Aristocracy in a Liberal Society

Richard Hanania's Critique of Subject Expertise

My doctorate is in Theology, not a hard science or social science. Yet I found a lot of truth in Richard Hanania’s jeremiad against academia. I’ve never used a graph in any essay I’ve ever written, and I don’t aspire to the illusory ideal of scientific rigor. I’m content to be what Hanania favorably calls a “qualitative researcher,” someone who reads books and tries to glean lessons from them.

Hanania makes a handful of challenging observations: we have more psychologists and mental health professionals than ever before, and yet suicide and depression are on the rise; we have more crime experts than ever before, yet no evidence we’re getting better at stymying crime. The murder rate is about what it was in 1960. All the king’s wonks and all the king’s theorists couldn’t beat the Taliban.

You could argue that without the massive influx of experts we’d be in even worse shape (a very self-serving thing for experts to say as it lets them off the hook); but it’s also possible that experts are simply less effective than we think—the temperament and skills needed to make it as an expert are at odds with the public interest. Academia incentives habits that are at odds with truth-seeking.

My experience aligns with Hanania’s, though it is also in my self-interest as a non-academic (or post-academic) to share his bias. Perhaps I would be more trustworthy if I were a professor, for then I could be a “whistleblower.”

Hanania seems to be arguing that scholars should be more conversant with the public and less oriented to passing peer review. I agree. The question then becomes what new structures of accountability should replace the old ones.

At the core of Hanania’s argument is that more experts means more dilution of expertise. We aren’t getting smarter because we have more PhDs per capita, but rather people with PhDs are less intelligent today. This is a grim story, which is what we should expect from a self-declared conservative. My own experience confirms it to be the case.

Hanania’s solution—based on the findings of Phil Tetlock that subject experts fair no better than smart generalists in difficult problem solving—is to argue for a new type of ideal to replace the old one; instead of promoting subject area experts we should promote smart generalists. It’s easier to check a smart generalist than a subject area expert who hides behind the notion that what she’s doing is too complex to be followed.

My criticism of Hanania’s argument comes down to this: he seems to think it’s easy to know the truth, if only we could save ourselves from capture by special interests. I’m willing to admit more uncertainty into my view of things. What if, in addition to bad incentives, another reason our experts fail, is that the truth is often messy, contentious, and ambiguous?

Liberalism is premised on our epistemological weakness. But once you argue that the main obstacle to knowledge is not cognition, but something like will, or something like leadership, it’s not clear why we should value liberalism. Instead we should value aristocracy.

Perhaps the liberal and aristocratic ideals both have some merit and so we must be condemned to cognitive dissonance.

The problem with liberalism is it’s underestimation of our ability to find truth when we let sincere, smart generalists pursue it. The problem with aristocracy is that it cannot guarantee the best will lead. All attempts to uproot decadent leadership usually involve replacing one group of decadent leaders with another. The trouble begins when we think we’ve solved the problem of authority.

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