the meantime, I am hopeful we can each make a difference.

Thank you for reading and understand that the above is my interpretation of an article referred to below:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-02-13/how-america-lost-faith-expertise?cid=int-now&pgtype=hpg&region=br1

by Tom Nichols, Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and taken from his book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters