How the Death of Expertise Has Poisoned Conversation on Social Media
Every time we log onto a social media platform, we are entering an online forum of continuous conversations between friends, relatives, and even strangers from thousands of miles away.
Although the threads begin with a single purpose — humor (memes), entertainment (videos), or general inquiries and commentary — they often get warped into entirely new conversations. The more people who join the conversation, the more off topic it becomes, and many times the string of comments turn into unwarranted insults ignited by a debate that is irrelevant to the initial post. In “The Death of Expertise,” Tom Nichols touches on the concept of online forums and how these types of interactions are caused by “a Google-fueled, Wikipedia-based, blog-sodden collapse of any division between…those of any achievement…and those with none at all.”
Similarly, Kenneth Burke’s excerpt from The Philosophy of Literary Form is a metaphor for our social media interactions. While the excerpt sets the stage as a parlor where many people are conversing and the reader has arrived late to the scene, it actually correlates to real-life discussions on the internet. Rather than physically entering a parlor, however, the reader is entering a virtual space. As Burke describes conversation in his parlor, the virtual room also has other people who are “engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about.”
The example below, which was taken from a public Facebook post shared by a former colleague in May 2017, illustrates how such a heated discussion is initiated and contributes to the death of expertise, as well as how it is carried on almost infinitely even after the original participants have exited the virtual parlor. The video titled “Stop giving evil characters brown skin.” was shared from a post originally by Mic, a news/media site.
Participant A: *shares video explaining why creators need to stop giving evil characters brown skin*
Participant B: Or we could just not get offended by everything and realize black is the color of evil, so of course more bad guys are darker. Doesn’t mean anything. Why do you think it’s called the Dark Side? It has nothing to do with “racist stereotypes”. *inserts link to Wikipedia article on black-and-white dualism*
A: Brown skin has a different connotation in a racially diverse society than just the color black. Just because you walk into every premise assuming people are just being easily offended, doesn’t mean there isn’t a point. Your lack of understanding isn’t synonymous with something being nonsensical.
Participant C: I mean they literally turn brown when they turn evil. Things like this have effects on your perception of the world.
B: No they don’t. *inserts link to article titled “Violent video games like Grand Theft Auto do not make players more violent”*
C: That is a study on something completely irrelevant to the subject. There are plenty of relevant studies you could read on how media affects the perception of race.
B: *reinserts Wikipedia article and begins to use “facts” from article as evidence for argument*
When we see a long thread of comments on a Facebook post that evokes a strong emotional response, our first instinct is to immediately add our two cents, such as Participants B and C. But before doing so, we often skim through the more recent replies to test the water instead of jumping in headfirst. Once we “decide that [we] have caught the tenor of the argument” (Burke), we follow suit with our own response, as demonstrated by Participant D.
Participant D: Tradition doesn’t mean it’s correct or healthy.
Just like that, we are relevant. And just like that, our opinion matters. At least that is what we like to think, with our “illogical insistence that every opinion should have equal weight” (Nichols). This trend is what truly lights the fire, as more participants join in the discussion simply to feel that their opinion is valuable to the conversation as they take turns defending either side. It becomes a rally where “someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance” (Burke).
Fortunately, those with the ability to acknowledge the existence of experts — and the intellectual capacity to understand why they themselves are not considered an expert — do not fall victim to this. Then there are those who are woefully confident in their abilities, who fall somewhere on the spectrum of not-so-intelligent but think far too highly of themselves. These people are the ones who, like Participant B, have degrees from Google University and use Wikipedia as their reputable source of information.
In his follow up article, “How America Lost Faith in Expertise” published in Foreign Affairs in 2017, Nichols circles back to online discussion and the idea that “the Internet tends to generate communities of the like-minded, groups dedicated to confirming their own preexisting beliefs rather than challenging them.” This ties into the example conversation, as Participants A and B are both so deeply rooted in their stances, they do not allow the other to truly challenge their beliefs. As Participant A attempts to challenge Participant B, Participant A is shut down by insults and yet another website.
A: You mentioned that in Western culture white is perceived as pure. You do realize that also applies to race, right? Same with black meaning dirty or evil. And that is attributed to black people in Western and also many Asian cultures. So the concept of black meaning evil actually perpetuates us perceiving black PEOPLE as naturally more evil. If you’re going to use logic one way, it’s gonna go all ways.
B: Okay Snowflake, colors can have meanings without you making it a race issue. *inserts link to article about color symbolism* It’s an academic website so you libs should totally get it.
Using the knowledge granted to them by various unreliable online articles, they directly contribute to the death of true expertise. Suddenly “everyone is an expert on everything” (Nichols), and the opinions of these self-proclaimed experts is thrown into the argument stew, stirring the pot more.
While using social media as an online public forum for intelligent conversation is not necessarily a bad thing, it becomes an issue when those conversations are bogged down by links to sketchy but seemingly accurate articles that do not hold any scholarly value and lack proper citations to their own sources. Reputable sources can be difficult to come by in a space where “anyone can post anything they want” (Nichols), from private blogs that look professional to media outlets that skew the news to fit their personal bias.
What is possibly worse than the fact that the ignorant continue “arguing as those they are research scientists” (Nichols) based on poorly researched articles they found online, is that they usually are not even arguing on topic. The conversation becomes so convoluted and distorted from the original post’s main point because it “had already begun long before any of them got there” (Burke) and nobody present even knows where it began.
Participant E: It must be a real mindf*ck that Darth Vader was on the dark side, played by a white guy, voiced by a black guy. You can find bad guys of every skin color because it’s irrelevant. It’s all about the story they want to tell. That’s it.
Participant F: Pretty sure black isn’t the color of evil considering black isn’t even technically a color. You perceiving the color of black as evil may be based in your natural fear of darkness or maybe you have watched too many movies.
B: *inserts color symbolism article again*
F: Giving evil a color is rather asinine. Evil has no color. Color provokes you psychologically in a certain way — sorry you seem to think they dictate all meaning.
B: There are plenty of different things black represents. Read the article.
F: It’s weird how people just wait to reply and don’t read a thing. It’s like you don’t realize I’m not saying you’re wrong.
By the time most people decide to join the thread, most other commentators are “already huffy and offended [despite never] encountering the substance of the issue at hand” (Nichols). The conversation continues to move forward because each has their own point to add, sure that they will be the omega that finally ceases further debate.
Participant G: Ok let me end this argument for you both. The color of the characters in the video games and cartoons has nothing to do with the creators trying to be racist. What the video is saying though is the color scheme of the skin color may have unintended negative impact and asks that in the future we try to be conscious of this and show evil and good without the skin tone.
A: It seems like B is still missing the point. But I think G hit the nail on the head.
And to their disappointment, yet another person drops their line, picking up where the last one left off.
Participant H: I love how all the arguments are from (probably straight) white males who are offended by this post. Please, mansplain more about racial inequality.
A: I’ve gotten like 5 messages so far asking me what weird place I met B because no one can believe someone so unstable can be so real. Fluoride in the water! Chemtrails! Snowflake insults! People are laughing their asses off.
Participant I: What? Fluoride and chemtrails? Did I miss something?
B: I never said anything about chemtrails. She’s just being rude.
I: So the dude that was claiming that science supported him is a fluoride conspiracy theorist?
B: Science supports stopping fluoridation.
E: As a scientist, I disagree on fluoridation. The evidence on what it has done for American dental health is very convincing. I don’t support universal healthcare and think fluoridation falls in that category overall, but if we’re gonna spend the money, at least fluoridation is proven.
I: Let me guess. Science doesn’t support climate change either?
E: Science supports climate change. Where the science gets iffy is whether or not it’s anthropological climate change.
A: It doesn’t get iffy. Carbon dioxide and its effects are well known in our atmosphere. We also know that climate change to the degree that we have seen it over a short amount of years is unprecedented and unsustainable. The science is not iffy.
This continual passing of the torch creates an endless cycle of debate until nearly everyone inevitably grows tired of trying to prove their point to others who will never agree with them, and the conversation ceases without a true conclusion.
A: Y’all need to take a long look in the mirror. You’d be surprised that your fear of change and your anger at everyone else for sparking conversation about it is just a way for you to rationalize what you think is normal and natural and nothing else.
The “winner” of the argument is then regrettably crowned based not on who had the most logical points or factual proof, but to the person who had the stamina (and stupidity) to argue the longest and hardest with internet strangers, despite whether or not their opinion was based on facts or simply based on their arrogance stemming from the “insecurity that their own opinion might not be worth all that much” (Nichols).
Although, not all social media discussions allow their torches to be doused so abruptly. When a post goes viral, it continues to circulate for weeks, months, and sometimes even years. In these instances, “the discussion is interminable” (Burke), and the torch continues to be passed on from one stranger to the next, in an online relay that never ends. And no matter at what point you choose to enter the conversation, you can be sure that it will be “still vigorously in progress” (Burke) well after you have decided to leave.
Burke’s metaphor about conversation can be seen clearly in just about any social media post that sparks a debate, such as the conversation we read above. A post as simple as a video without a caption can become complicated and distorted simply by adding to the infinitive conversation. Within these conversations, we watch the drama unfold between experts and non-experts. And, as Nichols’s argument is brought to life, we are able to experience for ourselves how the death of expertise has poisoned conversation on social media.
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Sources:
Burke, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies in Symbolic Action. University of California Press, 2000, pp. 110–111.
Nichols, Tom. “The Death of Expertise.” The Federalist, Culture, 31 Jan. 2014, www.thefederalist.com/2014/01/17/the-death-of-expertise.
— -. “How America Lost Faith in Expertise.” Foreign Affairs, 22 Feb. 2017, www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2017-02-13/how-america-lost-faith-expertise.
Participant A. “Stop giving evil characters brown skin”. Facebook, 28 May 2017, www.facebook.com/xxx/posts/10154681911453100. Accessed 6 July 2017.
