Expert knowledge reflexively creates the very universe of events it calculates.

Evidence

It is extremely important to be clear about what this involves. The reliance placed by lay actors upon expert systems is not just a matter—as was normally the case in the pre-modern world—of generating a sense of security about an independently given universe of events. It is a matter of the calculation of benefit and risk in circumstances where expert knowledge does not just provide that calculus but actually creates (or reproduces) the universe of events, as a result of the continual reflexive implementation of that very knowledge. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 203

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: This is the reflexive loop at the heart of the reader’s concern: the institution’s knowledge doesn’t just describe risk, it produces the moral universe — so deferring to it means surrendering agency over what reality even is.
• XREF: Giddens’s reflexive ‘creating the universe of events’ maps directly onto Luhmann’s system-theoretic self-reproduction — and onto Darlington’s version of politics as a closed expert universe Stevens never questions. — connects to: The universe’s laws can be discovered and understood. — Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time, 11; Gramscian analysis holds expert knowledge inevitably serves prevailing power — Gary Mongiovi, Austerity Is an Antidemocratic Strategy…, 125

Related

• The universe’s laws can be discovered and understood. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• The universe’s laws can be discovered and understood. #complicates (0.55) — Hawking, Stephen, A Brief History of Time, 11