On the night of June 27, 1954, Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz resigned from office. Árbenz was worn thin. A paltry, United States-backed “liberation army” was sweeping the Guatemalan countryside, but the Guatemalan army feared retaliation from the U.S. marines and refused to fight. Diplomatic resolutions seemed best against a military giant like the U.S., but the United Nations’ Security Council, at the U.S.’ behest, refused to hear Guatemala’s plight. Local support was also scarce. Árbenz’ agrarian reform angered the upper class, and rumors of U.S. marines along the Caribbean coast snuffed hope of a civilian army.

For what reasons had the U.S. intervened? “They have taken the pretext of Communism,” Árbenz declared in his resignation speech. “The truth is elsewhere — in financial interests of the United Fruit Company and other U.S. firms that have invested much in Guatemala.”

Beliefs Motivate Action

Why the U.S. intervened in Guatemala remains a question without historical consensus. But, your chosen explanation enables a constellation of political beliefs — and that's why it's my favorite historical event! For example, if you believe the U.S. intervened to protect its economic interests, you might also believe

• The U.S. is an economically imperialist country;

• The U.S. is controlled by corporate powers;

• And in the efficacy of radical action compared to electoral politics.

If, however, you believe the U.S. intervened to protect its Cold War security and idealogical interests, you might also believe

• The U.S. should prioritize national interests over other countries’ sovereign interests;

• The U.S. needs a strong military as an instrument for foreign policy objectives;

• And in the efficacy of unilateral, American intervention compared to multilateral, allied intervention.

Of course, you’d be ridiculous to adopt any of these beliefs based only on your explanation for the Guatemalan coup d’état. You’re (likely) not an expert!

But, people do glean the above beliefs from their surface-level engagement with the event, and these beliefs determine their engagement with political discourse and electoral politics. I’d know — I was one of them.

Criteria for Satisfaction

People ground their beliefs and actions in their interpretations of historical events, but history moves fast today. For example, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, for many reasons, is a historical event.

When interpreting such events, we satisfice. We seek information until we think we’ve learned “enough” for our needs.

But, most of us are laypeople — not historians. Most aren’t economists, sociologists, or medical professionals either. Our criteria for satisfaction won’t be the same as experts’, but that criteria determines what we believe and do.

We must demand more than a layperson’s criteria for satisfaction. Everyday, we’re confronted with information demanding expert criteria of satisfaction, but we have to make an interpretation as laypeople. We need good practices for creating and evaluating knowledge — good epistemic practices.

We Need Epistemic Expertise

However, we need expert expertise today and tomorrow. Our schools and universities must cultivate epistemic expertise in tomorrow’s generation. Models for expert epistemic practice have been proposed by civic educators and learning scientists, but teaching it is complicated by:

• Disagreement factors: We can’t just tell learners the “correct” information and neglect their prior beliefs, values, and criteria for satisfaction, as information scientists Hodel and West have argued in their 2024 pre-print.

• Learners’ preconceptions: We can’t just lecture the “right” epistemic practices, either, and neglect learners’ robust but unproductive conceptions of science or research, which education researchers have repeatedly observed.

• Continuity of expertise: We can’t just replace learners’ unproductive conceptions with the right ones, either, and neglect how their preconceptions support the development of expertise, as argued by Smith, diSessa, and Roschelle in their seminal 1993 paper.

• Feasibility: We can’t just carve out yet another required subject in K–12 or higher education, nor would we want epistemic expertise to be separated from how learners’ think in STEM or the liberal arts.

None of this makes cultivating learners’ epistemologies impossible — it just makes it a good research problem! But, it’s a problem needing solutions yesterday. Our media environment is here to stay, and people want to know about science, society, and politics today.

What will you do about it?