Who chooses the experts?

Do you suppose that anyone else sees you as I see you, any one else alive or dead? We all of us meet one another uniquely and that meeting is only a shadow of the only real meeting we have — our meeting with ourselves

Hugh Walpole – John Cornelius (1937)

You are unique, I am unique, today is unique, tomorrow will be unique. Whatever we try to do about it and however we try to mitigate or ignore its effects, uniqueness weaves complexity into our daily lives. We get over it in numerous ways from generalisations to stereotypes, from slogans to doctrines, principles, beliefs, ideologies and many more useful subterfuges.

Or we listen to experts who offer us their generalisations. Yet in a sense, experts become a generalisation when presented to us as its human face. Especially when selected by governments, media or a whole range of interested parties including interested individuals. Experts say, climate scientist overwhelmingly agree, experts predict, an expert study has shown, this guy has made a video.

In the public arena there is often no easy escape from situations where experts are selected by those who are not experts. Experts are unique individuals, their expertise was uniquely acquired, their expert views are unique, their careers individually unique and so are their ambitions, personalities and indeed their politics.

As we know, when we are offered experts as the human face of a political generalisation, we should check both. We should check the experts and the basis of their generalisations. As we also know, many people don’t bother checking. Yet experts are unique, fallible individuals and that’s a generalisation worth hanging on too.