I have never been one to decry the value of education, and I have always been impressed with people that can demonstrate authentic knowledge. Indeed, there are many people who, by their demonstration of their knowledge of a subject, can justifiably be called an expert.
These experts gain their status because they can easily be fact checked and proven to be correct in what they say. However, there are new ‘experts’ arising who believe they gain their status by the reverse. These people cannot be challenged, or fact checked, because their pontifications are based on their own opinions, rather than fact and they simply add the title expert to their opinions.
These people believe that by putting the word expert in front of what they propose they automatically gain status. A typical ‘expert’ is the travel expert. This is usually a young person in their twenties who has backpacked around and has decided to make money from news outlets by writing about the ‘places you must visit’ or the ‘places you must avoid’.
The articles are written as if everyone chooses holidays based on the thoughts of a young backpacker masquerading as a travel expert, simply because they have got farther than the nearest package holiday.
Another one of these roles is the nutritional expert who knows exactly what you should eat, except that it invariably clashes with the views of another food expert who, in turn, clashes with another one. A perfect example is the way almond milk was touted by one ‘expert’ only for another to tell us that it contains additives that can cause colon cancer.
To the food ‘expert’ can be added beauty ‘experts’, fashion ‘experts’ and exercise ‘experts. Then there are those that tell you how you should decorate your house and what to do with your garden.
But this week I discovered the most bizarre and slightly pretentious ‘expert’, the parenting ‘expert’. While I may have travelled the rocky road of parenthood, there is no way I could call my experience that of an expert. Indeed, talking to many others, the recipe for parenting doesn’t exist. All children are different, and one parent’s experience does not translate to another. If this person has found the holy grail of parenting they are either at least on a par with the invention of the wheel, or they are delusionary.
I have come to realise that this mushrooming of so-called experts is the next rung up the status ladder above influencer. Now, instead of getting a real job, people are increasingly deciding to make a career of telling others what to do and expert has a kudos that appeals to a greater age range than the young social media addicts that follow influencers.
However, we should not be too hard on these people for, as with all products, they only succeed if people buy them or buy in to them. It seems that we are creating a society where people want to be told what to do. This may be laziness or the desire to have someone to blame when it all goes wrong.
If that is the case, then people today need to at least search out the real experts who can demonstrate real factual knowledge of their subject that can be checked. Stop letting a young person with a mobile phone and with no knowledge of your wants or interests persuade you where to go on holiday, what to wear, what to eat, what exercises to do or how your home should look.
Here is a final thought. Why don’t you search for the knowledge yourself next time. and Remember that someone once said that an ex was a has been and a spert (spurt) was a drip under pressure.
