Anti-Climacus

KUDOS TO JONAH: he actually goes somewhere with the latest G-File, and actually manages to hit a few really important points.

"Something similar holds true in the realm of ideas. In most spheres of human endeavor we understand that people should start simple and work their way up. If you're learning to shoot, an expert may start you off with a small gun. If you're just learning German, your instructor won't give you a stack of books by Heidegger, he'll give you some flashcards with pictures of shoes and doggies on one side and the translation on the other. If you're studying to be a scientist, they teach you how to use the Bunsen burner before they teach you how to split the atom. If you're learning how to fly, you start with reading a book, not with flying a 747 through a hurricane. You get the point: There are stages and degrees of knowledge and expertise that form the basis for further understanding and skill.

The world of ideas, alas, works on slightly different rules today. After an unprecedented campaign of psychological warfare and propaganda, America and large chunks of the developed world have been told that self-esteem is everything and external authority is at best quaint. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, nobody has the right to be judgmental, inconveniences are translated into the denial of rights, feelings trump intellect, etc."

Now, it seems to me someone has argued at least a couple of the points he makes here: there's a huge difference between the entry-level and the professional-level, and it is concrete, and we can identify it. I would be an idiot if I thought that knowing Bernoulli's Principle (or Law, or whatever) makes me qualified to comment on the engineering of 747s. To try and pretend that distinctions don't exist and that qualifications are unimportant is to subvert the actual purpose of the Enlightenment and scientific progress: we aren't born knowing everything; we have to learn as we go, and it will consequently follow that there are some areas in which our opinions will be less informed than others.