{"id":165567,"date":"2025-12-21T07:41:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=165567"},"modified":"2025-12-21T07:41:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T15:41:26","slug":"the-lost-generation-in-an-age-of-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=165567","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Generation In An Age Of Experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to map Stephen Turner’s 2013 book, The Politics of Expertise<\/a> on to the topics discussed in Jacob Savage’s new essay, The Lost Generation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turner argues that expertise is not just “truth” but a political authorized currency. The “Lost Generation” in the essay has accumulated this currency (degrees, compliance) but found it devalued. Turner explains why currencies get devalued (shift in patronage\/state needs).<\/p>\n

Turner’s analysis of credentials as a market created by the state (Chapter 1 & 8) is the perfect theoretical map.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s book provides the theoretical machinery to explain the grievances described in the essay. The mapping focuses on how “expertise” functions as a currency that has been devalued, and how a generation can be “lost” when the institutional markets for their skills shift.<\/p>\n

1. The Historical Parallel: The “Lost Generation” of Sociologists (Chapter 8)<\/p>\n

Turner explicitly analyzes a “lost generation” in Chapter 8 (“From Edification to Expertise”), and this historical case maps almost perfectly onto the modern “Lost Generation” argument.<\/p>\n

The Essay’s Situation: A generation of young people followed the rules, obtained credentials, and sought to enter the elite, only to find the door shut and the market for their skills collapsed.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s Map: Turner describes the “lost generation” of early 20th-century sociologists (the “edifiers” like Charles Ellwood). These men were public intellectuals who believed in moral leadership. They were “lost”\u2014pushed out of the university and funding systems\u2014not because they were wrong, but because the patronage shifted. The Rockefeller foundations decided they wanted “experts” (scientists who claimed neutrality) rather than “edifiers” (moral leaders).<\/p>\n

The Connection: Just as the “edifiers” were displaced by a structural shift in how the elite funded knowledge, the modern “Lost Generation” is being displaced because the market for expertise (credentialed jobs) has contracted or shifted. Turner argues that expertise is a market created by patrons; when the patron (the neoliberal economy\/state) stops buying, the suppliers (the educated youth) are “lost”.<\/p>\n

2. The Trap of “Liberal Neutrality” (Chapter 1)<\/p>\n

The Compact essay often critiques the “liberal order” for failing to deliver the goods. Turner\u2019s first chapter explains the mechanism of this failure.<\/p>\n

The Essay’s Complaint: Decisions that ruined the prospects of the “Lost Generation” (housing costs, trade policies, debt) are often presented as inevitable economic facts rather than political choices.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s Map: Turner explains that liberal democracies “depoliticize” difficult issues by handing them over to experts (economists, planners). He argues that this “liberal delegation” allows the state to claim these are “neutral” decisions.<\/p>\n

The Connection: The “Lost Generation” is trapped because their impoverishment is the result of expert consensus (which is insulated from democracy). Turner argues that when experts fail to deliver “output legitimacy” (results\/prosperity), the public usually rebels. The essay is effectively a “rebellion” against the expert consensus that failed them.<\/p>\n

3. “Expertise by Stealth” vs. Political Accountability (Chapter 5)<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s comparison of American vs. European bureaucratic traditions explains the political paralysis often described in “Lost Generation” essays.<\/p>\n

The Essay’s Context: The feeling that voting doesn’t change the material reality for the young.<\/p>\n

Turner\u2019s Map: In Chapter 5, Turner contrasts “high politics” (where leaders act and are held responsible, like the A-bomb decision) with “bureaucratic politics” (where experts rule by consensus and no one is responsible).<\/p>\n

The Connection: The “Lost Generation” lives in a world of bureaucratic politics. Decisions are made by the “aggregation of expert opinion” (central banks, zoning boards), not by leaders who can be held accountable. Turner notes that this system dissolves responsibility\u2014no single person can be blamed for the outcome, so the “Lost Generation” has no one to petition for redress.<\/p>\n

The Problem: The issue of elite overproduction and worthless degrees described in the essay corresponds to Turner’s concept of Patronage and Markets; he argues that expertise is an artificial market, meaning that experts become effectively “worthless” the moment the state or philanthropic patrons stop “buying” their knowledge.<\/p>\n

The Cause: The “technocratic” failures in housing and the economy map to Turner’s theory on the Aggregation of Knowledge, which posits that decision-making based on aggregated expert consensus inevitably creates “blind spots” that exclude critical aspects of reality.<\/p>\n

The Result: The resulting political alienation reflects what Turner identifies as a Failure of Legitimacy, where trust collapses because expert authority relies entirely on “output legitimacy”\u2014the ability to deliver tangible results\u2014which is lost during periods of economic stagnation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want to map Stephen Turner’s 2013 book, The Politics of Expertise on to the topics discussed in Jacob Savage’s new essay, The Lost Generation. Turner argues that expertise is not just “truth” but a political authorized currency. The “Lost … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[592],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=165567"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165572,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165567\/revisions\/165572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=165567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=165567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=165567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}