Facts produced by experts and technocrats simply do not capture lived reality for many people

Interview at The Economist with Will Davies, author of Nervous States.

Mr Davies argues that in pursuit of reason, European countries founded an intellectual architecture that largely survives to this day; the numerous Royal Societies, academies of science, universities, learned journals and newspapers (such as The Economist, launched in 1843) that codified knowledge and developed what came to be known as logico-deductive modes of reasoning.
The high priests of these institutions were “experts”, and, as Mr Davies, writes, “their ability to keep feelings separate from their observations was one of their distinguishing traits.” In public life still, he writes, “an accusation of being emotional traditionally carries the implication that someone has lost objectivity and given way to irrational forces.”
But for a variety of reasons, some medical/scientific, some sociological and others political, neat distinctions between reason and feelings have broken down. As Mr Davies argues in his book, “Experts and facts no longer seem capable of settling arguments to the extent that they once did.”...

...Mr Davies argues, convincingly, that one reason for this is that, for all its impressive data collection and sophisticated modelling and analysis, “the facts produced by experts and technocrats simply do not capture lived reality for many people”. He attributes this largely to rising inequality in the West...