Andrei Cornea: "The many" and their detested experts

There is a great dispute that runs through and across today's world and which is activated on any occasion and with any theme: that between experts and the general public. Any field can become a battleground for this never-ending dispute: medicine, law, history, archaeology, particle physics, and, here we are, in the last instance, the grace of Christopher Nolan's film, as well as classical philology or literary exegesis. It is a dispute with deep roots (see the Horatian "Odi profanum vulgus et arceo"). And yet, at the level and in its acute form, it is very recent, as until the supremacy of popular media – first cinema, then television, and now the Internet with its networks and, more recently, AI – one of the litigating parties, the public, meaning the voice of those who were not experts, was hardly heard at all. Now it is, and how! (See also Tom Nichols' book, The Death of Expertise, Polirom, 2025, for a good understanding of the dispute.)

On one hand, therefore, there are the experts or "specialists": they are convinced that they know the field they have studied for many long and arduous years. And often it is indeed so. They cannot forget the toil and struggles of their professional training. They are therefore proud of what they have achieved and want to be recognized. Having reached maturity, they understand (or believe they understand) the subtleties and epistemic traps. They are, however, convinced that, once they have reached the "summit", they have also gained a wonderful perspective on the field. They allow themselves to claim a knowledge and happiness unknown to the masses. They feel like initiates in an esoteric domain, soaring above the profane demos. And they guard jealously the treasure of knowledge, which they would not want to share except with those who accept to be initiates in their rituals. And, to be fair, some fields, such as classical philology, have become downright sectarian in recent decades. (Recently, Ștefan Colceriu beautifully explained the perplexities that await a student who has learned some ancient Greek from Xenophon but wants to read Homer in the original. Will the music of the three hexameters he recited before the microphone manage to attract some young people into the sect?) Moreover, many experts feel increasingly frustrated: usually, the world does not give them either the attention or the financial compensation they claim – perhaps rightly – they deserve. Their voices are not given "antenna time", so to speak, except rarely and little. However, frustration often breeds arrogance – a rather impotent arrogance, but which, if the opportunity allows, spills over far through vitriolic indignations.

On the other hand stands the public. Unlike the hoi polloi (the many) of Plato and Aristotle's time, more or less "the masses" in cultural terms, today the general public has access to the Internet, social networks, Google, and even AI. Not only can they gain a penetrating voice in all media at any time, but they can also successfully mimic the effect of competence. They have immediate access to information, graphics, specialized terms, translations, bibliographies, and even analyses. Knowledge, even in strictly specialized fields such as linguistics, physics, or paleontology, seems to have become almost as accessible to anyone as the act of ordering food from Sezamo or Glovo. And, in any case, it is very cheap. Of course, giving an opinion where you have no expertise has always been a very pleasant habit, and we all sometimes feel the appetite to practice it among real or virtual friends. But today the temptation to abuse the appearance of knowledge that digital civilization allows has become irresistible.

On the other hand, the public is also frustrated. They are annoyed by the expert's claim to epistemic authority and, sometimes, even ethical authority, as well as their often undisguised arrogance. They resent the fact that the expert sometimes still receives academic consideration, sometimes somewhat outdated, yet still not devoid of prestige. They do not understand why their own "research" on the Internet cannot substitute for school and academic titles. They feel humiliated by the expert's esotericism, which is why they come to see him as a promoter of imposture and the petty interests of a "cult". The "many" have always tended to suspect experts, especially now that they can also effectively imitate them, largely adopting their language and "format". Therefore, the public's revolt against them, but also against the academic authorities that institutionally and politically support them, has become unstoppable, as we saw happening, to a large extent, during the pandemic. One of the sources of the so-called "alternative sciences" (in fact, pseudo-sciences) is precisely this mutual contempt between experts and laypeople.

Of course, no matter how much we frown at some directors for "reading" and reconstructing incorrectly (in our opinion), in Hollywood productions, the Odyssey or another classical masterpiece, our dispute remains pleasant, exciting, and without unfortunate practical consequences. Refusing the expertise of a classicist because, let’s say, "you, who do not know ancient Greek, nor ancient history, nor literature, nor... nor..., know better than he does in his field" is not serious, but rather amusing. But rejecting the advice of an epidemiologist who recommends a vaccine can be fatal – and if you are also an influencer, it becomes fatal for others who believe you more than the doctor.

It is almost unnecessary to say that in this dispute there are only losers. The public loses, as they remain ignorant with the false pretense of knowledge. Experts lose, as they destroy their authority, audience, and, ultimately, their purpose in the world. The former become the unconscious victims of impostors, while the latter tend to close themselves into a moribund and quarrelsome sect. Between the two camps, however, there used to be, more or less, two bonds that allowed for an armistice: authority and trust. But now, the former is dissolved by relativism, while the latter suffers from generalized suspicion.

No, I am wrong: there is still a winner in this war: the political charlatan.

https://www.dilema.ro/situatiunea/cei-multi-si-expertii-lor-detestati