Layperson infantalisation and anti-expertise sentiment are two sides of the same coin.
Both are anti-intellectualism.
If you treat people like children that should be content with the answer "because I say so", you shouldn't be surprised if adults, who are in a position to retaliate, don't just take it.
"You didn't spend X years studying this" might be true, but not even trying to explain something doesn't even give the other person the chance to realise, they lack knowledge.
1/
Of course there are people who obviously don't want to know and just want to "win a debate".
Some of those people don't even seem aware that this is what they're trying to do (an obvious example would be many antivaxxers), but even if you couldn't convince many people, the situation could at least be somewhat diffused in many cases.
This doesn't have to mean spending your own time arguing with someone, but not telling people the equivalent of "you're too stupid to get it anyway" would help.
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I think one of the main reasons for "intellectual elitism", usually based on certificates, is based on insecurity, not only on an unwillingness to spend time and energy on a futile attempt to explain something.
Many "experts" are not nearly as knowlegable, as they present themself and there is a big difference between vaguely remembering, that you learned something in the past and having that knowledge present.
But admitting that could challenge your authority as an expert.
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I used to regularly see this, when I spent time learning about autism and ADHD in the past, to just name two examples.
It's even more extreme in fields, where knowledge is based more on authority, observations and interpretations of those observations than provable facts.
A lot of what's accepted as "knowledge" today, could mostly only be accepted as "belief" tomorrow.
Like "you can't have ADHD, because you can focus on video game", to use an example of slow propagation of knowledge.
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So an "expert" might be a person who vagely half-remembers something that could have been already "out of date", when they learned it and now tries to defend their position of perceived authority with thought terminating clishés.
And in my experience, you can often even see that insecurity in their behavior, even hear it in their voice, so they're not only sending the message, that they think you're unable to understand what they know, but also, that they can't "back it up".
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Anti-intellectualism isn't only attacking the concept of expert knowledge and people who have it, but also attacking and dismissing the people who could, even if in many cases only partially, have and understand that knowledge in the future.
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing", but having less of it just leaves more room for belief, speculation and resentment and therfore makes it more dangerous.
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#ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #AntiIntellectualism #Autism #Education #Expertise #Learning
@hauchvonstaub Good point. I'd even argue that if you can't explain the basic concepts of your field of expertise in simple terms (e.g. to a child), it is debatable if you're as competent as you claim to be.
Of course nobody can always perfectly remember every single bit of every aspect/concept. There's no shame in saying "let me check this again before I answer".
@Sci_Fi_FanGirl
Unfortunately the mentality behind giving a very simplified explanation and refusing to give one at all, can often be very similar.
There isn't a big difference between "you wouldn't understand" and "you wouldn't understand it better than a child".
As if there is "expert knowledge" and "childrens knowledge", not only seperated by what you can understand, but also what you're allowed to know.
Like it's almost taboo, like you weren't allowed to know what sex is as a child.
@Sci_Fi_FanGirl
With the examples of autism and ADHD, as if you can't know too much, otherwise you might "develop hypochondria" and then believe you have ADHD or are autistic, despite hypochondria being about fear of illness and death and not just imagining you have any illness/disorder.
As if knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands, like you're learning to make explosives without learning about any safety measures.
It's still the infantalising "I decide what you're allowed to know".
hauch
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