Whenever someone begins a sentence with the words \u2018I\u2019m no expert but\u2026\u2019 and then proceeds to hold court on the state of the world, or whatever their chosen subject is, there is a strong chance that they wouldn\u2019t want to listen to an expert anyway. In fact, any opinion outside of their own may not really be to their liking. Expert bashing has often seemed like a national pastime, but today, in our digitally driven world, everyone is an expert. The speed at which comments and ideas can be delivered means that even a meme\u2014an image, video or piece of text carrying an often simplistic message\u2014can quickly become the viewpoint to latch on to. When a meme tickles the imagination of a large audience, it can become the collective social judgement, rapidly masquerading as the \u2018expert comment\u2019 on whatever the subject may be. Unfortunately, memes tend to be designed more to amuse or to propagate a political or social agenda, rather than to offer an opportunity for wider and more balanced discussion. But they play such a considerable role on collective consciousness\u2014and more recently in the \u2018divide and conquer\u2019 game of manipulating people\u2019s opinions\u2014that real expert knowledge is often drowned out. So what is an expert? Most dictionary definitions go for something along the lines of \u2018someone who is very knowledgeable about a particular subject or skilful in a particular area\u2019. I see a doctor about illness because he or she knows so much more than I do about what might cause my ailment. I see a mechanic about fixing my car for the same reason and I read the thoughts of a well-educated historian or scientist because he or she will have learned things that I haven\u2019t had an opportunity to learn. In theory, the analysis offered by any of these will supply useful insights, and more often than not they will be able to offer valid and useful advice. The issue of expertise is not one of whether expert opinion is of value or not\u2014of course it is\u2014a problem only occurs when the expert comment doesn\u2019t fit into our own agenda or suit our current prejudice or political bias. In our increasingly polarized world we need expertise and wisdom, and an ability to dissect and analyze, more than ever. Especially the expertise from those involved in \u2018information warfare\u2019 who bragg about how easy it is to manipulate emotions using social media, as in the case of executives from Cambridge Analytica when filmed undercover recently. Whether or not this is just braggadocio or sales spiel, these are also experts that it might be best to take note of\u2014if only to avoid the polarization caused by their manipulative activities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Whenever someone begins a sentence with the words \u2018I\u2019m no expert but\u2026\u2019 and then proceeds to hold court on the state of the world, or whatever their chosen subject is, there is a strong chance that they wouldn\u2019t want to listen to an expert anyway. In fact, any opinion outside of their own may not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-3703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-editorials","tag-fergus-byrne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3703\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}