HOW DUNNING AND KRUGER GOT IT RIGHT

My old friend ‘Toolo’ Timlin, a very wise sound recordist, summed up the Dunning-Kruger Effect better than most: “They don’t know what they don’t know.

Ever since academic psychologists, Prof David Dunning and Dr Justin Kruger, released their study back in 1999, their work has been validated time and again, especially in politics.

The Dunning-Kruger report highlighted “a cognitive bias where those with little knowledge or expertise overestimate their knowledge or skill because they don’t have enough knowledge to know that they don’t have enough knowledge”

I prefer Toolo’s definition but you get the point. And when you think of the concept who immediately comes to mind? Yep, Trump … and his tech thugs.

Perhaps the Dunning-Kruger effect could be extended: just because you know one field of endeavour really well, it doesn’t follow that you know or understand others to the same extent.

This is especially true when someone with limited knowledge acquires power, but lacks compassion and empathy. Their inability to view things through others’ eyes or to care about the impact of their decisions on others can have devastating results.

Trump is Dunning-Kruger personified. With his compassion bypass and his narcissistic personality, he’s been emboldened by a supine Republican Party and a toothless Democratic Party to act on his every whim.

He’s going to keep on signing those Executive Orders until America’s legislators grow spines. God knows what nation and world will be left by then.