Apparently several things happen to us men when we pass the midday peak of life. Some crave the adrenaline rush, and others are gripped by triathlon fever. Many people experience breakups, with or without accompanying depression, and most of us must somewhat reluctantly realize that the battle against hair loss and the idea of an almost imperceptible aging is finally lost. Common to many is the somewhat surprising access to enormous and hitherto unknown wisdom. This new wisdom often reveals itself gradually, and can be experienced as if the majestic doors of clairvoyance are opening and providing almost infinite insight. Answers that previously seemed out of reach can now suddenly be picked like overripe fruit and harvested from one’s own head through relatively simple reasoning. Before I reached the age that made this profound reasoning possible – I thought that among us men, there was a smaller subset of know-it-alls, consisting of well-grown fathers with a long tenure at higher learning institutions and a penchant for far-reaching activity in social and national media. Living life on Facebook and some self-examination have forced me to realize that this is probably something that applies to all men over forty. Many of the most high-profile and active omniscients are well-educated and apparently up-and-coming men, writes the chronicler. Photo: Andreas Karantzas The most visible of us, who often have a social status in the form of book publications, long educations and often prominent positions, constantly dose on the biggest stages about topics far outside their own sphere of knowledge. The preaching often takes place with a self-confidence and naturalness that can make even the most well-educated of mental trainer Erik Bertand’s disciples blush. As can be seen, I myself am the possessor of omniscient clairvoyance. Occasionally – much to my wife’s dismay – I willingly pour out rather crude assumptions, tentatively camouflaged as truths, to anyone lucky enough to be nearby. I am quite sure that – given time and opportunity – I could solve both the Palestine conflict, the electricity crisis and the war in Ukraine. But unlike more high-profile and randomly chosen omniscients like Trump, Musk and Toje, the sharing of my clairvoyance is limited by a marginal platform and a certain degree of self-regulation. Many of the most high-profile and active omniscients are well-educated and apparently up-and-coming men. It is therefore surprising that they seem so easily able to disregard and drown out supposedly better-founded knowledge, despite the fact that they are far outside their own knowledge and comfort zone. Intuitively, I would have thought that a long time at the university would result in a kind of respect and recognition of other people’s knowledge and expertise, but it may seem that newly discovered life wisdom and the noise of jubilant peers far surpass more prestigious and specialized educational institutions as evidence of knowledge. It is tempting to think that this arrogance may be due to a slightly too literal interpretation of this quote from Scherfig’s formative novel “The Neglected Spring” (1940): “Close your big gap, you whale – spit out your solid knowledge! Don’t hide your knowledge from the rest of us, don’t be stingy and persistent with your learning. Let the rest of us also be allowed to bask in the light of your wisdom!” Don’t get me wrong: It is of course important to question established truths. There are of course examples where some of the omniscient have promoted important and difficult issues. But when the omniscient wonder is absent, and the question marks are almost chemically purged away, their truths – loosely based on life wisdom and algorithmic search engines – become a poor substitute for actual knowledge. When the subsequent debate also mainly takes place on social media – where several of the omniscient have blocked the critical voices – we are no longer talking about a productive exchange of words. The result is quickly the emergence of echo chambers, where differences of opinion and demands for truth are sorely missed.
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