I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of overeducated boobs claiming that their credentials make them uniquely qualified to opine on matters.

It’s a sign of the credentialism that has come to dominate our culture, where pieces of parchment have become substitutes for the ability to make sound judgments.

I have nothing against people with postgraduate degrees. I grew up around academics, pursued a Ph.D. myself before I gave up on academia, and am married to a girl I play doctor with. I should say she has a doctorate.

My experience with academics has given me a healthy skepticism about the value of degrees as markers for sound judgment. Obviously, I am more likely to trust a person trained in a field on a technical matter than somebody who isn’t, but I also know that overeducation leads to overconfidence and even to a tendency to accept pure idiocy as wisdom.

Side note: Why do people listen to @MattWalshBlog about…well anything?

He's a highschool graduate talking about biology, sex, policy and vaccines. He literally yields no value on any of these topics. pic.twitter.com/8sR44DKfq3

— Ian Copeland, PhD (@IanCopeland5) February 27, 2023

You're claiming that people without college degrees aren't "qualified to speak" and yet we're the ones demonstrating privilege? Okay then. Also, you misspelled "privilege," Mr. PhD. https://t.co/GY31V3RQqq

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 28, 2023

Dr. Copeland is but one of many people who claim that their advanced degrees qualify them to dismiss the opinions of the less educated.

We are supposed to trust him because he has letters appended after his name, while those of us who don’t should simply sit down, shut up, and do what we are told.

Yeah, well. Matt Walsh isn’t the one who thinks that people with penises are women. He can actually define the term, while few people with an M.D. or Ph.D. these days can give a coherent answer to the question “what is a woman?”

Also what the hell is a “gender expert” and does this lady imagine that her degree in political science makes her one?

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) February 28, 2023

Advanced degrees are, at base, a sign that a person has mastered the ability to please other people with advanced degrees. At best that means one has mastered the accumulated knowledge and theories in a particular field, and at worst it simply means that you can regurgitate the platitudes that are the received wisdom of the parchment privileged at any one moment.

I was fascinated when I watched “What is a Woman” at how reluctant the Smartest People™ were to answer the most basic questions. It really was remarkable that people whose claim to privilege is their superior knowledge are utterly flummoxed by a person asking them to explain themselves.

This is what credentialism looks like. People who demand the most spectacular privileges–the right to rule over us, to sterilize and mutilate children, to determine the shape of society–can’t even define their own terms. They literally have no idea about that which they talk so much.

Whether you like Matt Walsh, as I do, or hate him as a troll, it is impossible to deny the power of his intellect. Unlike many of the people who despise him, Walsh is actually able to explain what he thinks and why he thinks it. He doesn’t rely upon circumlocutions, distractions, or demands for respect. He delivers what he promises: his reasons for believing what he believes.

He is hilarious, too. Although his humor is so dry that some people don’t get it.

Walsh’s intelligence and clear thinking don’t assure us that he is right in all his opinions, but if you take the time to listen, you walk away understanding their rational foundation.

The same cannot be said about gender ideology, which literally affirms peoples’ delusion that they are ghosts, pandas, or whatever crazy thing they assert at any given moment. How many videos have you seen of college students–some of the most educated and privileged in our society–break down in tantrums when they are challenged in any way?

Ironically, the people most inclined to affirm delusions in modern society are the credentialed class. They are the most likely to assert the morality of communism, to affirm the “defund the police” movement, to defend the homeless encampments ruining our cities, and to defend the pedophiles who are becoming normalized. They demand children read pornography, suggest that they use Grindr, and insult parents who object.

George Orwell encapsulated this reality in a single sentence: “some ideas are so stupid only intellectuals believe them.”

The vacuousness of credentialism was laid bare during the COVID pandemic, where the most educated among us were also the most panicked and irrational. They embraced the dumbest ideas, demanded compliance with rules that were obviously tyrannical and stupid, and to this day deny they were wrong about anything.

Common sense can be wrong, and often is.

But so are expert ideas.

Every bit of nutrition advice the government has given you has been assembled by credentialed “experts,” and not a bit of it has been any good at all. The inventor of the lobotomy got a Nobel Prize for doing so. The psychologists who “recovered” memories from children, leading to the belief that a massive Satanic cult was sacrificing children in preschools, were credentialed.

“I have a Masters degree! We all have advanced degrees! What have parents got? Are we vetting the background of parents?” 🤡

Good bill @Wadsack4Arizona 👏🏼#SB1700 #ParentalRights #NoPornInSchools https://t.co/boXaMWKA6q pic.twitter.com/6ONe1a688I

— AZSuburbs 🌵 (@noprezzie2012) February 16, 2023

It’s hard to look around modern society without concluding that we would be much better off with fewer highly credentialed people.

This would solve the student debt problem, too. Bonus round!