There are 5 major lies we were told in the last 8 years and they have undermined just all our trust in our cherished institutions. Victor Davis Hansen articulates them well. They are in no particular order:
5 lies
1. Covid wasn’t a lab leak
2. Biden was fit to serve as president mentally
3. The border couldn’t be controlled without comprehensive immigration reform.
4. Trump colluded with Russia in order to win 2016 election
5. The Hunter Biden laptop was misinformation.
So we lose trust in CDC, FDA, legacy media, FBI,CIA. The common thread was suppression of free speech. That’s why X’s community notes is so much better than an “unbiased “ fact checkers. I trust science but I don’t trust scientists. That’s why Francis Bacon developed the scientific method to keep our biases as far from the research as possible.
Excellent piece. Looking forward to the book. While I generally agree with all of it, I'd like to see some deeper root causes addressed: the turn of academia from knowledge creation to activism, and the similar turn of journalism to activism. Karl Marx may have dismissed traditional philosophy in favor of saving the world (in his view), but is it really a good idea that those entrusted with the discovery and transmission of knowledge to be pushing ideological agendas?
I agree with you for the most part, and your point about activism is absolutely true—Factory schooling never aimed for activism, only conformity at least until recently... but ideology always has been there, and extends into academia in subtle ways. The way we approach research is a prime example. There's a big divide between two main types of research methods: quantitative [using numbers, statistics, and measurable data] and qualitative [focusing on personal experiences, emotions, and subjective interpretations]. This divide reflects ideological assumptions about what counts as valid knowledge and how it should be pursued, which can box disciplines into narrow lanes of acceptable thought. This creates conformity in academic thinking.
The overreliance on qualitative methods, focusing on personal experiences, emotions, and subjective interpretations, is particularly problematic; much of the research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is conducted knowing that it's biased. Instead of addressing this bias, researchers often justify it by saying that other people will come along later to fix it or balance it out. The problem arises when researchers (as often happens lately) try to pass their subjective research as objective truth!. With policy based on this poor research.
On the other hand, quantitative research tries to measure things objectively and prove ideas with numbers and facts. Academics rarely combine both approaches, even though doing so would provide a fuller understanding and get rid of a lot of bad research. It would also create clearer thinking and reasoning skills.
The root of this issue lies in the pervasive ideology that has stifled genuine knowledge gathering and homogenized the academic experience We're entire disciplines only study from one viewpoint instead of mixed methods
This failure to cultivate critical thinking limits the quality of research but stunts intellectual growth of generations of students (Of students that wanted to learn). Since universities are one of the few places where students should be learning these skills, it's a travesty to leave them so ill-equipped—and even worse to leave science dangling without the ability to look for facts over opinion, question assumptions from multiple angles, and generate genuinely original thought. The academic world is poorer for this loss, and society as a whole suffers from the lack of truly independent, critical thinkers capable of addressing complex problems in innovative ways. All because of ideology....
Excellent. As you say they are countless examples of experts and authorities degrading their credibility - the area I personally think of most is the 'expert' denial of the sex binary and that a person cannot change their sex. All ordinary people know this to be true, its part of our very obvious life experiences, like the experience of day and night - and when experts either outright lie or try to twist reality, everyone notices. And it REALLY matters. George Orwell, of course, wrote ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’ This is literally where we are, in so many cases. Its really bad.
I question the assumption that people base their opinions on data or misinformation. People encounter misinformation daily yet often navigate it successfully. The real issue seems to be that many prioritize what feels good over objective truth. Misinformation has infiltrated academia, leading to politicization and undermining societal cohesion. Courses appealing to emotions rather than objective data attract students with a specific mindset, fostering a lack of critical thinking, academic rigor, and higher standards Misinformation can polarize academic debates and influence research agendas, leading to a constrained environment where free inquiry is compromised but those without the ability to see fallacy or change mindset to new data are already compromised.... These students aren't there to learn; they're there to be schooled in what makes them feel good. It's not about believing or data at all—it's purely about validating their emotions and reinforcing what feels right to them, regardless of objective truth or factual information.
Love the fight your both putting in (am more familiar with Greg Lukianoff) but for sure your both worked super hard on this problem over many years, thank goodness for you both! best of luck!! - I guess it's hard....Schools chase enrollment and ratings for funding. Academics avoid controversy to keep jobs. Students weaponize moral outrage for social currency. Genuine learning and open debate are sacrificed for financial security and social status... the perfect storm Anyway, I'm sure you've heard it all before. Thank you again. Thanks for letting me vent XD Best!
A healthy and trustworthy culture of truth seeking is one that separates the work of discerning what is true from the question of what should be done about it-- that is, it separates "is" from "ought" questions. In practice that means that truth seeking activities, like scholarship and journalism, need to be carefully separated from activism. Not because activism is bad, and not because journalists and scholars shouldn't express their opinions on "ought" questions. But because when they try to use their expertise on "is" questions to amplify their "ought" opinions, it just amplifies their biases and erodes trust in the truths they find.
I wrote about this some time ago, and it has only gotten more relevant:
"It’s no exaggeration to say that our current cultural situation is unsustainable."
That definitely is not an exaggeration, if anything it might be an understatement. The level of general distrust between people is crippling the ability for us to bring our overly divided society back together.
In my first year of grad school, one of our professors told us that the best thing you can do is try to prove your theory wrong. This profound bit of advice has stayed with me throughout my entire career.
Isn’t amazing that many of the progressives who complain about (and want to censor) so called misinformation on social media sites like X and Facebook also assert the ridiculous notion that a man can become a woman. Is any statement more a prime example of misinformation than that piece of nonsense?
Thanks for writing this. In my view, the real problem is integrity or modesty, not facts. As the philosopher of science, Hilary Putnam put it, facts are never value-free for humans. Facts don’t stand alone, even mathematical facts, but are contextualized in conversations among people. Even what I take to be the most solid fact of life, that we will all die, turns out to be contested by some humans (throughout centuries) who claim they have found remedies for mortality. No matter what the facts are, as long as we who consider ourselves experts — whether in politics, activism, science, human rights, whatever — retain the awareness of our fallibility, we are will recognize that we need to know or acquaint ourselves with what falls outside our values/knowledge. When it comes to scientific practices, this type of modesty is or should be part of the method. Scientific method investigates hypotheses and establishes paradigms of investigation and inquiry that are acknowledged as temporary. Because all scientific knowledge is human knowledge, even when we have machines to make our perceptions “more accurate,” it is all interpretive and requires conversations among investigators. Everything scientific, everything related to truth, is a long and continuing conversation. Unless we can work with our differences in a way that allows us to have these conversations and unless we embrace the integrity to be interested in our mistakes (which are many and massive), we simply invest in propaganda and delusional at the edges of our inquiries. Humans will always make mistakes. Humans will always need a lot of conversation to establish the domain of truth or facts and humans will always see/hear/feel “reality” from a first-person stance. These are truly facts, in my opinion. And yet, even these will be disputed. Whatever our research methods are, whether they are quantitative or introspective, they require conversations about their validity and findings because human insights fall close to our self-deception. I appreciate the values and tone of your essay and agree with you about the importance of integrity for scientists, activists and all of us. Universities used to be the places where disputes about integrity and truth were held to the highest standards. I hope that reality can return.
In a related note, Nico Perrino (of FIRE) in a So To Speak podcast on John Stuart Mill inspired me to inquire about the source of Mill's use of the expression "the deep slumber of a decided opinion." The source was Arthur Helps.
His first literary effort, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835), was a series of aphorisms upon life, character, politics and manners.[10] One of these aphorisms is quoted by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, Chapter Two: "The Deep slumber of decided opinion."
Mr. Helps had some interesting thoughts and ways of expressing them:
"He who is continually changing his point of view sees more, and more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be." ~ Arthur Helps
Excellent article.
There are 5 major lies we were told in the last 8 years and they have undermined just all our trust in our cherished institutions. Victor Davis Hansen articulates them well. They are in no particular order:
5 lies
1. Covid wasn’t a lab leak
2. Biden was fit to serve as president mentally
3. The border couldn’t be controlled without comprehensive immigration reform.
4. Trump colluded with Russia in order to win 2016 election
5. The Hunter Biden laptop was misinformation.
So we lose trust in CDC, FDA, legacy media, FBI,CIA. The common thread was suppression of free speech. That’s why X’s community notes is so much better than an “unbiased “ fact checkers. I trust science but I don’t trust scientists. That’s why Francis Bacon developed the scientific method to keep our biases as far from the research as possible.
Excellent piece. Looking forward to the book. While I generally agree with all of it, I'd like to see some deeper root causes addressed: the turn of academia from knowledge creation to activism, and the similar turn of journalism to activism. Karl Marx may have dismissed traditional philosophy in favor of saving the world (in his view), but is it really a good idea that those entrusted with the discovery and transmission of knowledge to be pushing ideological agendas?
I agree with you for the most part, and your point about activism is absolutely true—Factory schooling never aimed for activism, only conformity at least until recently... but ideology always has been there, and extends into academia in subtle ways. The way we approach research is a prime example. There's a big divide between two main types of research methods: quantitative [using numbers, statistics, and measurable data] and qualitative [focusing on personal experiences, emotions, and subjective interpretations]. This divide reflects ideological assumptions about what counts as valid knowledge and how it should be pursued, which can box disciplines into narrow lanes of acceptable thought. This creates conformity in academic thinking.
The overreliance on qualitative methods, focusing on personal experiences, emotions, and subjective interpretations, is particularly problematic; much of the research on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is conducted knowing that it's biased. Instead of addressing this bias, researchers often justify it by saying that other people will come along later to fix it or balance it out. The problem arises when researchers (as often happens lately) try to pass their subjective research as objective truth!. With policy based on this poor research.
On the other hand, quantitative research tries to measure things objectively and prove ideas with numbers and facts. Academics rarely combine both approaches, even though doing so would provide a fuller understanding and get rid of a lot of bad research. It would also create clearer thinking and reasoning skills.
The root of this issue lies in the pervasive ideology that has stifled genuine knowledge gathering and homogenized the academic experience We're entire disciplines only study from one viewpoint instead of mixed methods
This failure to cultivate critical thinking limits the quality of research but stunts intellectual growth of generations of students (Of students that wanted to learn). Since universities are one of the few places where students should be learning these skills, it's a travesty to leave them so ill-equipped—and even worse to leave science dangling without the ability to look for facts over opinion, question assumptions from multiple angles, and generate genuinely original thought. The academic world is poorer for this loss, and society as a whole suffers from the lack of truly independent, critical thinkers capable of addressing complex problems in innovative ways. All because of ideology....
Excellent. As you say they are countless examples of experts and authorities degrading their credibility - the area I personally think of most is the 'expert' denial of the sex binary and that a person cannot change their sex. All ordinary people know this to be true, its part of our very obvious life experiences, like the experience of day and night - and when experts either outright lie or try to twist reality, everyone notices. And it REALLY matters. George Orwell, of course, wrote ‘The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.’ This is literally where we are, in so many cases. Its really bad.
I question the assumption that people base their opinions on data or misinformation. People encounter misinformation daily yet often navigate it successfully. The real issue seems to be that many prioritize what feels good over objective truth. Misinformation has infiltrated academia, leading to politicization and undermining societal cohesion. Courses appealing to emotions rather than objective data attract students with a specific mindset, fostering a lack of critical thinking, academic rigor, and higher standards Misinformation can polarize academic debates and influence research agendas, leading to a constrained environment where free inquiry is compromised but those without the ability to see fallacy or change mindset to new data are already compromised.... These students aren't there to learn; they're there to be schooled in what makes them feel good. It's not about believing or data at all—it's purely about validating their emotions and reinforcing what feels right to them, regardless of objective truth or factual information.
Indeed. We say as much in the piece!
Love the fight your both putting in (am more familiar with Greg Lukianoff) but for sure your both worked super hard on this problem over many years, thank goodness for you both! best of luck!! - I guess it's hard....Schools chase enrollment and ratings for funding. Academics avoid controversy to keep jobs. Students weaponize moral outrage for social currency. Genuine learning and open debate are sacrificed for financial security and social status... the perfect storm Anyway, I'm sure you've heard it all before. Thank you again. Thanks for letting me vent XD Best!
A healthy and trustworthy culture of truth seeking is one that separates the work of discerning what is true from the question of what should be done about it-- that is, it separates "is" from "ought" questions. In practice that means that truth seeking activities, like scholarship and journalism, need to be carefully separated from activism. Not because activism is bad, and not because journalists and scholars shouldn't express their opinions on "ought" questions. But because when they try to use their expertise on "is" questions to amplify their "ought" opinions, it just amplifies their biases and erodes trust in the truths they find.
I wrote about this some time ago, and it has only gotten more relevant:
https://futuremoreperfect.substack.com/p/saving-the-world-by-separating-ought
We need to reclaim the idea of being wrong.
My experience has shown me that the first and most important thing is to admit when I've been wrong,, then everything follows after that.
Yes, absolutely.
"It’s no exaggeration to say that our current cultural situation is unsustainable."
That definitely is not an exaggeration, if anything it might be an understatement. The level of general distrust between people is crippling the ability for us to bring our overly divided society back together.
In my first year of grad school, one of our professors told us that the best thing you can do is try to prove your theory wrong. This profound bit of advice has stayed with me throughout my entire career.
It might be too late.
The people that the expert class lied to want the expert class defunded and unemployed now. The anger is palpable.
Nailed.
Woah, you read FAST!
This is one of the ones I read as soon as it appears in my inbox.
Outstanding piece!
Isn’t amazing that many of the progressives who complain about (and want to censor) so called misinformation on social media sites like X and Facebook also assert the ridiculous notion that a man can become a woman. Is any statement more a prime example of misinformation than that piece of nonsense?
Thanks for writing this. In my view, the real problem is integrity or modesty, not facts. As the philosopher of science, Hilary Putnam put it, facts are never value-free for humans. Facts don’t stand alone, even mathematical facts, but are contextualized in conversations among people. Even what I take to be the most solid fact of life, that we will all die, turns out to be contested by some humans (throughout centuries) who claim they have found remedies for mortality. No matter what the facts are, as long as we who consider ourselves experts — whether in politics, activism, science, human rights, whatever — retain the awareness of our fallibility, we are will recognize that we need to know or acquaint ourselves with what falls outside our values/knowledge. When it comes to scientific practices, this type of modesty is or should be part of the method. Scientific method investigates hypotheses and establishes paradigms of investigation and inquiry that are acknowledged as temporary. Because all scientific knowledge is human knowledge, even when we have machines to make our perceptions “more accurate,” it is all interpretive and requires conversations among investigators. Everything scientific, everything related to truth, is a long and continuing conversation. Unless we can work with our differences in a way that allows us to have these conversations and unless we embrace the integrity to be interested in our mistakes (which are many and massive), we simply invest in propaganda and delusional at the edges of our inquiries. Humans will always make mistakes. Humans will always need a lot of conversation to establish the domain of truth or facts and humans will always see/hear/feel “reality” from a first-person stance. These are truly facts, in my opinion. And yet, even these will be disputed. Whatever our research methods are, whether they are quantitative or introspective, they require conversations about their validity and findings because human insights fall close to our self-deception. I appreciate the values and tone of your essay and agree with you about the importance of integrity for scientists, activists and all of us. Universities used to be the places where disputes about integrity and truth were held to the highest standards. I hope that reality can return.
In a related note, Nico Perrino (of FIRE) in a So To Speak podcast on John Stuart Mill inspired me to inquire about the source of Mill's use of the expression "the deep slumber of a decided opinion." The source was Arthur Helps.
His first literary effort, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd (1835), was a series of aphorisms upon life, character, politics and manners.[10] One of these aphorisms is quoted by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, Chapter Two: "The Deep slumber of decided opinion."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Helps
See also https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Helps (with more detail).
Mr. Helps had some interesting thoughts and ways of expressing them:
"He who is continually changing his point of view sees more, and more clearly, than one who, statue-like, forever stands upon the same pedestal; however lofty and well-placed that pedestal may be." ~ Arthur Helps
Very well said. You put into words many things I have been thinking in recent months.