PrintMarch 20, 2010
Beware the 'Expert'
The late French sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) is not exactly a household name. Yet this iconoclastic academic and veteran of the French Resistance predicted the current "cult of the expert" and its use as a means of directing public policy and silencing dissent.In The Technological Society, Ellul discusses at length what he calls "technique" -- i.e., the social, political, and economic uses to which science and technology are put. "Technique" aims to find "the one best means" of performing whatever the task at hand may be. This is the factory method of Henry Ford applied to politics and society. "If there is one best means of making a car," the reasoning goes, then "there must also be one best means of ruling a people."This thinking is reflected in the cult of the expert, perhaps best exemplified by Woodrow Wilson's exaltation of abstract academic theories over common sense and experience. Wilson often bemoaned...(Read Full Article)
