I want to answer a question that I’ve been wrestling with for a long time.
The question could be asked several different ways… or it could be asked as a series of questions:
What qualifies anyone to speak on anything when they are not an expert on that thing? Why does anyone speak (or listen to anyone else) when no one can possibly be an expert on everything they talk about?
What gives us the right to speak and try to teach others, when none of us has “degrees” for all of the things we talk about?
What makes a person qualified to have an opinion or give advice?
This might sound like a trivial or elementary problem. It might sound like I’m putting way too much thought into basic human communication. But I think finding the answer to this question allows us to have a much clearer perspective of the people we listen to, and of the people we choose not to listen to.
You don't have to be an authority on something to speak on it. The evidence for this is that people talk all day every day, even when we have no idea what we’re talking about. Even when our advice is bad, our data is limited, and our experience is approximately zero.
You shouldn't open your mouth unless you have something intelligent and mature to say, but that also doesn't require being an "expert" per se.
Let's imagine I wanted to go on stage and talk to people about the psychology of well-being. And, in this discussion, let’s say I incorporated religious teachings. And I also incorporated evolutionary biology, and the philosophical and psychological underpinnings of meaning and happiness.
So then the question that anybody sane might ask is, "what makes you qualified to talk about any of these things?"
After all, I'm not a theologian. Nor a degree-holding biologist. Nor am I a trained psychologist.
So really, the answer is nothing.
Let's look at game theory. Game theory studies strategy and rational decision making in cooperative and competitive environments. So when we say “game,” we don’t mean recreation. We mean being involved in human endeavors that involve strategy, rationality, competitiveness, rules, risk, and a spectrum of desirability for possible outcomes. The more different arenas of human endeavor you’re involved in, the more “games” you’re involved in.
One idea that extends from modern game theory is that you don't just want to be good at one game, or two games. You don’t just want to specialize in a narrow segment of strategic decision making at the expense of all other segments. It’s no good to be excellent at one human endeavor if it means you’re going to be awful at all other human endeavors. And, equally importantly, you don’t want to be so ruthless and competitive in winning one game that you are never invited to play other games. That nobody trusts you in other games.
You want to be the kind of person who is invited to play as many games as possible. The kind of person who fits into as many social groups and competence structures as possible. And then you want to win a lot of those games, of course, by being skilled and adaptive and rational. But the point is, you win the metagame (the game of playing all games) by being pretty good at playing most or all of them. You win the set of all possible games by being invited and by playing them with skill and integrity.
This is what you do when you socialize a child. You teach them how to be socially acceptable. You teach them how to be invited to do more things, and to build cooperative and competitive trust with others. And that’s why children who are not socialized properly by roughly the age of 4 will always struggle to play the metagame.
So how does that relate to being qualified to talk about various things?
Well, my goal as a speaker or a friend, or a partner or father, or just as a member of a community, is to help my people win. But not just to win one game, or win on one issue, or solve one problem. My goal is to help people get better at winning all games. That is my goal for myself, and that is my goal for everyone around me. To help them organize their lives and their minds, to be better adapted to playing the set of all possible games.
So the true test of me as a speaker or a friend or a parent, then, is: what are the results that the people who listen to me get across time? If the people who I give my opinion to listen to my opinion and then get better at playing the metagame ("get better at life") across time, then I am having a good influence on them. If the people who take advice from me are putting together better processes, which are leading to better results over time, then my advice is doing what it's supposed to do.
That doesn't mean I'm perfect. It doesn't mean I don't have blind spots and get things wrong. It just means that I am putting stories and wisdom and knowledge together in a way that is making myself and other people better. It doesn't mean I'm an expert, but it does mean that I'm qualified to keep speaking about the things I have been speaking about. It doesn't mean I should venture carelessly deeper into novel territory, but it does mean that I haven't yet ventured so far that I'm useless.
Every person, even every “expert” or public speaker, says things wrong from time to time. Or makes incorrect assumptions, or ventures just far enough into new territory to make a fool of himself. But we forgive them when most of what they say remains useful.
Conversely, take the example of a cult leader. Is this person charismatic? Generally, yes. Is this person a good speaker? Generally, yes. Does this person have the traits of a good leader and a wise, maybe even quasi-parental figure? Generally, yes. And so people follow him in the short term, because he seems to be irresistibly smart and pragmatic. He seems to have life figured out.
But...
Does the cult leader produce good outcomes across time? No. Does the cult leader help his audience develop good lifestyles and routines and processes for well being? No. Does the cult leader help his audience get better at the metagame? No.
His audience typically becomes a collection of narrow-minded, one-dimensional husks who are wholly detached from reality. They get worse at the set of all possible games, not better. They get worse at life, not better. So the cult leader, over time, is proven to be unworthy of being a good leader and unqualified to give out life advice. His leadership and his appeal have an expiration date.
Or take the example of a phony self-help guru.
Does this person point out intricate problems that people have? Yes. And that attracts people. “This person understands me,” they think. Does this person provide novelty and hope? Yes. “I’ve never thought of it this way before!” people cry out. Does this person sell a lot of books? Sure does.
But does the house of cards crumble eventually? It sure does. Grifters always end up chased out of town. People who sell phony solutions to real problems are ignored in the long run. People who sell half-assed intellectualism are dismissed from the conversation eventually. At least they are by the people who are smart enough to still be part of the conversation.
And of course you still have televangelists, palm readers, and other despicable phonies making their millions. But those people aren’t going where they think they’re going in the next life.
There will always be people selling snake oil, and there will always be a sucker buying it. That’s an unfortunate reality of human life. Those of us with eyes and ears that work can just stay away.
But it’s not just the grifters and charlatans that fail to deliver a good message. It’s also the ruthlessly scientific, the unapologetically academic. You know who I mean, you’ve seen them: people who defend ideas even when those ideas are obviously bad or incomplete. Economists who actually believe that human beings are rational. Political commentators who actually believe that people vote for candidates who are good for them. Statisticians who believe that human life is literally just a numbers game.
These people are so narrowly focused on their intellectual specialties, that they miss the real world completely. And they’re impossible to talk to because they refuse to step down from their theories and ideas to observe subjective reality.
Listening to a pure-blood academic will take us about as far as listening to a cult leader.
So who do we listen to?
I can’t answer that for you. I can’t necessarily even answer it for me. Because the answer changes as time goes on.
I think the answer is, people who have opinions that are helpful, defensible, and realistic. People who give advice that is practical and honest. People who put careful thought on equal footing with facts and information.
In a debate, I don’t just listen to the person who has a higher degree or a person who specializes in the relevant field. I listen to both parties, and I decide for myself who makes the most sense. Whose input seems to be most applicable to the real world. Whose argument seems to be most employable for good results.
And I’ve found that, quite often, laymen or cross-disciplinary explorers can be better at citing helpful studies and research than the so-called experts are. Sometimes it takes an external perspective to see the strokes of a painting more clearly. Sometimes it takes a layperson to point out something obvious that an expert has simply overlooked.
So maybe that’s it.
I don’t think the answer to anything is about authority or degrees, or tenure or blindly respecting one’s elders. Sometimes that’s the answer, but not always. And it’s not what’s most important.
If someone asks you why you have an opinion about psychology or mental health or relationships, the answer isn’t “you’re right, I have no idea what I’m talking about.”
I think there's a better answer. I think the real answer is: you’re qualified to talk about these things in direct proportion to how much it helps other people get better outcomes in life. Said differently, you’re precisely as qualified as your message makes you. Your message speaks for itself.
Anyone is allowed to have an opinion about something. Anyone is allowed to give advice. The difference between someone who's worth listening to and someone who isn't becomes apparent across time.
The short-sighted, socially-driven demand for "qualifications" will always be outwitted in the long run by fearless and authentic discourse. Honest discourse that observes the real world as it is. Academic and elitist snobbishness will always be outdone by people who actually understand how the world works.
Usually the data helps, but sometimes it just takes somebody who really sees what’s going on. Or someone who tells really good stories.
Drink water effectively across time,
JDR
“An expert is somebody who is more than 50 miles from home, has no responsibility for implementing the advice he gives, and shows slides.” — Edwin Meese