I’m a firm believer that “history is a great teacher but most of us are unwilling students.” We live in a day and age where we practice intellectual snobbery, we think because we possess an IPhone and send messages around the globe in seconds, we’re got it all dialed in. It’s this faith in the salvation of technology that’s gotten us into this mess, as we’ve ascribed “God like” status to the “expert class” and believe you me, “God like” is what they consider themselves to be. Whether these experts are in the government, medical, technological and or scientific class, they feel it’s their duty, no their RIGHT to dictate to those whom they rule over (the rest of us) how we should and need to live.

A young Winston Churchill warned of our present predicament back in 1901 (120 years ago) in a letter to H.G. Wells. In that letter Churchill wrote:

“Nothing would be more fatal than for the government of states to get into the hands of the experts. Expert knowledge is limited knowledge: and the unlimited ignorance of the plain man who knows only what hurts is a safer guide, than any vigorous direction of a specialised character. Why should you assume that all except doctors, engineers, etc. are drones or worse? . . . If the Ruler is to be an expert in anything he should be an expert in everything; and that is plainly impossible.

Churchill goes on to argue that practical judgment is the capacity necessary to making decisions. And practical judgment, he writes in many places, is something that everyone is capable of to varying degrees. Everyone, then, is equipped to guide his own life in the things that concern mainly himself.

The thing to keep foremost in your mind about experts is that they are not really engaged in the search for truth, it’s deification they desire. Even amongst themselves, it’s the most powerful among them that suppress the others and the fact that there is wide disagreement among the experts. There always is as there is only room for one God.