Credibility: The Difference Between a Person with an Opinion and an Expert

In yet another unpleasant reminder of the pandemic, when ‘experts’ on epidemics were popping up from every Facebook status, the public space is now flooded with the same phenomenon, only when it comes to geopolitics, international relations, history, warfare…

I truly do not believe that education defines a person. People develop various affinities, interests, and skills over time, which directs them into jobs that do not necessarily have to be related to their formal education or lack thereof. However, there is, or at least there should be, a difference between people with opinions, to which they have an inalienable right under the vast and blue democratic sky, and experts, individuals with relevant education, information, and a thorough overview of a particular topic, thanks to which they can present, crucially, a somewhat objective opinion on a given issue.

The Epidemic of Weekend Experts

Unfortunately, the credibility of experts has been practically destroyed during the pandemic, largely because those defined as experts were unconvincing and confidently threw out a pile of, as it later turned out, incorrect opinions and predictions, often inciting, rather than calming, hysteria and offering popular, not necessarily objective opinions.

This has, perhaps, encouraged many to start pouring out opinions on topics about which they do not have sufficient knowledge and information. Thus, now physicists, economists, lawyers, engineers of all profiles, computer scientists, mathematicians, writers, general-purpose journalists, etc., speak about geopolitics, international relations and order, history, military issues, etc.

In fact, the only ones missing are epidemiologists. I say, everyone has the right to an opinion, but that does not mean that his/her opinion is automatically relevant and should be reproduced in media perceived as serious. Preventing the expression of personal views in the public space cannot and should not be prevented, but giving space to amateurs in traditional media is not harmless at all. Some kind of filter must exist. The public should be presented with people who have serious backing on a topic, not just anyone with an opinion.

In this sense, it is desirable to have different opinions on a topic. This brings us to the next problem: the lack of real pluralism in mainstream media in the West, which is partly the reason for the widespread use of weekend experts instead of real experts.

Recently, an unpleasant totalitarian odor has been spreading across the West, for a supposedly free society. For some time now, there has been a well-known ‘official party line’ and anyone who deviates from it is labeled a fool and a propagandist, and in worse cases, is subjected to lynching, harassment, threats, social isolation, and career obstacles. Ironically, considering the real reason for the widespread use of Facebook commentators instead of serious experts.

Unwelcome Questions

Real experts, in fact, have an unpleasant tendency to ask unwelcome questions, point out inconsistencies, and be guided by common sense, the greatest enemy of Goebbels-style mass hysteria, to which Western society has been exposed for the fifth consecutive year. The spread of fear has proven to be so intoxicatingly effective and impactful since that fateful 2020 that it would be a shame to let it fade into oblivion. It suits the media because they ‘pump clicks’, and it suits political elites because it diverts attention from some long uncomfortable topics and facilitates ‘mass control’. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has therefore served as a great foundation for the continued spread of paranoia. In such a nightmarish state, just as the German father of modern propaganda envisioned, the expert becomes a propagandist, and the propagandist becomes an expert.