Historians and Experts

In the essay I quoted the other day, the social sciences were linked to the idea of 'expertise'. In this context, I think that means preparedness to offer specific, authoritative explanations, and perhaps solutions, to problems that an audience is interested in; in other words, an expert is the plumber you call in to look at your pipes. This may not be quite a fair on social scientists, but it does seem to be the model of the new approach to academic funding, based on measurable impact. Hence, Zizek in the New Left Review:

Underlying these reforms is the urge to subordinate higher education to the task of solving society's concrete problems through the production of expert opinions. What disappears here is the true task of thinking: not only to offer solutions to problems posed by 'society' - in reality, state and capital - but to reflect on the very form of these problems; to discern a problem in the very way we perceive a problem.

A further question might be, what is the real purpose or necessity of the 'expert' opinions produced, or meant to be produced, by the machinery of the academy? On one hand, is it not to add the gloss of 'expertise' to policies already formulated in advance? And on the other, is it not the patched-together nostrum of a desperate effort to defend and justify that very machinery (and at the same time fight for privilege within it)? As Zizek's formulation implies, academics must embrace a far more radical task if they are to find a genuine justification for themselves.