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Washington Post writer Linton Weeks recently wrote a fascinating big-picture essay about the long, sad decline of sincerity and sentiment in , symbolized by the public loathing of the 1975 Morris Albert pop song “Feelings.”

“Snark Ages” to characterize it: “The revolt against sincerity -- the Snark Ages, still upon us -- began as a rebellion against corny, over-the-top displays of emotion in movies, songs, TV shows. But the rebellion spiraled out of control, and any public expression of emotion, no matter how sincere, was a target for mockery. Old war movies and romantic dramas, taken seriously the first time around, were consumed by a younger generation as farce -- as ‘camp.’”

for each of these things "we all know," significant
minorities insist that they're false.

Those
dissenters, however, don't matter much when it comes to most journalism,
reference, and education.  Society forges ahead,
reporting and teaching things without usually mentioning the dissenters,
or only in a disparaging light.  As a result, certain claims that
some of us don't accept end up being background knowledge, as
I'll call it.  If you question such background knowledge,
or even express some doubt about it, you'll look stupid, crazy,
or immoral.  Maybe all three.

It
is particularly the aggregation of public opinion that instituted
this new politics of knowledge

To be
able to determine society's background knowledge—to
establish what "we all know"—is an awesome sort of
power.  This power can shape legislative agendas, steer the passions
of crowds, educate whole generations, direct reading habits, and tar
as radical or nutty whole groups of people who otherwise might seem
perfectly normal.  Exactly how this power is wielded
and who wields it constitutes what we might call "the
politics of knowledge."  The politics of knowledge has changed
tremendously over the years.  In the Middle Ages, we were told
what we knew by the Church; after the printing press and the Reformation,
by state censors and the licensers of publishers; with the rise of
liberalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, by publishers themselves,
and later by broadcast media—in any case, by a small, elite group
of professionals.

we
are now confronting a new politics of knowledge

if you want to find out what "everybody knows," you
aren't limited to looking at what The New York Times and Encyclopedia
Britannica are taking for granted.  You can turn to online
sources that reflect a far broader spectrum of opinion than that of
the aforementioned "small, elite group of professionals."  Professionals
are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution
of information and the shaping of opinion.  The hegemony of the
professional in determining our background knowledge is disappearing—a
deeply profound truth that not everyone has fully absorbed.

with the chorus (or cacophony) of voices out there, there
is so much dissent, about everything, that there is a lot less of
what "we all know."  Insofar as the unity of our culture
depends on a large body of background knowledge, handing a megaphone
to everyone has the effect of fracturing our culture.

I, at least, think it is wonderful that the power to declare what
we all know is no longer exclusively in the hands of a professional
elite.  A giant, open, global conversation has just begun—one
that will live on for the rest of human history—and its potential
for good is tremendous

one of the fathers of modern liberalism, John Stuart Mill, argued—an
unfettered, vigorous exchange of opinion ought to improve our grasp
of the truth

With the rejection of professionalism
has come a widespread rejection of expertise—of the proper role
in society of people who make it their life's work to know stuff.  This,
I maintain, is not a positive development; but it is also not a necessary
one.

according to one leading account
of knowledge called "reliabilism," associated with philosophers
like Alvin Goldman and Marshall Swain, knowledge is true belief that
has been arrived at by a "reliable process" (say, getting
a good look at something in good light) or through a "reliable
indicator of truth" (say, proper use of a calculator)

Reliability is a comparative quality; something doesn't have
to be perfectly reliable in order to be reliable.  So,
to say that an encyclopedia is reliable is to say that it contains
an unusually high proportion of truth versus error, compared
to various other publications.  But it can still contain some
error, and perhaps a high enough proportion of error that—as
many have said recently—you should never use just one reference
work if you want to be sure of something

when we say that encyclopedias should state the
truth, do we mean the truth itself, or what the best-informed people
take to be the truth—or perhaps even what the general public
takes to be the truth?  I'd like to say "the truth
itself," but we can't simply point to the truth in the
way we can point to the North Star.  Some philosophers, called
pragmatists, have said there's no such thing as "the truth
itself," and that we should just consider the truth to be whatever
the experts opine in "the ideal limit of inquiry" (in the
phrase of C. S. Peirce).  While I am not a pragmatist in this
philosophical sense, I do think that it is misleading to say simply that
encyclopedias aim at the truth.  We can't just leave it
at that. 

experts
disagree about a lot of things.  It is presumptuous, and a great
disservice to readers, for editors to choose one expert to believe
over another.

what do we most want, as responsible, independent-minded researchers,
out of an encyclopedia?  Primarily, I think most of us want mainstream
expert opinion stated clearly and accurately; but we don't want
to ignore minority and popular views, either, precisely because we
know that experts are sometimes wrong, even systematically wrong.  We
want well-agreed facts to be stated as such, but beyond that, we want
to be able to consider the whole dialectical enchilada, so that we
can make up our own minds for ourselves. 

I believe that if someone
meets a certain standard of credentials about some topic, then that
person is probably more reliable on that topic than someone picked
at random.  Bear in mind, however, that "credentials" should
be construed very broadly, and can mean much more than simply degrees
and certifications

due to its sheer size, the
public can also contribute enormous breadth and extra eyeballs for
all sorts of the more usually "expert" topics, too.  The
general public may add a far greater assortment of topics and perspectives
than one would get if one assigned only experts to write about only
their areas of expertise.  Moreover, the sheer quantity of eyeballs
gazing at obvious mistakes means that such mistakes will be fixed more
quickly and reliably than if one engages only experts working only
on their areas of expertise.

Experts,
or specialists, possess unusual amounts of knowledge about particular
topics.  Because of their knowledge, they can often
sum up what is known on a topic much more efficiently than a non-specialist
can.

Wikipedia's
defenders have a great many arguments for dabblerism: non-experts
can create great things; the "wisdom of crowds" makes
deference to experts unnecessary; studies appear to confirm this in
the case of Wikipedia; there is no prima facie reason to give
experts any special role; it is only fair to judge people by what they
do, and not by their credentials; and making a role for experts will
actually ruin the collaborative process.

But what facts are
Wikipedians attempting to describe?

The
facts they want to amass are facts contained in the books and articles
that, it so happens, they are so keen on citing.  Who writes those
books and articles?  Experts, mostly.

Wikipedia can be expected to excel in scientific
and technical topics, simply because there is relatively little disagreement
about the facts in these disciplines.  (Also because contributors
to wikis tend to be technically-minded,
but this probably matters less than that it's hard to get scientific
facts wrong when you're simply copying them out of a book.) 

To give authority
to people simply on the basis of their expertise is—as Wikipedians
often say—simply "credentialism," and no more rational
than rejecting an application from a stellar programmer simply because
he lacks a B.S. in Computer Science.  People should be judged
based on their demonstrated abilities, not degrees.

Some
of the finest programmers in the world lack any computer science degrees,
and it would be silly to fail to recognize that fact.  But there
is no reason why a content creation system could not recognize as a "credential," or
as proof of expertise, all manner of evidence, not just degrees

Wikipedians have a sort of moral argument for
their dabblerism: they say, sometimes, that it is only fair to judge
people based on what they do, not who they are.  Meritocracy
is the only fair way to justify differing levels of editorial authority
in open projects; and a genuine meritocracy would assign authority
not based on "credentials," but only based on what people
have demonstrated they can do for the project.  It is
wrong and unfair to hand out authority based on credentials

Define "credential" as "evidence
of expertise."  If we reject the use of credentials, we
reject all evidence of expertise; ergo, lacking any means of establishing
who is an expert, we reject expertise itself.  Meritocrats are
necessarily expert-lovers.

I find
the moral argument annoying for another reason, however.  It
implies that degrees, certificates, licenses, association memberships,
papers, books, presentations, awards, and all other possible evidence
of expertise—the whole gamut of "credentials"—just
don't matter.  They don't constitute good evidence
of anything.  But if they don't count
as good evidence of expertise, why should the ability to do something
on behalf of a mere Internet project count as good evidence?  There
is a bizarre reversal in the insular world of Wikipedia: mere quantity
of work is a credential there, but not for academic tenure and advancement
committees; meanwhile, degrees and peer-reviewed papers are credentials
for tenure and advancement committees, but not for Wikipedia and its
ilk.  (Wikipedians will protest that quantity of work doesn't
really matter.  But, of course, it very much does.)

Wikipedia pooh-poohs the need
for expert guidance; but how, then, does it propose to establish its
own reliability?  It can do so either by reference to something
external to itself or else something internal, such as a poll of its
own contributors.  If it chooses something external to itself—such
as the oft-cited Nature report—then it is conceding
the authority of experts.

It is one thing to
argue for "the wisdom of crowds" by reference to an objective
benchmark.  It is quite another thing to maintain that crowds
are wise simply because they are crowds.  That is a philosophical
view, a variety of relativism, according to which the only truth there
is, the only facts there are, are literally "socially constructed" by
crowds like the contributors to Wikipedia.

Wikipedians attempt to take my dilemma by the horns, supporting the
credibility of Wikipedia's content through a combination of both
external and internal means. They insist that footnotes suffice
to support an article.  If a fact has been supported by a footnote,
then, apparently, it is credible.  This, we might say, is an external
means of fact-checking; but it is up to rank-and-file Wikipedians,
not any fancy experts, to add and edit the footnotes, and so it's
also an internal means of fact-checking

It seems that we all know that
footnotes makes articles much more credible—but why?  Whatever
the reason, Wikipedians wouldn't want to say that it's
because the people cited are credible authorities on their subjects.

The dilemma
Wikipedia finds itself in, then, is that if it wants to establish
its credibility by reference to expert opinion, then it has no reason
not to invite experts to join in some advisory capacity.  But
this is completely intolerable for Wikipedians.

epistemic (knowledge) egalitarianism

this is a doctrine about rights or authority,
not about ability

the power to declare society's
background knowledge is awesome, and that many consequential decisions,
including political decisions, are deeply influenced by that background
knowledge

the main philosophical reason for epistemic egalitarianism is, like
the reason for egalitarianism generally, the now-common and overarching
desire for fairness.  The desire for fairness creates
hostility toward any authority—and not just when authority uses
its power to gain an unfair advantage, but toward authority as
such.  That is, the most radical egalitarians advocate that
our situations be made as equal as possible, including in terms of
authority.  But, in our specialist-friendly modern society, expertise
can confer much authority not available to non-experts.  Perhaps
the most important and fundamental authority experts have is the authority
to declare what is known.  This authority, then, should be placed
in the hands of everyone equally, according to a thoroughgoing egalitarianism

I support
meritocracy: I think experts deserve a prominent voice in declaring
what is known, because knowledge is their life.

Ultimately,
at the bottom of the debate, the deep modern commitment to specialization
is in an epic struggle with an equally deep modern commitment to egalitarianism.  It's
Truth versus Equality, and as much as I love Equality, if it comes
down to choosing, I'm on the side of Truth.