I had long suspected that this was true, but not until I stumbled across “The 1995 Yearbook of Experts, Authorities & Spokes-persons” did I realize how true. The Yearbook amasses more than 900 pages of experts on everything from “Addictions/Boredom” (The Boring institute) to “Bird Baths” (The National Bird Feeding Society) to “Health Fraud/Quackery” (The American Preventive Medical Association) to “Legal Issues/Hypnosis” (The American Council of Hypnotist Examiners) to “Relationships/Couples” (The Institute for Creative Solutions).
And the Yearbook, of course, just scratches the surface. James A. Smith, author of “The Idea Brokers: Think Tanks and the Rise of the New Policy Elite,” estimates that there are now about 1,200 public-policy institutes. Many of them, plus a lot of universities and trade associations, publish their own guidebooks. Johns Hopkins University has a 301-page catalog of its experts, the Heritage Foundation’s encyclopedia runs to 412 pages and the American Council on Education has a pamphlet of 36 pages. As in most things, America leads the world in experts.
Just why this is so is a worthy subject of speculation. On one hand, the supply of potential experts has risen steadily. Americans have record numbers of degrees. In 1940, all colleges and universities awarded only 217,000 degrees, and most of those (187,000) were bachelors’ degrees; there were only 27,000 masters and 3,000 doctorates. By 1991, the total had passed 2 million, with 337,000 masters and 39,000 doctorates, including 430 Ph.D.s in “public affairs.” Never before have so many Americans had a higher opinion of their own opinion than today.
Meanwhile, the demand for experts has exploded. We can mainly thank technology for this. Time was, for instance, when a lawyer might look forward only to a life of litigation or contract writing. No more. As the O.J. Simpson trial shows, a lawyer with a pretty face and a quick tongue can now anticipate becoming the legal equivalent of the late Howard Cosell. Ultimately, TV may peer into celebrated divorce cases or courtroom combat between corporations, so that these larger opportunities for lawyers will extend beyond ex-prosecutors or defense attorneys.
The O.J. trial symbolizes how technology has elevated our appetite for expertise. No one knows the exact number of talk-radio shows, but Carol Nashe, executive vice president of the National Association of Radio Talk Show Hosts (listed on page 529 of the Yearbook), says there might be 5,000, national andlocal. Most need “guests,” a.k.a. “experts.” Ditto for TV-network news programs, talk shows and news magazines. Someone has to fill the air time on “Nightline.” Cable TV, from the heights of “Larry King Live” on down, has further stimulated demand. Now, the Internet is doing the same.
And here’s the real secret of America’s success in cultivating experts: we trust the free market. Almost anyone can become an expert because no one says what an expert is or must know. If you can convince people of your bona fides–whatever they are–you triumph. Sure, credentials may help. Having a Ph.D. in astronomy might increase your odds of being called by “Night-line” if a new planet is discovered. But who knows? Maybe all you need is a backyard telescope. Anyway, you’re free to bluff and bluster as far as you can.
The first step is to get listed in “The Yearbook of Experts Etc.” There’s a price, but it’s modest. To be precise, it’s $375. That buys a “reference listing” which is about a sixth of a page. If you want a bigger plug, a full page costs between $1,150 and $1,250. The whole process has been commercialized: you insert yourself in the book, which is sent free to a list of 14,000, including 1,400 daily newspapers, 1,200 news-radio stations, TV stations and magazines. Mitchell Davis, the Yearbook’s editor and owner, likens it to “four mail-bags of press releases.”
He has, in effect, legitimized the do-it-yourself expert. Browsing through the Yearbook, you’ll find the usual suspects, from Albert Shanker (head of the American Federation of Teachers) to the Edison Electric Institute (the trade group for utilities). But you’ll also find Richard Carleton Hacker (“The Cigar Czar . . . the world’s most entertaining author/ spokesman on cigar smoking”), the National Anxiety Center (run by Alan Caruba, who monitors “media-driven ‘scare campaigns’”) and Gary Martin (“forensic expert in boating and maritime accidents”).
The expert explosion has led to some grousing that the process has gone berserk: that old authorities–calm, well informed, reasoned–are being displaced by loudmouths, self-promoters and con artists. In an essay, Louis Menand, who teaches English at the City University of New York, complained that there has been a debasing of genuine expertise, because it is “almost automatically equated with elitism, and ’elite’ has become the new scare word in American life.” This is partly true, and our random process for anointing authorities has surely showered us with a lot of inept analysis, lousy advice and pseudoscience.
But the larger truth is that new technology has disrupted the traditional enclaves of expertise, upsetting those who find its demands too time-consuming or demeaning. What matters now is not only what you know but who hears you, and so those who resist the constant calls for public blather find their status altered and often diminished. Alan Dershowitz may not be America’s greatest legal authority, but he is among the best-known because he is always camera-ready. In our status-conscious society, standing out from the crowd is an unrelenting ambition. Aspiring to expertdom is merely its latest expression.
