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E-PrinceWe are living in revolutionary times. In fact, you're probably one of its foot soldiers. Our generation no longer believes in the power of expertise, the value of experience or the importance of long resumes.
Perhaps the best example ...
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is this about blogging or the obama campaign? If it's about both, you can't just put both in randomly, you need to have some sort of transition. This wasn't well structured, this is supposed to be an Ivy League campus newspaper.
meant admin instead of campaign
Andrew Sullivan has a Ph.D. in government and was the editor of The New Republic, so I'm not sure how his prominence could be taken to herald a trend away from experience and expertise (two different things, by the way). Maybe you meant bloggers like Matthew Yglesias; he's certainly younger than Broder, but he knows infinitely more about policy.
Meanwhile, the Gladwell article doesn't say what you think it says. It doesn't argue that credentials are meaningless, but rather that in two specific fields--NFL quarterbacking and teaching--they don't mean much. (You might look at his new book, Outliers, for an argument about the central importance of constant practice in developing genius.) And of course the real irony is that Gladwell's article relies heavily on the sort of academic expertise that is supposedly going out of style.
Your argument would have been considerably strengthened by mentioning one of the most important books of the new century: Philip Tetlock's "Expert Political Judgement". The author, over a long period of time, had a number of noted political experts (anonymously, of course) give their beliefs as to how particular events would play out in the future, what future events were likely, and so forth. Shockingly, he found that, in general, they performed very poorly, and that a program randomly generating answers would often do equally well or better. Indeed, the *only* group he found that could generate decent results were those he called (borrowing from Berlin) "foxes". Foxes, unlike their peers, were willing to consider evidence from all sources, and did not cling to any pet theory that they tried to force the world to adhere to. So, I suppose, we should looking to hire foxes, as far as we can identify them.
In any case, simply because it is very hard to identify who will succeed and who will not does not mean that credentials or expertise is worthless. One industry that has an especially well-developed (and successful) mechanism for sifting wheat from chaff is investment banking (classical advisory -- not sales and trading). Firms initially accept a large number of analysts, and then they fire those who don't perform. Then they have a large group of associates, comprising surviving analysts and new hires, and they promote only the best performing of that group to junior vice president. And so forth. This system, combined with a tournament structure of earnings, has three big benefits. First, the escalating earnings skills motivates lower-level workers to put in extraordinary effort (as noted by Lazaer in his pioneering work). Second, the constant culling pushes the mean productivity of the group consistently higher. Third, the efficiency of the process allows good talent to be identified relatively quickly and exploited while it is young: thus, the preponderance of 30- and 40- year olds in top positions while they are at their physical and mental peak.
However, the system still works on credentials. You can't hire just anyone -- you need an initial pool with a reasonably high proportion of skilled workers, or the process will take significantly longer. So investment banks restrict their hiring to good students from top undergraduate schools and business schools. And so having having the credential of being in a top program is what gets you in the door.
In any event, the tournament system of promotion only works in fields where performance is relatively easy to measure and reward. It is a hard model to apply elsewhere. And so, beyond expertise, what qualifications do we have to go on?
great article! the david brooks quote is hilarious
you forgot the most important political blogger named Andrew- Andrew Romano, P'04 of Newsweek's "Stumper".
good article.