Mediaboss Marketing

When we go to a local restaurant, we expect our waiter or waitress to perform superbly in their responsibilities. We hope that they will take our orders correctly and not spill anything on us when they bring us our food. Failure to meet our expectations of service can result in dissatisfaction and, unless we're feeling forgiving, a lower tip. These expectations are not isolated to the restaurant industry. We expect high quality, expert service at every location in which we are a consumer. So why doesn't this private demand for expertise translate into a similar demand in the public sector?

Technocracy, as defined by Webster, is the management of society by technical experts. I suspect that most Americans would agree that this definition, if applied to local, state, and federal government, would be highly desirable. However, problems arise when ideal solutions to technical problems contradict the solutions voters come up with through their engagement in the democratic brainstorming process. Since the wonky answers to complex problems proposed by experts are often inconsistent with the simpler, platitude laden answers proposed by populist political figures, distrust of the expert begins to take root. This distrust can morph into conspiracy theories and allegations of the expert having an ulterior motive for promoting his or her expert opinion. At a more practical level, this distrust results in legislation being passed without thought of real consequences and unqualified people being appointed to positions that should be occupied by a technocrat. This type of reckless behavior will result in dangerous consequences for our country, and it will foment distrust in our democratic system of government.

This isn't a new problem, but it is one that has become much more widespread in recent years. Talk radio and internet personalities, on both sides of the political spectrum, regularly criticize technical experts as 'out-of-touch egg heads' or 'paid off by insert industry here' when the expert's opinion contradicts their own. With this flurry of competing ideas, it makes sense that most people will listen to the voice that they trust the most, but it making sense doesn't make it any less of a problem.

So what is the solution? Most of us that are paying attention to the current dialogue recognize that there is little to no common ground between the experts and the populists. Fact checking has become wide spread, but also widely ignored. This clearly isn't something we can just talk out at a national level. Instead, the solution has to come from us as individuals. We need to recognize that we aren't experts in everything and neither are the political figures we listen to. That's not to say we don't have our own unique expertise, but just because we are experts in budgeting doesn't mean we have expertise in international trade agreements. Just because we are expert meteorologists doesn't mean we know more than climatologists on climate policy, and so on. A little bit of introspective humility would do us a world of good. If we don't rectify this problem soon, we will begin to see the consequences of ill-conceived policy. Then, instead of just distrusting experts, the people might start distrusting American democracy all together.

Go here to read the rest:
Hostility to Technocracy Will Ruin Democracy - Huffington Post