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Expertise And Disbelief: Post-1945 American Attitudes Toward The Authority Of Knowledge, Terry Wagner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

“You can’t beat brains,” said President John Kennedy of the intellectuals and technicians he assembled in his cabinet. Kennedy was perhaps the greatest political champion for the virtues of expertise. However, all over America during the 1960s and ‘70s, diverse groups voiced doubts about how much experts, such as social scientists, policy specialists, and others, actually improved life. This dissertation examines how movements on the political left and right, and spiritual ruptures such as the rise of ‘60s counterculture and of evangelicalism, spoke in different language to express a similar point: human mastery over the world is profoundly limited. Many …