Why Expertise Doesn’t Have to Mean Elitism

The Case for Grounded Knowledge in an Ungrounded Time

I didn’t go to Harvard. I wasn’t trained at Mayo or Stanford. My degrees came from public universities, and my education came from watching people. Patients, students, working bodies to learn to make sense of their function, purpose and pain. And now, when I hear people say they “don’t trust the experts,” or read “Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols, I pause. Because I get it. But I also know, and agree with Nichols, the danger of throwing away the good just because the elite got careless.

The backlash against expertise is real. It isn’t just political. It’s cultural, emotional, and in some cases, justified. People are tired of being talked down to, moralized at, and governed by people who don’t seem to understand their lives. But the answer isn’t to reject expertise entirely. It’s to reclaim a better kind: the kind that speaks clearly, listens well, and stays close to the realities it serves.

My background is in physiology, physical therapy, and ergonomics. I’ve spent decades in public higher education, both as a student, a professor, and a life long learner. What I teach, study, and practice is rooted in applied science. Systems that can be observed, tested, and explained. It’s a form of expertise that doesn’t require prestige to be real. It requires clarity, rigor, and a willingness to stay in touch with complexity without hiding behind jargon.

That kind of expertise isn’t flashy. It doesn’t tweet well. It doesn’t come with a TED Talk or a large Substack following. But it can improve lives, inform practice, and ground policy when it’s allowed to speak.

This isn’t the first time I’ve reflected on what it means to be an expert. In my past post, “Bounded, Not Broken,” I explored how knowing your limits, and your landscape, can actually strengthen the legitimacy of your knowledge. Expertise isn’t about being unbounded. It’s about being reliable within the bounds that matter. Bounded media, disciplined attention, and epistemic humility.

There’s a crucial difference between grounded expertise and detached elitism:

Grounded Expertise

• Starts with the particular, strives towards the universal

• Explains clearly

• Seeks outcomes

• Earned through practice

• Accountable to communities

Detached Elitism

• Starts with the universal, forces explanations on the particular

• Speaks in jargon

• Seeks prestige

• Granted through affiliation

• Shielded by institutions

In a time of fractured truth and rising skepticism, towns like mine don’t need more credentialed voices from somewhere else. They need people who can interpret complexity and speak plainly about what matters. When hospitals restructure, when school policies shift, when budgets tighten, we don’t need influencers. We need interpreters. People who understand the systems, the people, and the stakes.

You don’t have to have a PhD from Princeton to know what you’re talking about. But if you do have deep training, and you’ve used it to serve others with integrity, then don’t apologize for being an expert. Just show up. Speak clearly. Stay human. That’s the kind of expertise worth trusting again.

This post also marks a kind of convergence for me. After serving briefly on Ashland’s Economic Development Committee, I realized that my training in analysis, inquiry, and writing might serve the town better through another form of contribution. That’s what led to The Ashland Warrant. A civic ledger for local democracy, governance, economic resilience, and good faith debate in Ashland, New Hampshire. It’s not partisan or performative. It’s a place for clear writing, close listening, and serious questions about the future of this small town.

While my professional background is in clinical science and systems analysis, I don’t claim special expertise in public policy or town governance. What I do claim is a commitment to using the tools I have: observation, reasoning, and communication; to make shared life more understandable. The goal isn’t to assert authority in the public square, but to lift up the expertise that already exists across our community.

That’s how we get better: not by rejecting expertise, but by recognizing that we all hold parts of it, and that democratic life depends on putting those parts into dialogue.