How the "experts" became our unelected rulers

The late French sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) is not exactly a household name. Yet this iconoclastic academic and veteran of the French Resistance predicted the current "cult of the expert" and its use as a means of directing public policy and silencing dissent.

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At the outset, the expert's role is merely to advise political leaders on how best to accomplish politicians' stated policy goals. The experts' role soon progresses to determining the "one best means" of accomplishing those goals. Finally, the expert technician decides on not merely the means of pursuing the "one best means," but also the policy goal toward which "the one best means" is directed. Once these experts have spoken, "the debate is over" (as our silver-tongued president is wont to say).

As the power of the technician waxes, that of the politician wanes, until he is little more than a rubber stamp.

Thereafter, differences of opinion are effectively banned. From the perspective of political technique and its practitioners, such dissent is nothing more than slander, lies, and deliberate distortion. The expression of differing opinions is dangerous, and it is thus no more justifiable than yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theater. Just as the Second Amendment is not a license to bring an AR-15 on a tour of the White House, neither does the First Amendment allow one to tell deliberate untruths about something that the experts "know" to be true.

This bizarre new form of anti-intellectualism is most clearly seen today in the global warming/climate change arena. The thesis of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) demands obedience. The "consensus" of "experts" has coalesced around the ludicrous idea that the simple act of breathing, and thereby expelling CO2, can destroy the planet. Case closed.

Thus, there is no point in allowing further questions or debate. The experts have spoken.