If I’m an Expert, Something is Wrong
I sat uncomfortably on a small stool in front of a green screen that would end up depicting a still image of central Seoul. A small microphone poking out of my shirt enabled me to speak to a news anchor in Beijing about the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, specifically about the inter-Korean geopolitics at play. As I talked about the implications of a joint North-South women’s hockey team or the 1988 Seoul Olympics or being cautiously optimistic or something, a banner appeared on the screen with the words “political analyst” written across it. Fair enough: even if the nomenclature was a bit hoity-toity for what I actually am, I was, in fact, analyzing a political situation. As I continued to speak, the screen jumped to a picture of athletes from North and South Korea holding hands as they walked together for the opening ceremonies. When the screen came back to me, the title beneath my name had changed. I was officially, for those few fleeting minutes, an “expert.”
That’s when I knew there was a crisis of expertise.
The issue isn’t my personal mislabeling; it’s the general state of understanding when it comes to North Korea. People still tend to see it as one monolithic thing, which is easy and convenient and saves us from the annoying nips of nuance. Why research serious scholarship when a confident blowhard on TV can sum up Everything You Need to…
