For a deep explanation, see “The Constitution of Knowledge” by Jonathan Rauch.
What the NYT Doesn’t Want to Understand
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:October 30, 2022
- Post category:Cancel Culture / Censorship / Communication / Debate / Free Speech / Media / Orwellian
- Post comments:2 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
Hard disagree on this one. Free exchange of conjecture without any evidence in cases like Paul Pelosi’s does not equal free exchange of “ideas.” There are people who believe anything they read, and act on it – competing “ideas” notwithstanding. (Just one example: the armed guy who showed up ready to liberate kids from the DC pizza parlor basement.) I understand the difficulty in evaluating and verifying evidence, and I don’t have an easy solution for that. But in the current environment where the free exchange of baseless allegations and lies invites and incites violence, a free-for-all “marketplace of ideas” is not tenable. We are not dealing with a fully rational populace conducting considered analyses and genteel debates. I’ll err on the side of my personal safety, and that of other innocents, at the risk of missing an unfounded allegation or two (or a hundred).
And yes, I understand that the media are partly to blame for the current tinderbox environment of mistrust through their selective and biased reporting. But there it is, and it’s reckless to introduce a spark (widespread dissemination of mis- and dis- information) at this point.
I’ll add that I personally know folks who believe claims such as Hillary Clinton was executed some months ago by members of the military loyal to Trump, despite evidence to the contrary, eg her appearances with Chelsea on their tv show (explained away as a masterful deepfake). In these cases—this is but one of many—any contradictory evidence is deemed both incorrect and unpatriotic if it comes from any source other than like-minded social media platforms, websites or podcasts. Then these claims, these “ideas,” are twisted and amplified through the lens of religion — and absolutely nothing can be disproved when the bottom line is that Satan is behind it. I can’t think of a more Dangerous Intersection than that of misinformation and religion.
Understood. Now, who would you put in charge of determining what is true?