Competence and Knowledge

Tim Burke's argument that respect for competence is found only among educated elites is just bizarre, and I'm going to pretend he didn't write it until I find out otherwise. A much stronger case could be made for the fact that many people voted for Bush because they felt that even if he weren't the best at implementing his agenda, it was still better than electing someone whose goals you strongly disagreed with. More importantly, however, I think he overlooks the extent to which, say, blue-collar voters are removed from a sophisticated understanding of non-pocketbook issues. For people who don't spend their days wading in source material armed with experience of a region or at the very least training in assessing the data at hand, the core of these issues very much becomes one of trust. When I talk to my parents about Iraq, for example, I frequently hear the line, "You don't know who to believe." Substantive arguments over how well things are going and what policies are likely to improve them come across as mainly verbal contests in which everyone branded as an authority - political, intellectual, or otherwise - holds roughly equal weight. As a result, character and presentation tend to tip the scales.