Building on his enormously successful first edition, Tom Nichols confirms his thesis that events, such as the COVID pandemic, prove that the assault on expertise has only intensified.
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..
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.
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.
All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.
Over the past several years, the rise of populism and conspiracy theories have taken this to new levels.
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.
Fully updated chapters continue to address how technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before.
Building on his enormously successful first edition, Tom Nichols confirms his thesis that events, such as the COVID pandemic, prove that the assault on expertise has only intensified
