A number of years ago a couple we know well visited us, and the talk briefly turned to music. Now, as some readers know, my wife is a former opera singer who’s also taught music on the collegiate level for over fifty years, and who diligently keeps current on developments, techniques, and new works and new findings about old ones. The visitors were both professionals with graduate degrees, one in finance, the other in computer science, certainly well-educated in their fields. But they made a number of assertions about music that were, shall we say, less than well-founded, but became almost confrontational when my wife pointed out that what they believed wasn’t in accord with what most music scholars believed.

My wife, being well behaved, did not persist, but said after they left, “I’d never dream of impugning their statements about finance or computers, let alone be that insistent.” What she didn’t say was that we both knew they’d be outraged if she’d done the same to them.

Just because someone is an expert in a field, or perhaps two or three, doesn’t mean that they’re experts in everything, or that their judgment about matters outside their expertise is anywhere close to comparable to what they know in their own field. But in the arts and in fields where most people have some limited knowledge beyond their recognized expertise, such as writing, the environment, education, and politics, I’ve found that far too many highly educated individuals are woefully ignorant and refuse to realize it, let alone admit it, and often pontificate inaccurately even when their knowledge is limited and/or inaccurate – and then get offended when corrected.

Part of this comes from the belief many people have that because they went through school, they’re experts in education, or because they play an instrument or sing, they’re experts on music, or because they follow politics, they’re political experts. Or because they’re experts in their field, they’re experts in all fields.

Another part occurs because people have a tendency to believe that what they like is good or excellent, whether it is or not and often feel that what they believe is correct even when facts show otherwise.

Part of it is also because knowledge in many fields becomes dated, more quickly than ever before in human history, and even older experts in a field, unless they keep up to date, may not be aware of recent advances or discoveries. (Fear of becoming dated is why I subscribe to and read a wide range of periodicals dealing with science, avionics, economics, environment, politics, archaeology, and history).

But then, since when has ignorance ever stopped anyone from revealing it?

The other day I was talking to one of my children about some of the problems high school students have in applying and getting into the better colleges. While I’d heard some of this from what my wife the college professor has told me, it’s clear that times have definitely changed from when we applied for college. Back then, anyone who had a straight A average, near perfect SAT scores, was a National Merit Scholar, and had a range of other activities or outstanding achievement in one particular field, often athletics of some sort, could usually get into one of the more demanding colleges. Today, that simply isn’t enough.

Without perfect or near perfect scores on advanced math or science courses, or other demanding subjects, and test scores to back those up, without intellectually demanding outside activities, and without an overall perfect presentation on essays and questionnaires, the “merely” highly intelligent student will have a hard time impressing elite schools.

But, as I thought it over, I realized the college-seeking- and-acceptance process was just another facet of the “brave new world” in which those in the high-tech cultures of the world live. No longer is great expertise in a field – any field – enough for success. Expertise must be presented expertly and with great appeal, often with great visual appearance as well. And, in too many cases, the visual and personal appeal greatly outweigh the expertise.

My wife has seen this transformation in the world of opera. Once, a singer with a great voice and less than great physical beauty could be a star – but there hasn’t been a star diva who isn’t also close to a beauty in the last two decades, and few of the recent divas have lasted all that long compared to their predecessors.

In the popular music area, I don’t doubt that Taylor Swift can sing; but there are many singers who sing as well or better, and some of them are doubtless as attractive as Swift. What they don’t have is the strength of overall presentation.

And sometimes, the presentation is so appealing that no one seems to notice its flaws, as in the crypto-currency fraud perpetrated by Sam Bankman-Fried with his FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

Donald Trump is an outstanding performance and presentation artist, so much so that he can get away with lies, crimes, and criminal charges, although he’s done far less constructively than Joe Biden. Despite Biden’s greater achievements and lack of documented evidence of wrongdoing, almost half the USA prefers the Trump presentation to the Biden presentation.

So, I have to ask, “How’s this Presentation World thing working out for you?”

One of our Founding Fathers, John Adams, said that a republic was “a nation of laws, not of men,” meaning that men were not above the law.

And for generations, politicians and others have claimed that a distinction of the United States was that we are a nation of laws, and that no one is above the law.

Yet today, we have a former president asserting that, as president, he was and is above the law.

Legal scholars, some of them quite conservative, have also charged that Trump cannot be president again, because the presidency is forbidden to him by the wording of the Fourteenth Amendment, which declares that no one who has taken an oath to the United States and then betrayed it by taking part in an insurrection can hold public office.

Both these issues are being appealed and will likely come before the Supreme Court.

Trump supporters and populists are opposing limits on Trump, primarily on the grounds that the application of these laws would deprive the American people of a free choice.

What this “free choice” argument means, make no mistake about it, is that any man popular enough to gain great support is above the law.

Now, the Supreme Court may issue a weasel-worded opinion allowing Trump to run for President, or create a narrow exemption for him, but such an opinion, however worded, is simply an endorsement of power over law.

The Trumpists will come up with legal contortions to deny that, but the fact remains that Trump created an insurrection in an attempt to overturn a free and fair election.

They may also claim that Biden is “corrupt,” but so far, there is no evidence to prove that. More important, even if Biden were corrupt, that has no bearing in law on whether Trump should be allowed to seek the presidency again.

Also, Trump has already been convicted of sexual assault and defamation. He has also been found guilty of tax evasion and fraud. And he faces four indictments and ninety criminal charges. Equally important, he’s already stated that he’ll set aside the Constitution if it gets in the way of what he wants to do.

He has built a campaign on denying the laws, and vilifying those who want to hold him legally accountable… and gaining greater and greater popularity and power through those continuing lies.

The question before the Supreme Court is rather simple.

Will we continue as a nation of laws, however imperfectly? Or become one based solely on power and lies?

There are certainly books that deserve a one-star reader review, but there’s one phenomenon that I find amusing in a cynical way. That’s when more than ninety percent of the hundreds or thousands of reader reviews of a book are four or five stars and the one star-reviews barely register.

All of that suggests to me, in such instances, that the handful or less of readers who post one-star reviews not only don’t get the fact that the book isn’t one-star bad, but they’re screaming in print that no matter what the universe says, that their opinion is the only one that counts. That’s true in the sense that their opinion is all that matters to them.

But why post a one-star rating or review that suggests, not that the book is bad, but far more that the author didn’t do what you wanted?

No author does what every reader wants. Some authors come closer than others, and some authors who are critically acclaimed can be a sales disaster. One award-winning author published a SF novel with a 98% return rate, according to the late David Hartwell, who definitely knew. That makes The Green Progression, my worst-selling book, look like a best-seller in comparison, even if comparisons are odious, a phrase that has been around since 1440, and has been joyfully pirated by Cervantes, Marlow, Dunne, and, of course, Shakespeare.

But then, despite their insidious and often overwhelming presence in our electronic society, ratings are all too often overrated. Of the 50 highest rated books on Goodreads with more than 10,000 ratings, 39 (if I counted correctly) are part of a series of some sort. Most are genre books of some sort. And what does that indicate? Only that people rate what they like as excellent, which means that ratings are indeed excellent for determining what people like, but far less valuable for determining any form of excellence besides popular appeal.

But then, that’s why I’ve found that some highly-reader-rated books left me cold enough that I never finished them. Unfortunately, I’ve found a number of books with great reviews from critics that I only finished through sheet willpower.

Here’s a letter I’d like to send, but which I’ll just post, because it will have the same impact. That is, no impact at all.

Dear Media –

Would you please stop giving Donald Trump moment-to-moment continuous campaign exposure?

Are you so stupid to think that all your negative coverage of Trump is doing anything but boosting his image – or perhaps we’re stupid in believing that you’re interested in presenting the news rather than obsessed with gathering every last viewer and every last penny of advertising revenue, regardless of the effect on the nation… and likely the world.

Like every bully, Trump’s reveling in the attention, and every attack results in more voters and more donations.

You’ve even aired shows describing that effect, but you keep up attacking and analyzing, as if that would do anything. The only thing that would have any possible effect would be a Trump news blackout or brief bulletins saying, “Trump Made Another Legal Motion Just Like All the Others.”

But you’ll keep on, regardless of the consequences, and I won’t even be able to tell you that I told you so, because once he becomes President, he’ll likely abolish you as Fake News, unless you can fawn enough to become his de facto ministry of propaganda.

Sincerely,

What made me think about this was something my publisher, Tom Doherty, told me more than twenty-five years ago, when I worried about a not-so-good review one of my books had gotten.

He said, “There’s no such thing as a bad review. Even bad reviews increase sales. The attention helps.”

For years, I had my doubts, but Donald Trump has proved that Tom Doherty was right.