Rethinking Expertise - Experts as Specialized Citizens

This week I continued my reading in Fischer’s book and was pleased to find that he too, talks about many of the concepts that we have been discussing in the past few weeks. Some new things that he brings to the table and focuses on specifically, however, is the relationship between the citizen and the expert and rethinking expertise. The following is kind of an overview of chapter 2 from his book: Professional Knowledge and Citizen Participation: Rethinking Expertise.

A robot from I, Robot (2004) that was the main suspect throughout the film.

He starts with talking about what he calls “techo-pessimists” (which many of us probably are at least a little) who revile the idea of technological fixes for what they see as social problems. But more generally, there is a growing distrust of experts and professionals as it is realized that they too are working towards their own self-interested goals (see: Climategate). Experts are accused of abusing their social status to perpetuate social injustices and inequality. It reminds me of Foucault’s medical gaze as Fischer problematizes the experts power to definite the client’s problem. This is the role that experts are supposed to fulfill between the masses and decision makers. He does note, however, that in many fields there are factions surfacing to challenge the old (but new?) practices of modernity.

One of my favorite gamers talking about his methods for getting “the ladies”. Gaming expert? Yes. Relationship expert? Not so much.

In a call for citizen participation, experts are reframed as specialized citizen. Just as we saw with Merchants of Doubt, expertise doesn’t carry across fields. This applies to chemists, for example, who are trying to extrapolate the effects a nuclear plant will have on a community. While they may fully understand how the radioactive compounds work, they may not be as versed in the politics or environment of a given community.

He also touches on flaws in our political system of course, such as the fact that we are socialized as consumers. So much to the point that political action has been commodified (see: fair trade coffee). This is very true even for our presidential candidates as I’ve briefly talked about before in which platforms and far reaching issues are reduced down into a soundbyte fit for a commercial break, because it really the media industry who is controlling what we see. What we get then are these cookie cutter profiles of what it means to be a democrat or what it means to be a republican rather than truly engaging with the real issues.

Of course this an overgeneralization but it also creates a lack of opportunity for people to participate on a larger scale. While advocacy groups could address some of these issues, they too are not exempt from what Fischer calls democratic elitism. They are led by a small group of people who will also do what they think is best, sometimes at the odds of the people they are meant to be representing.

Steps towards rectifying these gaps would be tossing out positivism and instead creating methodologies that are not so “top down”. There needs to be the acknowledgement that as technical as policies can be, they are fundamentally social and political constructions. There is no escaping the political nature of these issues by trying to make decisions apolitical through Science. Perhaps moving towards a more participatory model where experts act as facilitators for the general public could work. Of course there are logistical problems given the complexity of American society, but it is still something worth thinking about. Either way, Fischer notes that the goal isn’t to ban Science and label all it is evil, instead reframe it as discourse and look at the relationship between it and the socio-political ones. If we put them in our web of stories, relationships will begin to emerge and maybe begin to see a cohesive whole.