Expertise

Abstract

Abstract AFTER HAVING BEEN AN ACADEMIC for more years than I care to recount, I suppose I have come to have a love-hate relationship with the professoriat. A few things have emerged in recent months that have shaken me up. It began in the Persian Gulf crisis, leading up to and culminating with Operation Desert Storm. During most of this period, there was little hard news and a great desire for more information on the part of many Americans. The radio and television networks responded with around-the-clock coverage (except on Saturday morning, when the usual inane cartoons took precedence). In the absence of facts to report and with long hours to fill, the tendency is to turn to expert opinion, and that is what the media did. But who were the experts? There was really a shortage of genuine specialists, and those with sufficient facts were often involved in classified projects. But even in that case, expertise is a fuzzy concept when factual information is in such short supply and good theory virtually nonexistent. The media turned to the universities, and I sensed that some stations were willing to accept as a Middle East expert a social science professor who had smoked a Camel cigarette, sung “The Sheik of Araby,” or seen Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in The Road to Morocco. Similarly, a military expert was often an academic who had risen above the rank of sergeant or gone deer hunting with an automatic rifle. Fifteen minutes of fame was being proffered, and few could answer with the truth: “I really have nothing of value to say at this time.”