Explanations and experts

14th December 2018

By: Rebecca Campbell

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

     

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Hi! I’m back. First of all, I don’t think I can just pass over the absence of my column during the past two months without a word of explanation. The explanations are quite simple: in October I was sick and in November I was on leave. Why take leave in November? To move house. I downsized from a lovely big house into a lovely compact townhouse. They say moving is one of the most stressful things you can do. I can confirm that. Now, if you’re young, moving can be quite easy: you don’t have much to move. But moving out of a place where you have lived for 29 years is quite another thing! And moving in is not a single-step process either: the unpacking (mainly of books) is going to have to go on for some time still.

What would I have written about had I not been ‘offline’ in those two weeks? I have no idea. It is not that there was nothing going on: there was too much going on, locally and internationally. And the publishing deadlines over the previous two months did not synchronise with the various political deadlines, with the later invariably postdating the former. I hate writing about things that are about to happen (as distinct from offering longer-term predictions) as you can never be certain what will really occur (and there are always factors you forget or are unaware of), so you can end up looking like an idiot.

In this regard, one thing about South African broadcasters really frustrates me – the weird way they cover general elections. On the day itself, they have special coverage, with reporters all over the place and analysts in their studios. Except there is no news to report, only that people are voting, and perhaps some problems here and there, and no results to analyse. So, the experts have to prognosticate on what they think is going to happen and what the even more hypothetical consequences of these hypothetical results will be. My view is that the special TV coverage should take place the day after the actual voting – or at least start when the polls close and continue until the results are clear.

By the way, I once heard a wonderful definition of the word ‘expert’ from a British academic (who was, in fact, a leading expert on Latin America). He pointed out that X was the unknown factor and a spurt was a drip under pressure.

Of course, experts have their place. But that is the operative term – their place. I should add, here, that I am not thinking of scientists working in the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, astronomy and so on). I am thinking more of social scientists (I am one, by training, myself), including economists.

The idea, sometimes advanced, that people should listen to experts and then do what they say is nonsensical. Experts are human beings – they are fallible, capable of bias, can be prey to ego, and always, but always, operate on the basis of incomplete information. And, thank heavens, they never totally agree with one another. Of course, the impression of expert unanimity is sometimes created, but that is always false. There are always dissenters, but, if unfashionable, they can struggle to get coverage outside the professional journals. Oh, yes, that’s another thing: experts are also vulnerable to intellectual fashions. Moreover, and most importantly, the idea that people should just follow the experts is deeply antidemocratic.

It must never be forgotten that everybody is an expert in something, even if it is ‘only’ their own life circumstances. Moreover – and this is a major problem in all too many circles – education must never be confused with intelligence. I have had, and still have, the pleasure of having highly intelligent friends and colleagues who, for various reasons (not least, financial) were never able to go to university. And it must never be forgotten that stupidity is not the opposite of intelligence: it is the opposite of common sense. I have known quite a few highly educated idiots in my time. The philosopher Bertrand Russell once observed (apropos of what, I, alas, must confess I do not know) “[t]his is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them”. This may have inspired the more pithy quote attributed to writer and commentator George Orwell that “[t]here are some ideas so absurd that only an intellectual could believe them”.

Moreover, increasing education can be accompanied by decreasing empathy. Orwell most certainly did write that he did not want to be “like the leftwing intellectuals who are so ‘enlightened’ that they cannot understand the most ordinary emotions”. Never forget that Orwell himself was a man of the left, but a vehement opponent of totalitarianism, both left and right – he fought in the Spanish Civil War in the ranks of the anarchist militia, not the communist-led International Brigades. (He recounted his experiences in his book, Homage to Catalonia.)

Fortunately, these strictures do not apply to most well-educated people. Unfortunately, they do apply to many well-educated people involved in politics – perhaps even to most of them. By ‘involved in politics’ I do not mean merely politicians or even members of political parties. I mean all those (including journalists) for whom politics is the number one concern, whatever they might actually do for a living. The simple truth is that most people, most of the time, do not give much attention to politics unless there is a major issue or crisis facing the country, or until the run-in period to an election or referendum. This most definitely does not mean they are stupid. It most definitely does mean they are sensible. It is those of us (and yes, I am one myself) who are excessively, even obsessively, focused on politics who lack proportion, and can immerse ourselves in stupidity.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

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