Intellectual Specialization and the Learned Ignoramus

"The Defense Department regrets to inform you that your sons are dead because they were stupid."
--Goose (Top Gun)

This article is a timely follow-up to our recent missive about over-reliance on expert thinkers in a specialized world. The author suggests that unbalanced 'intellectual specialization' has contributed to the current crisis.

He draws from a 1930 work by Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset called The Revolt of the Masses. Gasset observed that increased specialization among thinkers was creating a new class of narrow-minded intellectuals. These 'learned ignoramuses' were unable to think outside of their core intellectual silos to understand how their disciplined interacted with the broader world. See the chapter entitled 'The Barbarism of 'Specialisation'" beginning on p. 69 for Ortega y Gasset's account of the dynamic.

The author suggests that the current cadre of public health officials fills this bill well. While knowing something about infectious diseases and their spread, these people know little about how their policy proposals impact other aspect of human life. Thus we have prescriptions to lock down the world to prevent the spread of a novel virus in the near term, but little serious consideration of the long term economic and social costs of doing so.

As such, we may be faced with a cure that is far worse than the disease.