Earlier today, my friend and I attempted to make crepes. This was not my first time making crepes, so my friend let me lead the way. It was nearly time to begin cooking the batter, and we debated whether to taste-test our future crepes. We sided with the latter option, because there were several raw eggs in the mixture. So we cooked our crepes...only to discover that they tasted more like paper than a delicacy. We had forgotten the most important step: sugar. The mistake, I have decided, was not in just forgetting the sugar; but, rather, also in the cooks who blindly trusted the most experienced of the bunch. In this same way, it can be very easy to assume a correlation between knowledge and power. The statement "knowledge is power" is misleading; many without knowledge used their power wisely, and many with knowledge used their power unwisely. I'm here to explain why this "correlation" is not only superficial, but can be dangerous as well.
First of all, there have been several individuals without much knowledge who were true leaders, and deserved their power. Harry Truman, one of my favorite American presidents, did not have a college degree. Yet he artfully lead America through crises including the Korean War, the loss of China to communism, the Berlin crisis, and the insubordination of General MacArthur.
Conversely, there have been several leaders who most would consider to have very good education, and be relatively qualified to lead, who we should not have given power. A well known example would be none other than George W. Bush, a Yale graduate. A lesser known example would be Rodrigo Duerte, the fascist president of the Philippines. Though an experienced politician, he has publicly and openly discussed horrendous acts such as dumping the bodies of 100,000 gangsters in a bay. And he claims that he would shut down Congress, should they ever try to impeach him. The fallacy in assuming that those with experience and knowledge deserve power is that they can very easily abuse and misuse that power.
The point of this is not that we should ignore expert advice. If your doctor tells you to not eat a dozen donuts in one sitting, then you should probably follow their advice. My point is merely that intelligence alone does not define a good leader, and that we should not give power to individuals based on their knowledge alone. Having knowledge does not mean that it will be applied correctly, or for the general good. Like sugar, knowledge is a pragmatic way to help ensure good consequences. But it alone does not make a decent crepe.
