Peter Turchin has some interesting theories of cycles of empires in history. I’ve puzzled over his suggestion that “elite overproduction” is consistently part of the fall of empires, and that we are seeing it today. This concept doesn’t make much sense to me if “eliteness” is just one’s status rank, as that distribution can never change.
Ironically, most of the evidence you present that elites are displacing experts is not quantifiable. You're speaking as an elite here. You don't numerically support the claim that engineering used to get more attention relative to design than it currently does, the claim that "talking" jobs have become more prevalent compared to "doing" jobs, the claim that the world is paying more attention to public intellectuals than it used to, or the claim that more people are being "cancelled" now than in the past.
I'd doubt the claim about cancelling in particular. People have always censured those who fail to conform sufficiently to group norms, often based on subtle contextual clues. "Cancel culture" is just the latest right wing buzzword for when the left does this, but the right is doing it just as much (think of Liz Cheney), and it's not a new state of affairs. You already mentioned and dismissed the red scare and persecution of gays as involving more objective criteria, but there were plenty of subtler social norms you had to follow in the 50s to avoid being labeled as such. Everything from haircut to the way you dress or talk or who you affiliate with.
But I agree with your main point that there has been a shift from expert to elite culture, because I read an article a while back that showed the use of subjective words like "feel" has increased relative to objective words like "know," since the 1970s. This article.
Your terminology makes no sense to me. There are no real "experts" and no deserving "elites", just the credentialed classes (the aristocracy of the modern world) who claim both those labels for themselves and invented them for that purpose.
Thanks for mentioning the rationality to sentiment word trend; I mentioned it in an added to the post.
Yes, it was a typo; fixed.
Ironically, most of the evidence you present that elites are displacing experts is not quantifiable. You're speaking as an elite here. You don't numerically support the claim that engineering used to get more attention relative to design than it currently does, the claim that "talking" jobs have become more prevalent compared to "doing" jobs, the claim that the world is paying more attention to public intellectuals than it used to, or the claim that more people are being "cancelled" now than in the past.
I'd doubt the claim about cancelling in particular. People have always censured those who fail to conform sufficiently to group norms, often based on subtle contextual clues. "Cancel culture" is just the latest right wing buzzword for when the left does this, but the right is doing it just as much (think of Liz Cheney), and it's not a new state of affairs. You already mentioned and dismissed the red scare and persecution of gays as involving more objective criteria, but there were plenty of subtler social norms you had to follow in the 50s to avoid being labeled as such. Everything from haircut to the way you dress or talk or who you affiliate with.
But I agree with your main point that there has been a shift from expert to elite culture, because I read an article a while back that showed the use of subjective words like "feel" has increased relative to objective words like "know," since the 1970s. This article.
Expert talk tends to be more artistic, stylish, and aspirational, and less precise, detailed, or logical
Perhaps a typo.
Your terminology makes no sense to me. There are no real "experts" and no deserving "elites", just the credentialed classes (the aristocracy of the modern world) who claim both those labels for themselves and invented them for that purpose.