{"id":218,"date":"2026-08-11T08:34:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/borovik.net\/selecta\/?p=218"},"modified":"2026-09-09T11:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T11:37:10","slug":"expertise-and-incompetence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borovik.net\/selecta\/2026\/08\/11\/expertise-and-incompetence\/","title":{"rendered":"Expertise and incompetence"},"content":{"rendered":"

11 August 2026<\/span><\/p>\n

A friend sent me a Telegram post, based on remarkable quotes from the famous book Anti-Intellectualism in American Life<\/i><\/span> <\/i>(1963) <\/span>by <\/span>American historian and politolog Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970). I give these quotes in full:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut in our time, of course, American society has grown greatly in complexity and in involvement with the rest of the world. In most areas of life a formal training has become a prerequisite to success. At the same time, the complexity of modern life has steadily whittled away the functions the ordinary citizen can intelligently and comprehendingly perform for himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the original American populistic dream, the omnicompetence of the common man was fundamental and indispensable. It was believed that he could, without much special preparation, pursue the professions and run the government. Today he knows that he cannot even make his breakfast without using devices, more or less mysterious to him, which expertise has put at his disposal; and when he sits down to breakfast and looks at his morning newspaper, he reads about a whole range of vital and intricate issues and acknowledges, if he is candid with himself, that he has not acquired competence to judge most of them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the practical world of affairs, then, trained intelligence has come to be recognized as a force of overwhelming importance. What used to be a jocular and usually benign ridicule of intellect and formal training has turned into a malign resentment of the intellectual in his capacity as expert. The old idea of the woolly-minded intellectual, so aptly caught in the stereotype of the absent-minded professor, still survives, of course; but today it is increasingly a wishful and rather wistful defense against a deep and important fear. Once the intellectual was gently ridiculed because he was not needed; now he is fiercely resented because he is needed too much. He has become all too practical, all too effective. He is the object of resentment because of an improvement, not a decline, in his fortunes. It is not his abstractness, futility, or helplessness that makes him prominent enough to inspire virulent attacks, but his achievements, his influence, his real comfort and imagined luxury, as well as the dependence of the community upon his skills. Intellect is resented as a form of power or privilege.\u201d\u00a0<\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One more statement in that Telegram post is also attributed to Richard Hofstadter:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018The complexity of modern life makes it difficult for ordinary citizens to participate independently and meaningfully in the governance of society, which undermines trust in democratic institutions.\u2019<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was unable to locate it in Hofstadter\u2019s book, where previous quotes could be found on page 34. It seems that this formulation comes from another source mentioned in the Telegram post, the paper<\/p>\n

Tom Nichols, How America Lost Faith in Expertise And Why That\u2019s a Giant Problem<\/em>. Foreign Affaires, February 13, 2017,<\/p>\n

where similar sentiments are attributed to a paper of 2015 (much closer to our times) by Ilya Somin \u2013 unfortunately, I was unable to trace it.<\/p>\n

But I highlighted the words \u201cthe complexity of modern life makes it difficult for ordinary citizens to participate independently and meaningfully in the governance of society<\/em>\u201d for a good reason: I am convinced that they are already outdated.<\/p>\n

Times have changed; the damning formulation now applies equally to politicians\u2014as well as to all kinds of administrators, managers in softer lines of business (where rigorous criteria, based on principles of physics and exact sciences are absent), and the like\u2014amidst what amounts to a pandemic of incompetence.<\/p>\n

One reason for that is the ever growing chasm between people and the technology they depend on in their everyday life; it is much deeper than in 2025 and even more so\u2014than it was in 1963. Another is the explosion in the complexity of economic, financial systems, politics of the world. And the utter inadequacy of education: it abandoned any attempts to teach anything complex.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the worst consequence of this transformation\u2014and it triggers a positive feedback loop\u2014is that criteria for hiring or promoting subordinates based on competence have vanished, simply because the very understanding of what competence entails has been lost.<\/p>\n

What remains, however, is a universal and timeless selection criterion: personal loyalty. I can see that in every country experienced by me at an above-tourism level.<\/p>\n

Next, the loss of criteria of competence breeds various fads like wokerism, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), Net Zero policy, etc.\u2014they increasingly look like quasi-religious cults where understanding is replaced by blind beliefs.<\/p>\n

A colorful example: as it was reported around 30 June 2026 in every leading British newspaper,<\/p>\n

The Treasury [the key department of the UK Government] removed numerical reasoning tests from its graduate recruitment scheme after finding they had an \u201cadverse impact\u201d on candidate diversity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finally, a pandemic of incompetence suppresses a natural, as one would expect, immune response to uncontrollable spread of AI. This happens in the society as a whole\u2014but, it seems, even more so in the ruling classes which have lost the understanding of what does it mean to lead, to rule.<\/p>\n

Moreover, \u201cthe complexity of modern life makes it difficult for ordinary citizens\u201d even to ask questions about policies, about the economy, and, more generally \u2013 about the state of the nation and its strategic standing. And here we encounter another dangerous trend: erosion of the right to ask questions and creeping totalitarianism.<\/p>\n

The r<\/b>ight to ask questions<\/b><\/span><\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n
One of the characteristic features of totalitarian regimes is that loyal followers are not supposed to ask questions but have to wait for answers and directives from Big Brother, Fuehrer, Leader, President etc. Moreover, asking questions openly and in public could be seen as <\/span>disloyalty and <\/span>a thought crime. <\/span><\/p>\n
The right to ask questions is a fundamental right of people in a democratic nation, so obvious that it is never mentioned and becomes visible only in comparison with non-democracies.<\/span><\/p>\n
I grew up and lived under a classical totalitarian regime and instantly see the difference. When I naturalised as a British citizen three decades ago, I was confident that I was joining a true democracy.<\/span><\/p>\n
Unfortunately I am witnessing an increasing suppression of the right to ask questions. Here are two examples of them which are apparently seen as inappropriate, divisive \u2014 in short, undesirable: <\/span><\/p>\n