| Description |
1 online resource (viii, 305 pages) |
| Contents |
1 "A terrible statement unless he gets away with it": Chaos and conformity have caused an epistemic crisis -- 2 The state of nature: tribal truth: Bias, groupthink, and the epistemic war of all against all -- 3 Booting reality: the rise of networked knowledge: Outsourcing reality to a social network is humankind's greatest innovation -- 4 The constitution of knowledge: The operating system of the reality-based community -- 5 Disinformation technology: the challenge of digital media: Making the online world truth-friendly is difficult but doable -- 6 Troll epistemology: "flood the zone with shit": Disinformation is an old enemy with new weapons and powerful friends -- 7 Canceling: despotism of the few: Coercive conformity is corrupting the reality-based community -- 8 Unmute yourself: pushing back: Defending the Constitution of Knowledge requires confidence and counter-mobilization |
| Summary |
Disinformation. Trolling. Conspiracies. Social media pile-ons. Campus intolerance. On the surface, these recent additions to our daily vocabulary appear to have little in common. But together, they are driving an epistemic crisis: a multi-front challenge to America's ability to distinguish fact from fiction and elevate truth above falsehood. In 2016 Russian trolls and bots nearly drowned the truth in a flood of fake news and conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump and his troll armies continued to do the same. Social media companies struggled to keep up with a flood of falsehoods, and too often didn't even seem to try. Experts and some public officials began wondering if society was losing its grip on truth itself. Meanwhile, another new phenomenon appeared: "cancel culture." At the push of a button, those armed with a cellphone could gang up by the thousands on anyone who ran afoul of their sanctimony. In this pathbreaking book, Jonathan Rauch reaches back to the parallel eighteenth-century developments of liberal democracy and science to explain what he calls the "Constitution of Knowledge"--our social system for turning disagreement into truth. By explicating the Constitution of Knowledge and probing the war on reality, Rauch arms defenders of truth with a clearer understanding of what they must protect, why they must do--and how they can do it. His book is a sweeping and readable description of how every American can help defend objective truth and free inquiry from threats as far away as Russia and as close as the cellphone |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based upon print version of record |
| Subject |
Truthfulness and falsehood.
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Truth -- Political aspects
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Information literacy.
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Disinformation.
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Social media -- Political aspects
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Fake news -- United States -- 21st century
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Social epistemology.
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Knowledge, Sociology of.
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Media literacy.
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Cancel culture -- United States -- 21st century
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Censorship -- United States
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Freedom of speech.
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sociology of knowledge.
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Cancel culture
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Censorship
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Disinformation
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Fake news
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Freedom of speech
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Information literacy
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Intellectual life
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Knowledge, Sociology of
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Media literacy
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Social epistemology
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Social media -- Political aspects
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Truthfulness and falsehood
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| SUBJECT |
United States -- Intellectual life -- 21st century
|
| Subject |
United States
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9780815738879 |
|
0815738870 |
|
