No man is an island. The production of knowledge is a communal enterprise, regulated by gate keepers. The other side of that truism, however, was well expressed by Nicholas Taleb (The Black Swan): “The problem with experts is that they do not know what they do not know.” And the problem with the control of knowledge by an expert elite is that it can obstruct knowledge that they do not already possess.

Before the Internet, a traditional job of librarians was to vet knowledge. A similar role falls upon universities and academic presses and journals. The name of an unvetted open repository (Research Gate) is ironic, since a gate is not an open portal, but has the dual function of allowing or denying entry. The gate for academic journals is economic as well as scholarly: you can pay to access an article if you don’t have institutional access. Likewise, authors (or their institutions) can pay to have it published with open access by the public. There is an economic dimension to the dissemination and control of knowledge, which is big business.

To unlock the gate, you normally have an academic affiliation. Academics enjoy free access to the expensive journals through which they exchange ideas. Their institutions pay the subscriptions, which no doubt contribute to the skyrocketing cost of university tuition fees. On the other hand, many scholars want their works to be more widely read, so they (or their institutions) pay the extortion demanded by journals for the privilege of making them available to the public for free. There are databases dedicated to such free postings, such as Philpapers, arXiv, Academia.edu, and ResearchGate. Often a scholar will post an earlier version of a paper directly online, allowing access to the same information as in the costly official publication. The ideal behind the WWW, of course, was unlimited free access to information—basically a global show and tell. The reality of the Web turned out to be more about commercial opportunity. The struggle goes on even in the academic world, where the issue of access is not only about maintaining a high standard of scholarship but also about money.

The same question confronts those deemed guardians of knowledge and those deemed guardians of the state: should the gate be simply removed from its hinges, so that anyone who wishes can pass through unimpeded? In the case of politics, that would mean that every citizen has a direct say in governance. Apart from the logistics involved, this has never seemed desirable to those already in power, who have traditionally represented the privileged class. Their political power rests on their economic power, and vice-versa.

The monopoly of ideas, like the monopoly of wealth, implies a class system. Until recently these coincided: only the rich could afford education and had the leisure to exchange ideas. The ideal of democracy required an educated public, hence public education. But just as we are not equal in wealth, so we are not equally educated. In theory we each have one political vote, on an equal footing. We hardly each have an equal voice in creating the communal reality through the exchange of ideas and opinions. Yet the popularity of blogs and social media indicates that there is a longing for that participation. People want to be heard—not only in matters of government but also to express their views of life and reality, their contribution to knowledge.

Like the rich, those with letters after their name have status in our competitive society. But in the end, they only know what they know. The idea that saves the world could come from outside their closed circle, even out of the mouths of babes. On the other hand, the foolish clamor of voices tends to prove the need for gatekeepers.