Experts are valuable, necessary contributors to our diverse and specialized Civil Society. But they cannot and should not be used to constitute or replace civil society.

Indeed, the idea that anyone can claim to be a civil society expert is troubling. Civil society needs to be composed of a broad and diverse array of people throughout our societies. The internet offers us opportunity to radically expand civil society, to debate all of ideas and ideologies that shape world. We cannot abandon this field to experts, particularly not the much vaunted experts of civil society. What is an expert? Experts and expertise are usually recognize through degrees earn, publications, experience and notoriety. There are good reasons for each of these things. But each of them can also be troubling. If degrees make experts, then we need to carefully, critically examine curriculum, and ideological biases of our degree offering institutions.

Get experience in civil society:

If publications make experts, we need to aware of obscurity of journals and public and private funding sources for research. Experience is very valuable; but there are plenty of rich political donors who become consular officials without shred of expertise. Notoriety is the most troublesome of the signs and symbols of expertise. Famous experts are often assume to be better experts – false. Famous people often mistake themselves for experts and think we ought to care what their expert pronouncements are – false. In addition, experts tend to congregate together and pat each other on the backs by awarding one another fellowships. The longer you hang around, the more your expertise will be burnished, brightened and expanded by all of expert. Finally, success begets success. People who gain degrees, earn awards, grants and fellowships will earn more of them.  You must have to learn properly about it.

Civil Society Experts:

A wide array of civil society experts are call in to analyze, explain and advocate prominent policy issues. There is no shortage of experts to tell us how to think and act and vote in this complicated world. Now we even have technocrats – those elite experts who blend modern technological training with state power to produce utopia. Then there are the experts who are not experts. Politicians and rich people, reporters and pollsters get tire of having to ask the experts. Hire the experts or hunt around for someone with an advanced degree to advocate their position. So they step up to the mike themselves and are transform into pundits. But in the end, none of these civil society experts provide us with society. Solutions to the problems we must work together to solve. You can find soltions to such problems.

In the last generation we have seen the rise of a new expert – the technocrat. This is the ultimate melding of expertise with power. Now instead of simply elevating the powerful to power, we elevate (powerful) experts to power. Let us not confuse engineering, business or science degrees with the ability to lead nations and states.