Status, class, and the crisis of expertise

By celebrating "common sense" over expert authority, populism performs a dramatic status inversion. It gifts uneducated voters the power of knowledge and deflates those who look down on them.

I

In one of the most memorable scenes in The Brothers Karamazov, the saintly protagonist Alyosha offers the impoverished and desperate Captain Snegiryov a significant amount of money. Shortly before, Alyosha’s brother had publicly humiliated Snegiryov by dragging him out of a tavern by his beard. The money is presented as compensation for the incident.

At first, Snegiryov looks like he will accept it:

“That for me? So much money—two hundred rubles! Good heavens! Why, I haven’t seen so much money for the last four years! Mercy on us!”

He fantasises about using the money to settle his debts, help his sick wife and children, and start a new life. But after this initial outburst of gratitude and enthusiasm, his demeanour changes:

“I ... you, sir ... wouldn't you like me to show you a little trick I know?” he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his voice no longer faltering.

“What trick?”

The captain lets out a sudden squeal, shows Alyosha the notes, and then crumples them up “savagely”:

“Do you see, do you see?” he shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he threw the crumpled notes on the sand. “Do you see?” he shrieked again, pointing to them. “Look there!”

And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and exclaiming as he did so: “So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your money!”

As with much of Dostoevsky’s writing, the scene captures a familiar but paradoxical aspect of human nature. Why would somebody in desperate need of assistance refuse it? Why would they choose to condemn their family to continued destitution and suffering? And why would they present their rejection of help with such an elaborate performance?

Of course, one reason to refuse assistance is when it comes with costly strings. Just as there is no free lunch, there are no free favours. And even when help is explicitly framed as unconditional, this can be misleading. People resist packaging their generosity as a favour. It seems mercenary and calculating. And yet, few fail to notice when a recipient of their support feels no obligation to reciprocate.

Nevertheless, Snegiryov is not worried that the money would create a costly debt. The money is free. It would liberate him from debts. His reaction emerges from something deeper and more explosive:

“Tell those who sent you that the wisp of tow does not sell his honour,” he cried, raising his arm in the air. Then he turned quickly and began to run; but he had not run five steps before he turned completely round and kissed his hand to Alyosha… In a tearful, faltering, sobbing voice he cried:

“What should I say to my boy if I took money from you for our shame?”

II

As Will Storr argues in The Status Game, humiliation is the “nuclear bomb of the emotions”. When ignited, it can fuel everything from genocide to suicide, mass atrocities to self-immolation. There are few parts of human nature more chaotic, dangerous, or self-destructive. And yet, there is often a rationale underlying these reactions rooted in the strange nature of human sociality.

If humans were solitary animals, we would have evolved to approximate the behaviour of Homo economicus, the idealised rational agent imagined in much of twentieth century economics. We would act in ways that are predictable, sensible, and consistent. The characters depicted in Dostoevsky’s novels would be unintelligible to such a creature, except as victims of mental illness.

But we are not. We are social creatures, and almost everything puzzling and paradoxical about our species is downstream of this fact.

For one thing, we rely on complex networks of cooperation to achieve almost all our goals. Given this, much of human behaviour is rooted not in ordinary material self-interest but in the need to gain access to such networks—to win approval, cultivate a good reputation, and attract partners, friends, and allies. Human decision-making occurs within the confines of this social scrutiny. We evaluate almost every action, habit, and preference not just by its immediate effects but by its reputational impact.

At the same time, much of human competition is driven by the desire for prestige. In well-functioning human societies, individuals advance their interests not by bullying and dominating others but by impressing them. These high-status individuals are admired, respected, and deferred to. They win esteem and all its benefits. Their lives feel meaningful and purposeful.

In contrast, those who fail at the status game—who stack up at the bottom of the prestige hierarchy—experience shame and humiliation. If their position feels unfair, they become resentful and angry. In extreme cases, they might take vengeance on those who look down on them. Or they might take their own life. In some cases, such as mass killings by young men who “lose face” and run “amok” (a Malay word, illustrating the behaviour’s cross-cultural nature), they do both.

III

Unless you grapple with human sociality, very little of our behaviour makes sense. This was a central theme in the work of Thorstein Veblen, whose concept of “conspicuous consumption” captured the fact that people often consume products not for their direct “utility” but to flaunt their status and social class. Someone who wastes time and money on expensive luxury goods and hobbies sends an unambiguous signal: I have the wealth to afford these pointless things. I am an elite. In such cases, even fundamental laws of supply and demand break down. The high price of a luxury product is the point. If it becomes cheaper, people will buy less of it.

Of course, it is hardly a revolutionary insight that people sometimes buy things to show off. However, few appreciate just how much human activity reflects such motives. Most are happy to be cynical about those who buy Rolexes, but what of highly educated professionals who enjoy farmers markets, organic coffee, and literary nonfiction? What of people who seek to become “informed”, “cultured”, or “woke”? What of those who make extraordinary sacrifices to gain access to elite universities and professions? People begin to squirm when the roles of status competition and signalling are unveiled in their own life decisions.

Veblen’s insight was that you cannot study economic activity without situating it in the real economy—the prestige economy—that governs our fundamental desires and emotions. Even the widespread idea that reputation management only kicks in once basic material needs are met is mistaken. There were Polynesian chiefs, Veblen observed, who grew so accustomed to having servants carry out their tasks that they would sooner starve than be seen feeding themselves.

When situated in this social context, Snegiryov’s behaviour becomes more intelligible. To be helped or even saved is an act drenched in social significance. Conspicuous charity sends an undeniable signal about the relative status of the helper and receiver. The former appears benevolent, admirable, impressive. The latter seems helpless, desperate, dependent. To someone who values their reputation and honour—to a human being, in other words—these social costs of humiliation can outweigh the material benefits of assistance.

The anthropological record is rich in descriptions of how lavish feasts and gifts reflect these strategic, social concerns. Charity is often not what it appears. It can be a move in a status game—an attempt to solidify and advertise the helper’s superiority over the recipient. And even when that is not the intention, the recipient might still be suspicious.

In Moral Origins, Christopher Boehm describes how this suspicion operates in many hunter-gatherer societies, creating a social climate in which vigilance, ridicule, and ostracism constrain the ambitions of status seekers and self-aggrandisers. He quotes a member of the !Kung Bushmen, a traditional food-sharing society in the Kalahari desert:

“Say that a man has been hunting. He must not come home and announce like a braggart, ‘I have killed a big one in the bush!’ He must first sit down in silence until someone else comes up to his fire and asks, ‘What did you see today?’ He replies quietly, ‘Ah, I’m no good for hunting. I saw nothing at all . . . maybe just a tiny one.’ Then I smile to myself because I know he has killed something big.”

IV

The name of this newsletter, “Conspicuous Cognition”, is inspired by Veblen’s ideas about economics. Just as he sought to correct a misguided tendency to treat economics through a narrowly economic lens, my work and writings seek to correct a similarly misguided tendency to treat cognition—how we think, form beliefs, generate ideas, evaluate evidence, communicate, and so on—through a narrowly cognitive lens.

Much cognition is competitive and conspicuous. People strive to show off their intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom. They compete to win attention and recognition for making novel discoveries or producing rationalisations of what others want to believe. They often reason not to figure out the truth but to persuade and manage their reputation. They often form beliefs not to acquire knowledge but to signal their impressive qualities and loyalties.

Placed in this context of social competition and impression management, what might be called “epistemic charity”—the free offer of knowledge and expertise—takes on a different appearance. Although this charity can be driven by disinterested altruism (think of parents educating their children), it can also result from status competition and a desire to show off.

In some cases, people are happy to receive such epistemic charity and heap praise and admiration on those who provide it. The wonders of modern science emerge from a status game that celebrates those who make discoveries. However, we sometimes recoil at the thought of admitting someone has discovered something new, or—even worse—that they know better than we do. When that happens, we are not sceptical of the truth of their ideas, although we might choose to frame things that way. Rather, their offer of knowledge carries a symbolic significance we want to reject. It hurts our pride. It feels humiliating.

On a small scale, this feeling is an everyday occurrence. Few people like to be corrected, to admit they are wrong, or to acknowledge another’s superior knowledge, wisdom, or intelligence. On a larger scale, it might be implicated in some of the most significant and dangerous trends in modern politics.

V

Many of our most profound political problems appear to be entangled with epistemic issues. Think of our alleged crises of “disinformation”, “misinformation”, “post-truth”, and conspiracy theories. Think of the spread of viral lies and falsehoods on social media. Think of intense ideological polarisation, vicious political debates, and heated culture wars, disagreements and conflicts that ultimately concern what is true.

A critical aspect of these problems is the so-called “crisis of expertise”, the widespread populist rejection of claims advanced in institutions like science, universities, public health organisations, and mainstream media. Famously, many populists have “had enough of experts.” As Trump once put it, “The experts are terrible.”

This rejection of expertise goes beyond mere scepticism. It is actively hostile. The Trump administration’s recent attacks on Harvard and other elite universities provide one illustration of this hostility, but there are many others. Most obviously, there is the proud willingness among many populists to spread and accept falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and quack science in the face of an exasperated barrage of “fact-checks” from establishment institutions. Why are these corrections so politically impotent? Why do so many voters refuse to “follow the science” or “trust the experts”?

Experts have produced many theories. Some point to ignorance and stupidity. Some point to disinformation and mass manipulation. Some point to partisan media, echo chambers, and algorithms. And some suggest that the crisis might be related to objective failures by experts themselves.

There is likely some truth in all these explanations. Nevertheless, they share a common assumption: that the “crisis of expertise” is best understood in epistemic terms. They assume that populist hostility to the expert class reflects scepticism that their expertise is genuine—that they really know what they claim to know.

Perhaps this assumption is mistaken. Perhaps at least in some cases, the crisis of expertise is less about doubting expert knowledge than about rejecting the social hierarchy that “trust the experts” implies. Just as Snegiryov would sooner endure hardship than be looked down upon, some populists might sooner accept ignorance than epistemic charity from those they refuse to acknowledge as superior.

VI

Consider, first, conspiracy theories. Surprisingly, one of the psychological traits that reliably correlates with a conspiratorial mentality is narcissism. It is obvious why paranoia would drive people to posit nefarious hidden plots. Why would tendencies towards grandiosity and entitlement have similar effects?

One reason is that conspiracy theories offer an intoxicating status inversion. By rejecting the “official knowledge” disseminated by society’s elites, the conspiracy theorist rejects their claim to intellectual superiority. It is the conspiracy theorist, not the elites, who knows things that others—the gullible sheeple—do not. Through their bravery and insight, they have seen through society’s lies and uncovered what is really going on. To someone who craves feelings of status and self-importance, there is something delicious about such a worldview.

Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

Of course, most populist voters are not avid conspiracy theorists in this sense. It is one thing to reject expert knowledge; it is another to embrace QAnon. Moreover, although most populist elites are narcissists (Trump, Musk, Farage, etc.), most populist voters are not.

Nevertheless, narcissism is simply the extreme manifestation of motives and emotions we all feel. Everyone seeks status, respect, and recognition. Everyone is reluctant to accept their inferiority. And these natural feelings can drive less outlandish rejections of official knowledge.

When voters are asked to “trust the experts” or “follow the science”, these requests have symbolic significance. They ask some humans to grant prestige to other humans—to acknowledge that others know better than they do.

Moreover, the expert’s gift of knowledge is not presented in the context of reciprocity and equality. The scientist, the academic, the fact-checker—they do not expect to learn anything from ordinary voters. Whether on tariffs, pandemic policy, climate change, vaccines, or the nature of gender, the public is, at best, treated as the passive beneficiary of other people’s epistemic charity. They are there to be informed, educated, and enlightened.

Seen in this light, the populist celebration of “common sense” over expert authority also enacts an exhilarating status reversal. It frames ordinary people—those without educational credentials—as the real source of knowledge and wisdom. It creates the conditions for epistemic equality. It says that there is no need to accept assistance from fancy intellectuals with fancy degrees—and so no need to grant them status.

VII

The widespread appeal of this populist status inversion is rooted in two historical trends.

First, the dramatic expansion of college education has created an influential new social class of highly-educated professionals (the “professional-managerial class” or “symbolic capitalists”) who dominate the modern knowledge economy and most prestigious institutions (academia, media, law, the civil service, NGOs, etc.), which in turn shape not just policy but also public discourse and broader cultural norms. They are the beneficiaries of modern meritocracy, and the population from which the expert class is drawn.

This new class differentiates itself from the great unwashed not through luxury goods but by being more knowledgeable, enlightened, and progressive—through conspicuous cognition and compassion, not consumption. They often flaunt their contempt and condescension towards the uneducated and unenlightened public they view as deplorable, ignorant, and misinformed.

Second, this diploma divide has driven a substantial realignment of political coalitions across Western democracies. The conflict between the left and the right is now shaped less by traditional economic divisions than by educational status. In the United States, for example, the Democratic Party has become the political home of highly educated, urban, socially progressive professionals—especially among white voters—while those without a four-year college degree have moved strongly toward the Republican Party.

In consequence, a combustible class divide now aligns with an equally explosive partisan one, especially in highly polarised countries like the USA. And because expert-driven institutions are dominated by the political and class rivals of right-wing populist voters, these institutions have become increasingly politicised in both reality and reputation.

For these reasons, expertise has taken on a complex symbolic significance. For the primary voter base of establishment left parties, experts are on their team and come from the same social class. So, expertise is something to be celebrated: “Trust the experts.” “Believe scientists.” “Follow the science.” These popular liberal slogans are not merely intellectual recommendations. They are highly moralised identity markers, symbols of class and partisan affiliation.

For right-wing populist voters, in contrast, experts are viewed not just as a rival political tribe but as a condescending social class. To cede intellectual authority to such elites would be to concede and affirm their higher status.

The point is not just that the liberal bias of many experts and establishment institutions makes them less reliable in ways that lead those on the right to be mistrustful of them, although that is undoubtedly true. The point is that even if the expert class were perfectly reliable, there would still be a considerable status threat here.

VIII

If this analysis is correct, the populist rejection of expertise is not merely an intellectual disagreement over truth or evidence, even if it is typically presented that way. It is, in part, a proud refusal to accept epistemic charity from those who present themselves as social superiors.

In the case of populist elites and conspiracy theorists, this refusal is often driven by objectionable feelings of grandiosity and narcissism. However, for many ordinary voters, it may serve as a more understandable dignity-defence mechanism, a refusal to accept the social meanings implied by one-way deference to elites with alien values. It is less “post-truth” than anti-humiliation.

This would help to explain several features of the populist rejection of expertise.

First, there is its emotional signature. In many cases, the populist refusal to defer to experts appears to be wrapped up in intense emotions of resentment, indignation, and defiant pride, rather than simple scepticism.

Second, the rejection of expert authority often has a performative character. Experts are not merely ignored. They are actively, angrily, and proudly rejected. Like Captain Snegiryov, the populist publicly tramples on the expert’s offer of knowledge.

Third, there is the destructive aspect of many populist sentiments. If the issue were merely scepticism of experts and establishment institutions, the solution would presumably involve targeted reforms designed to make them more reliable. As recent Republican attacks on elite universities make clear, many populists prefer to take a sledgehammer to these institutions. The explosive hostility towards public health experts during the pandemic provides another telling example.

Finally, there is the fact that populists often embrace anti-intellectualism as an identity marker, a badge of pride. The valorisation of gut instincts, the proposed “revolution of common sense”, and the embrace of slogans like “do your own research” affirm the status of those who prioritise intuition over experts. The demonisation of “ivory tower academics”, “blue-haired”, “woke” professors, and the “chattering classes” are crafted to have a similar effect. This all looks more like status-inverting propaganda than intellectual disagreements over truth and trustworthiness.

IX

To understand is not to forgive. Just as we can empathise with Snegiryov’s refusal of much-needed money whilst condemning it as short-sighted and self-destructive, we can try to understand the populist rejection of expertise without endorsing or justifying it.

To be clear, there are profound problems with our expert class and elite institutions. They routinely make errors, sometimes catastrophic ones, and often wield their social authority in ways that advance their own interests over the public good. The Iraq war, the financial crisis, and the many failures of policy and communication throughout the pandemic provide powerful illustrations of these expert failures, but there are many others.

Moreover, the social and political uniformity of experts today creates legitimate concerns about their trustworthiness. When scientific journals, public health authorities, and fact-checking organisations are obviously shaped by the values, partisan allegiances, and sensibilities of highly educated, progressive professionals, it is reasonable for those with very different values and identities to become mistrustful of them.

Nevertheless, there is no alternative to credentialed experts in complex, modern societies. To address the political challenges we confront today, we need specialised training, rigorous standards of evidence, and coordinated activity within institutions carefully engineered to produce knowledge. Although these institutions must be reformed in countless ways, they are indispensable.

Given this, the populists’ rejection of expertise does not liberate them from bias and error. It guarantees bias and error. Gut instincts, intuition, and “common sense” are fundamentally unreliable ways of producing knowledge. As we see with the MAGA media ecosystem today, the valorisation of such methods means returning to a pre-scientific, medieval worldview dominated by baseless conspiracy theories, snake oil medicine, economic illiteracy, and know-nothing punditry.

And yet, the dangers associated with this style of politics underscore the importance of understanding its causes. If the crisis of expertise is partly rooted in feelings of status threat, resentment, and humiliation, this has significant implications for how we should think about—and address—this crisis.

Most obviously, it suggests that purely epistemic solutions will have limited efficacy. You cannot fact-check your way out of status competition. And as long as the acceptance of expert guidance is experienced as an admission of social inferiority, there will be a lucrative market for demagogues and bullshitters who produce more status-affirming narratives.

Moreover, it suggests that rebuilding trust in experts means more than improving their reliability, as crucial as that is. Institutions dominated by a single social class and political tribe will inevitably face resistance and backlash in broader society, regardless of their technical competence.

We do not just need better ways of producing knowledge. We need to rethink how knowledge is offered: in ways that respect people’s pride and minimise the humiliations of one-sided epistemic charity.

Further Reading

• The ideas in this essay are heavily influenced by Will Storr’s masterpiece The Status Game, which explores the importance of status seeking and humiliation in human psychology, and explains modern culture wars in Western societies in terms of status competition between the white working class and highly educated elites.

• Matt Grossmann and David Hopkins’ brilliant ‘Polarized by Degrees’ explores how the “diploma divide” has transformed American politics into a culture war between an educated, culturally progressive elite who make up the expert class and a populist base that feels disrespected by that elite and hostile to the institutions they dominate.