Il deficit that should deprive us of sleep it is not so much, or not only, that of public finance.
It is a deficit that lurks in our heads and is spreading like the plague thanks to social media, a deficit from which we all suffer a bit, and especially the current rulers. Is called "metacognitive deficit”. Tom Nichols explains it well in the book Knowledge and its enemies. The age of incompetence and the risks for democracy, published in Italy by Luiss University Press.
La metacognition is a “key skill” and consists in the "ability to know when one is not good at something, to take a step back, observe what one is doing and thus realize that one is doing it badly". It is the concept of the "docta ignorantia", the "I know I don't know" of Socrates, dear to Popper.
Good singers know when they're out of tune, talented directors know when a movie scene doesn't work, serious doctors know when a medicine is ineffective. Anyone who knows nothing about music, cinema or medicine does not have this ability. When an expert and an ignoramus are confronted, continues Nichols, a vicious circle sets in: “People who don't know much about a certain subject don't understand when they are dealing with an expert on that subject. A dispute arises, but those who have no idea how to set up a logical reasoning do not realize when they are unable to do it. In short words, the expert feels frustrated and the layman insulted. Everyone leaves angry."
The more obtuse and incompetent you are, the more you are convinced that you are not. Two Cornell University sociologists carried out a survey, asking a sample of respondents if they knew some concepts of physics or biology, such as "photon" or "centripetal force". But in the questionnaire they also put non-existent terms such as "parallax, ultra-lipid or cholarin plates". And many have fallen into the trap, boasting of knowing perfectly well what it was. Another poll showed that the American citizens most in favor of a military intervention in Ukraine are those who can't even place Ukraine on the map.
And then we are amazed that a minister who graduated from the technical institute would allow herself to retort an economist of international caliber with jokes like "This she says”, or “But you are joking!”. Or that having seen some fake vaccine videos is considered sufficient qualification to give lessons to an illustrious immunologist. mind you, the "metacognitive deficit" does not afflict only the ignorant: even people of great intellectual stature suffer from it. The late Giovanni Sartori, who taught us the foundations of political science, wrote late in life essays and leading articles on climate and demography, topics on which, to be generous, he was not exactly an expert. But a Sartori can also be forgiven for some trespassing. The ex-deejays who want to reform the judicial system, or the ex-drink sellers who pontificate on the labor market and the spread, cannot invoke extenuating circumstances.
"Metacognition" should become a compulsory subject in schools, and even more in public and private universities (I am thinking in particular of Link University, which apparently has become the forge of the pentastellata elite). But some crash courses would also be useful for talk-show hosts, who would stop inviting to broadcast the metadeficients, or metacognitive deficients.
From the competent ones you have to be careful (it also rhymes) especially in politics and in economics, they often do as the faithless partners tell half-truths and try to place the rip-off or their opinion, whether or not they take sides, while often the ignorant understand the rip-off but …. she can't take it apart and gets angry!!!