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The nineteenth-century British prime minister and novelist Benjamin Disraeli conceived of an even cleverer ploy when he wrote, “If you wish to win a man’s heart, allow him to confute you.” You do this by beginning to disagree with a target about a subject, even with some vehemence, and then slowly come to seeing their point of view, thereby confirming not only their intelligence but also their own powers of influence. They feel ever so slightly superior to you, which is precisely what you want. They will now be doubly vulnerable to a countermove of your own. You can create a similar effect by asking people for advice. The implication is that you respect their wisdom and experience.
The Laws of Human Nature
Robert Greene
think, however, the Internet is not the primary cause of challenges to their expertise. Rather, the Internet has accelerated the collapse of communication between experts and laypeople by offering an apparent shortcut to erudition. It allows people to mimic intellectual accomplishment by indulging in an illusion of expertise provided by a limitless supply of facts.
The Death of Expertise
Tom Nichols
Experts can tell the voters what is likely to happen, but voters must engage those issues and decide what they value most, and therefore what they want done. Letting Boston slide into the harbor is not my preferred outcome, but it is not a failure of expertise if people ignore the experts and let it happen anyway: it is instead a failure of civic engagement. If Boston is to become Venice, it should be by choice, not by accident. When voters remain utterly unwilling to understand important issues because they are too difficult or discomfiting, it is unsurprising that experts will give up talking to them and instead rely on their positions in the policy world to advocate for their own solutions.
The Death of Expertise
Tom Nichols
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