Against the "Wisdom" of Crowds
The idolatry of groupthink
The ability to argue in good faith; to suspend one's own interests and examine one's assumptions is a learned skill, acquired through education, discipline and diligent practice. To expect it of the average person is unreasonably optimistic.
The assumption is often made that the “wisdom of crowds” has an almost miraculous power to solve any given problem. Get enough consensus seeking, run-of-the mill humans together in one place, let them ruminate, and they will solve the problem, applying the magical talent of “common sense.”
This idiotic idolatry of groupthink is questionable on its face. Do you want the “wisdom of crowds” doing your surgery? Flying your airplane? Designing your nuclear power plant? Building your house? Sure, if you get enough people together, some of them will probably be experts in the relevant field, but once you've identified them, the “wisdom” of the crowd will merely get in their way.
It remains true that a thousand idiots are no smarter than one idiot. But they are far, far more dangerous.
In most cases, half-informed opinions are far worse than no opinions at all. The person who thinks they know how to fly a plane, or perform heart surgery who doesn't is far more dangerous than the person who knows they lack the relevant skills, and either works to acquire them, or simply shuts up and stays out of the way.
Many people are aware of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, in fact you are probably congratulating yourself right now for having thought of it while reading the last paragraph. On the odd chance that you have not been exposed to one of the most painfully obvious observations to dominate the conversations of self-satisfied Internet intellectuals, The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a psychological phenomenon in which people who are less skilled at a task overestimate their ability, largely because they're not good enough at the task to know they're bad at it.
The boffins tend to sniff at the expansion of this documented effect by the proles and groundlings to make statements about the overconfidence people of average general intelligence, claiming that the effect describes only performance on specific tasks. I am such a prole, and will shamelessly take this observation and run with it. Why? Because, Doctor Pecksniff, life is little more than a series of tasks at which people are not as good as they think they are.
In my opinion, supported only by my own observation, a very large percentage of people think they are better than average drivers, lovers, voters, art and food critics and parents. Mathematics suggests that they are generally in the middle of the talent bell curve, and it is reasonable to posit that the harder they insist on their exceptional talent and “common sense,” the further left they tend to fall in the distribution.
The popularity of a product, be it commercial, artistic or intellectual, is generally a measure of its mediocrity, not its quality. Truly innovative or exceptional work tends to fall outside the comprehension of the masses, or they find it disturbing, since they live in a very limited reality tunnel that tapers down to zero while it is still in sight, and they won't thank you for knocking a hole in it, even if that hole lets in a lot of light.
You can get a very long way, especially in American politics and advertising by flattering the average person to think they are wiser and more perceptive than the experts because they are possessed of the wizardry of “common sense,” an incantation by which complex and difficult questions are answered by dipping into the bottomless cesspool of folksy cliches and by reliance on the set of prejudices and assumptions that they acquired by their seventh birthday. If you manage to convince them that your proposition is what most of their peers believe “in their hearts,” and that they are a good person simply for believing it, they will adopt and defend the meme that you have infected them with to extremes that will startle you. The truth of the proposition is absolutely irrelevant. In fact, denying or dismissing evidence that contradicts their beloved error is a measure of fidelity. They will congratulate each other on their valorous pig-headedness, and their willingness to bully anyone who contradicts them.
By the way, if you think this is a phenomenon strictly limited to the right wing, you need to polish your lens. All sorts of true believers are packed full and overflowing with this sort of Pharisaical self-righteousness. The politics isn't the defining feature of this sort of willful stupidity, it's the absolute determination to believe without evidence, even in defiance of the evidence.
The ultimate expression of the unfettered “wisdom of crowds” is a lynch mob. Jesus, Socrates, and so many others of exceptional merit were democratized to death, and will be in the future. This is why the warnings of Plato, Aristotle &al are so filled with distrust for “common sense,” and unexamined assumptions that become cherished beliefs.
One earns the right to an opinion that deserves to be taken seriously. The assumption that anything that stumbles out of the brain of anyone who cares to offer on a subject deserves the effort of consideration is fatal to conversation and civil society as a whole, which cannot exist without principled, informed discussion of serious topics. The right to be taken seriously is earned, not demanded, and it is earned by carefully gathering information, thinking deeply about the question, and being willing to consider the careful arguments of others. As I said at the beginning of this essay, this is not an inherent skill. It must be learned and practiced, and the vast majority of people do neither.
If you are thinking that the implications of this phenomenon for the peace, advancement and security of our civil society are dire, congratulations. You have reached a reasonable conclusion. Make a habit of it. A bit of democracy is healthy for a society. A great deal of it has historically proven to be absolutely lethal.