‘You are in danger!’ This is how the rhetoric starts. ‘But there is no need to not worry, we will fix it!’

There is a sad irony in this message. The government pretends to offer therapeutic words by identifying a problem only it can fix.

The problem is one of Iatrogenesis.

Derived from the Greek iatros, it means harm brought forth by the healer.

The illness is actually a product of the help offered by the government. The pain comes from the source of the cure. The foundation of the grief is derived from those who declare the loudest, ‘We care the most!!!’

It can become wearying for citizens to identify how often this happens in the self-destroying West. Yet, even under these somewhat bleak conditions, hope can be seen.

The Iatrogenic process starts with some form of legislative or ideological creep.

Authors such as Jonathan Haidt and Abigail Shrier have identified the pattern. The slide starts from a seemingly harmless point, usually a pattern of ill-ease of dysfunction within society. This pattern is then given a label.

Labelling is often akin to pouring accelerant on a fire, particularly if done by an expert.

Without this perceived professional help, the expert can quickly become redundant in society. The economics of their livelihood can be in doubt. An expert on gender studies needs confusion about gender or else, why would their advice be sought? What do some experts do? They embrace strategies that raise the value of their information. This is best achieved by creating an expectation that there will be alarming consequences if their advice is not sought or acted upon. And that help is not cheap. I call this system, ‘expertocracy’.

Expertocracy can be found lurking, lounging, and licentiously lingering in the halls of bureaucracy. Some may call this the ‘technocracy’, but I resist that label. Many experts are terrible at the technical aspects of their profession.

Being an expert is a matter of opinion based on influence. It is even possible to remain part of the expertocracy while making matters worse.

Why ‘licentiously lingering’?

There is an inherent sensuality about those in the expertocracy. They tend to be emotivists who promise to make people ‘feel better’.

The current plaything of the expertocracy is environmental alarmism.

When pressured on their Net Zero logic, the response from ministers is often shallow, incoherent, and avoidant. They cannot explain the continuation of the nuclear embargo other than insisting ‘trust us’. They avoid at all costs engaging with the salient dialogue of Bjorn Lomborg, Ian Plimer, and Steven Koonin.

Koonin summarises his technical findings:

‘In short, the science is insufficient to make useful projections about how the climate will change over the coming decades, much less what effect our actions will have on it.’

His advice concludes, ‘A prudent step would be to pursue adaptation strategies more vigorously … so the best strategy is to promote economic development and strong institutions in developing countries in order to improve their ability to adapt.’

How can it be that our economic leaders do not understand that giving taxpayers back their own money in the form of ‘subsidies’ decreases the productive value of that money? Why not allow them to keep it?

‘Here sir, give them this money and they will thank you for saving them. There will be an inflation number that looks good…’

That this number is a facsimile of reality rarely matters to them.

Education and counselling are two other extremely important industries that are currently under the thumb of expertocrats. They preach the loudest about an existential crisis surrounding the mental health of our young.

When a young person is unhappy, they can be described as having increased anxiety disorder or experiencing a state of depression (an example of concept creep).

If these emotionally compromised people see their peers being more successful, they claim it is an example of racism or a lack of equality (two concepts primary to critical race theory). Expertocrats working in this field have decided that ‘helping’ means limiting those who can access training and addressing the language used to explain history and social roles.

Shrier often describes how these unreal approaches to the feelings of young people have led them to learn irresponsibility through moral avoidance in decision-making. In her words:

‘In the last generation, all traces of tough love and rule-bound parenting have been supplanted by a more empathetic style… The approach to bad behaviour is always therapeutic – meaning it is non-judgemental.’

Non-judgemental in this context means failing to hold young people responsible for their part in creating problems for others.

As a young teacher from a Sydney-based university told me, ‘You mean, I am allowed to implement consequences?’

The idea that this requires permission helps explain why our classes are failing in their duty to be places of learning and are instead turning into environments that placate the emotive fickleness of the young.

Non-judgementalism in counselling helps young people perpetuate a scenario where they avoid taking responsibility for their role in the pain they are experiencing. Perhaps they did not study hard enough, and that is why they failed a test. Maybe they made poor choices in friendship groups or activities. These sorts of things. Critical Race Theory reinforces the idea that their pain is created by oppression – either from an individual or the ‘structural oppression’ of society.

The wider this ideology spreads, the more dependent people become on experts and their expertocracy.

They seek answers from experts rather than looking at themselves.

Doug Stokes explained: ‘Virtue no longer consists of what you “do or don’t do”; it consists of having the correct opinions … in short, it is a power-play wrapped in a trauma shield; obey me and do as I tell you, or you will harm the vulnerable groups and I will seek to cast you out.’

Stokes posits that a response against the expertocracy is coming.

‘How long will ordinary people put up with being denigrated, told their country is beyond redemption, and accept forms of elite restructuring of the institutions they hold dear?’

Perhaps the battle over the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill will show us if the reaction against the expertocracy is coming … or not.