We live in a society, Stephen Turner observes in Liberalism 3.0, that is dominated by experts. This, he argues, undermines the idea of liberalism defined as government by discussion because the ordinary citizen cannot understand the expert, let alone presume to debate with him.
While I understand the dangers to political communication raised by Turner, I do not share the same level of concern with the viability of liberalism. The rise of the knowledge society has allowed experts to increase their standing, but the accompanying technological change - the information technology revolution - has also meant that it is that much harder to monopolize expertise. Indeed, in the age of Google, Wikipedia, and the home-made bomb assembled through downloaded instructions, it is much harder to delegate authority completely to the presumed sound judgment of the experts. Moreover, it is usually the case that one can find an expert willing to support one's preferred policy option.
In determining policy, it is more important to have informed judgment based on a combination of experience, intuition, strategic perspective, a sense of history, and sufficient but not exhaustive data rather than narrow expertise on a particular subject.
In the age of experts, we can't just leave it to the experts because it begs the question, "Which expert?"
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