![]() ![]() Right back to the mid-17th century, the bodies tasked with handling public knowledge have always privileged white male graduates, living in global cities and university towns. But from the start, strict codes of conduct had to be established to ensure that officials and experts were not seeking personal gain or glory (for instance through exaggerating their scientific discoveries), and were bound by strict norms of honesty.īut regardless of how honest parties may be in their dealings with one another, the cultural homogeneity and social intimacy of these gentlemanly networks and clubs has always been grounds for suspicion. These were soon adopted by governments, for purposes of tax collection and rudimentary public finance. The template of modern expertise can be traced back to the second half of the 17th century, when scientists and merchants first established techniques for recording and sharing facts and figures. Such systems have always faced political risks and threats. ![]() Civil servants draft ministerial speeches that respond to these facts, including details on what the government has achieved to date.Ī modern liberal society is a complex web of trust relations, held together by reports, accounts, records and testimonies. We expect that these findings are then reported honestly and without distortion by broadcasters and newspapers. If published, the findings are shared with journalists in press releases, drafted by university press offices. Consider how we come to know the facts about climate change: scientists carefully collect and analyse data, before drafting a paper for anonymous review by other scientists, who assume that the data is authentic. Much of the time, the edifice that we refer to as “truth” is really an investment of trust. ![]() In order to believe that the economy has grown by 1%, or to find out about latest medical advances, we take various things on trust we don’t automatically doubt the moral character of the researchers or reporters involved. While each of us sometimes witnesses events with our own eyes, there are plenty of apparently reasonable truths that we all accept without seeing. In fact, much of what we believe to be true about the world is actually taken on trust, via newspapers, experts, officials and broadcasters. As the past decade has made clear, nothing turns voters against liberalism more rapidly than the appearance of corruption: the suspicion, valid or otherwise, that politicians are exploiting their power for their own private interest. If this system is to work, there must be a basic modicum of trust that the small group will act on behalf of the much larger one, at least some of the time. After all, the very core of liberal democracy is the idea that a small group of people – politicians – can represent millions of others. The notion that public figures and professionals are basically trustworthy has been integral to the health of representative democracies. ![]()
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