By David Kennedy
It is common now for elites to decry the advent of “post-truth” politics. The desire for better mechanisms to root out error and falsehood in political life, or to empower more trustworthy experts, is understandable. That said, I offer a few qualifications. [1]
Worry about false facts creeping into governance is somewhat of an “inside the establishment” problem. When we, as rulers and participants in the great global established order worry about the role of, say, “science” in “policy,” we are also congratulating ourselves, our habits and institutions for normally being rational, objective, reasonable, and procedurally sound machinery to identify and implement pragmatic action in the public interest. As if this – let’s call it “policy” — were normally what government does.
Not rent-seeking or nest feathering; not reinforcing some private interests against others; not reinforcing inequality or consolidating social power while managing dissent; not managing an entertainment spectacle or providing material for allegorical morality tales. Policy.
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