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crackel's review
5.0
An incredibly topical book that relates to our current predicament surrounding free speech, cancel culture and maintaining sanity within the reality-based world despite the ceaseless attempts to muddy the waters with unfathomable amounts of disinformation. The rules outlined by Jonathan Rauch that define the constitution of knowledge are ones that all of us should strive to incorporate in our daily life. Take that extra second before giving into that instant gratification of jumping in to support this side or that side and decide if the reality of the situation aligns with true knowledge rather than driven by emotion and bias.
Highly recommend this book to everyone interested in these types of topics. Books that delve into the different perspectives of various situations have never been more crucial.
Highly recommend this book to everyone interested in these types of topics. Books that delve into the different perspectives of various situations have never been more crucial.
xavierbonilla's review
5.0
This is essential reading for 2021. Rauch does an excellent job pulling from political theory, philosophy, and social psychology to understand the challenges of our time. His concept, Constitution of knowledge, is juxtaposed with the US constitution in how we conceptualize a standard for truth in our society. In the spirit of the enlightenment, Rauch dares us all to not abandon our true liberal values and to push forward through the culture wars with courage. One of the best books I have read this year!
inquiry_from_an_anti_library's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Is This An Overview?
Knowledge is a communal process, a journey, rather than a destination. To find each other’s errors, then correct them. To discard ideas that have been disconfirmed. The constitution of knowledge is meant to provide guidance on how to handle differences of perspectives. Viewpoint diversity is needed, with each claim going through challenges and accommodation to enable a social convergence. To hear different viewpoints, requires tolerance of a contentious intellectual culture. Making claims and validating ideas without personal attacks, and without anyone having a final say. Not even personal authority can validate claims, as everyone is fallible. The constitution of knowledge creates an epistemic environment where people are protected, but their ideas are not.
While the constitution of knowledge is meant to enable society to have better information, society can face an epistemic crisis in which the quality and sources of information have been degraded. As people are not able to tell the difference between truth and falsehood. Some ways that information can be degraded is through ideological tribalism, trolling, and canceling. An epistemic crisis comes about when people attack the informational environment, not just people or facts.
Humans are social animals that depend not on forming true beliefs, but beliefs that lead to social success. What matters is what the group believes. As people want to belong to a tribe, there is a willingness to purposefully interpret information incorrectly, to protect the tribe. Internet trolls confuse and disrupt, while cancelers coerce. Rather than seek to improve the knowledge base, trolls weaponize outrage to capture attention which demobilizes people through demoralization. Cancelers signal tribal support, by expressing public outrage that is meant to isolate and intimidate the opposition rather than provide fair criticism. Through attacks on epistemic sources, viewpoint diversity has become endangered.
What Is Knowledge And The Effect Biases?
Certainty might be sought after, but certainty is not compatible with knowledge. Alternatively there is fallibilism, that any belief is to be discarded when there is experience against them. With fallibilism, uncertainty is ubiquitous but obtaining knowledge is still possible. Knowledge is always provisional. Fallibilist search for errors, as disconfirmation can be found. What remains by removing the errors, is the best available knowledge.
It is through the communal process of error correction that each scientist’s biases can be limited. Scientists are biased, and they might not recognize their own biases, but they can spot other people’s biases. By having different biases, each scientist can see the mistakes of the others.
What Is The Constitution Of Knowledge?
The constitution of knowledge is meant to compel and organize social negotiation. To accept challenges to claims, and seek to compromise or accommodate. To be resilient and innovate without the system breaking down. Competition with belief systems provides a need to compromise them.
Constitution of knowledge does not require people to agree on facts. It requires people with different views towards social convergence. Real intellectual pluralism and viewpoint diversity need to be actively sought for. Agreement on ideas is not viewpoint diversity.
Reality-based (error-seeking) communities are accountable to each other, not a higher authority. There is a separation between the idea and the person. Ideas can be attacked, but not the character of the person.
The constitution of knowledge has commitments to fallibilism, objectivity, exclusivity, disconfirmation, and accountability. There is also an internal value of epistemic conscience of not selecting favorable data or hiding unfavorable data. Fallibilism is about accepting being wrong. Objectivity is about the empirical rule, that people are interchangeable. Exclusivity is about using the constitutions rules for objectivity. Disconfirmation is needed to challenge claims rather than just confirm already accepted claims. Accountability is about making mistakes acceptable, not to punish them too harshly.
How Tribal identity Effects Intelligence And Intelligence Effects Tribal Identity?
People defer to their tribes for beliefs and attitudes. Groups establish a shared perception of reality. People are tribal and change their belief system to the tribe’s views, to prevent a loss of social reputation and group identity. Evolutionary habituated to defend the group’s ideas, to prevent alienation from the group. When the group’s values are threatened, people interpret evidence incorrectly to protect the group.
Reason does not override group identity. Group solidarity creates ideological conflict. Creating epistemic tribalism. People publicly conform to information they privately know is false. Totalitarian regimes require everyone to pretend to believe ideas, that they know privately to be false. Ideological tribes believe that only one side can prevail, requiring the destruction of the other side’s political force.
With neutral data that is not part of an ideological background, a person can interpret data well. But when data is shown to be about a passionate topic attached to an ideological background, the person interprets the data based on ideological background. Emotionally charged issues enable the exploitation and manipulation of people. Although emotions rationalize political loyalties, people claim that policy views were formed through reason.
More intelligent people were better able to interpret neutral data, but had more biased interpretations for the passionate topics. Intelligence enables people to better rationalize false beliefs. Intelligence does not necessarily make people open-minded, or self-critical thinking. Motivated reasoning weaponized intelligence against reality. Seeing others as a wrong, while not seeing the individual as biased.
How Epistemic Crisis Are Formed?
Journalists are meant to seek accuracy, obtain a comment from the target, consider varied viewpoints, among other factors to avoid a conflict of interest. There are times when the news are wrong and therefore retract the entries. Errors are meant to signal integrity, but those attacking information see error correction as proof of corruption.
Digital media reverses the social incentives of the reality-based community. Rather than slowing down information flow by reviewing and testing before sharing, digital media favors instantaneity and impulsivity. Anonymity makes people lose accountability and become sociopathic. Misinformation tends to be more inflammatory and shared then boring reality. Digital media promotes ad hominem attacks rather than marginalizes them. Digital media attacks the person rather than the idea.
For internet trolls, the point is capturing attention, rather than the quality of the content. Troll epistemology is destructive. It does not create knowledge, trust, or settle disagreements. What troll epistemology does is reduce the information environment of reality-based communities. Propaganda creates the condition in which people cannot tell the difference between truth and falsehood, or even methods of distinguishing between them. Demoralization is a source of political power, as it demobilizes people. Demotivating people to feel helpless, that they cannot change anything, that there is no alternative to the totalitarian regime.
Cancelers do not even read the content that they are canceling. What canceling is about is signaling support for their group rather than any targeted idea or person. Cancel campaigns are meant to isolate, intimidate, and demoralize rather than provide fair criticism. While criticism wants to influence through rational persuasion. Canceling is propaganda warfare that shapes the informational battlefield against knowledge.
Emotional safetyism is problematic as it prevents having conversations about ideas that makes people feel unsafe. Turing all experiences into threats. Creates conflict through perpetual anger. While reality-based community rewards challenging claims, safety-based community rewards emotional demonstrations that hinder challengers. Rather than preventing harmful ideas, they enabling harmful ideas. Enabling a censorship of every idea and person. Creating conditions for self-censorship through norm police, has the consequence of building resentment that becomes expressed by voting for a demagogue.
Caveats?
There is an idealism about science, about error correcting systems. As error correcting is a community function, there is a conflict between the ideal outcomes and group dynamics. The referenced tribal biases, and weaponizing intelligence against reality. The focus is on the ideal outcomes, the benefits of error correcting, while not referencing the potential consequences of error correcting. Skepticism about information is needed for error correcting, but skepticism can be misused. Troll epistemic attacks leverage uncertainty and turn it against the community. Creating the referenced epistemic crisis of not knowing what information to trust.
The author’s claims about tribal biases, causing people to confirm ideas favorable to the tribe while disregard ideas unfavorable to the tribe. Tribal biases effect the author as well. The author is a journalist, and in this book fought for journalistic integrity. The author and many journalists might have integrity, but not every journalist. The author defends news making retractions after an error, and how journalists are fact based. The problem is that published news tend to be viewed way more than the retractions, therefore the errors are not actually corrected for the public. Journalists might be fact based, but they can deliver some facts while avoiding other facts which changes how the information is interpretated.
The author blames social media with quick spread of information, and misinformation. Being quick to spread means not being able to check and validate the information as much as the slower news mediums. The problem is that the slower news are not ideal either.
In part, the author makes the case that personal authority is antagonistic to knowledge development. But then the author wants professionalism and institutionalism which enable an authority, even as they are described as being without. Disapproves of amateurs, but that is contradictory to the claims of error correcting. People start as amateurs and then improve themselves through error correcting.
kevinm56's review
4.0
This book made an impression on me. Rauch starts by describing the problems. He points out the importance of institutions and gatekeepers -- while far from perfect they did set up rules, guidelines and standards for publishing news. I also liked his explanation of why the internet and social media, as currently configured, is perfectly set up to spread misinformation as opposed to fact-checked news. Social media is all about what's popular, what can go viral. The more shocking, the more emotional posts get spread. Fact-based reality is boring by comparison and doesn't generate near the click and likes.
Rauch spends a chapter each on trolls (those who make up and distribute misinformation) and cancelers (those who limit free speech). I had some inkling of cancel culture, mostly through the lens of publishing and screenwriting, but I learned it's far worse in academia.
My only criticism concerns the final chapter. The final chapter is about how to fight back, and Rauch spends 95% of the chapter discussing how to resist cancel culture and not near enough time about combatting the scourge of trolls.
Rauch spends a chapter each on trolls (those who make up and distribute misinformation) and cancelers (those who limit free speech). I had some inkling of cancel culture, mostly through the lens of publishing and screenwriting, but I learned it's far worse in academia.
My only criticism concerns the final chapter. The final chapter is about how to fight back, and Rauch spends 95% of the chapter discussing how to resist cancel culture and not near enough time about combatting the scourge of trolls.
shc's review against another edition
3.0
Rauch grabs on to the Enlightenment (and libertarian) notion of a "marketplace of ideas" and stretches it way, way out to imagine a bazaar of reality-based, cooperative minds dedicated to the pursuit of truth and bound by rules of reasoning and collaboration, which steers and governs our horde of cultural truths.
He wavers between assuming that such a thing already exists, and assuming it could exist if only a new Madison would emerge, but intellectual instead of political, to institute rules ensuring effective checks and balances.
Rauch does two things well; he lays out a concise summary of the epistemological and historical foundations of the Enlightenment, the intellectual framework where his notion of knowledge is firmly rooted and he describes thoroughly and in detail how the intellectual environment is degraded by "troll culture" and "cancel culture". He accurately assigns them to the political right and the political left but fails to emphasize that these are techniques of the exercise of power and so can be taken up by anyone.
He loses me, though, in his assumption that this marketplace could ever arise, and if it did that it would be any less corrupt, unjust, and dominated by the powerful as any other market. I'm not convinced a set of rules would emerge to regulate this marketplace, even if it were to come about.
I disliked the long-running, and I mean beginning-to-end, riff on Plato's Thataetus dialog. It's an annoying stylistic device that falls flat because Plato doesn't resonate in our 21st century culture enough to carry a narrative and I found the references intrusive and far too precious.
Credit for his invoking C. S. Peirce, a greatly under-appreciated American philosopher, is built-in to my rating.
He wavers between assuming that such a thing already exists, and assuming it could exist if only a new Madison would emerge, but intellectual instead of political, to institute rules ensuring effective checks and balances.
Rauch does two things well; he lays out a concise summary of the epistemological and historical foundations of the Enlightenment, the intellectual framework where his notion of knowledge is firmly rooted and he describes thoroughly and in detail how the intellectual environment is degraded by "troll culture" and "cancel culture". He accurately assigns them to the political right and the political left but fails to emphasize that these are techniques of the exercise of power and so can be taken up by anyone.
He loses me, though, in his assumption that this marketplace could ever arise, and if it did that it would be any less corrupt, unjust, and dominated by the powerful as any other market. I'm not convinced a set of rules would emerge to regulate this marketplace, even if it were to come about.
I disliked the long-running, and I mean beginning-to-end, riff on Plato's Thataetus dialog. It's an annoying stylistic device that falls flat because Plato doesn't resonate in our 21st century culture enough to carry a narrative and I found the references intrusive and far too precious.
Credit for his invoking C. S. Peirce, a greatly under-appreciated American philosopher, is built-in to my rating.
danchibnall's review
3.0
Just a quick review. I thoroughly enjoyed the first three chapters of this with the historical linkages between science and historical progress. However the chapter on cancel culture was what really dragged this book down. Rauch just doesn’t get it.
bootman's review
5.0
It’s books like this that make me wish we could Matrix upload them into everyone’s brain. It usually takes me a week or two to finish books of this length, but it’s so good that I finished it within a couple days after it launched. Jonathan Rauch once again does an incredible job arguing that not only is truth important, but we all need to have better conversations about ideas, even if we disagree with them. A few weeks ago, I was first introduced to Rauch when Greg Lukianoff recommended Rauch’s previous book Kindly Inquisitors, and it was an amazing book. It was written a while back, so I was extremely excited to find out that Rauch had this new book coming out that would cover some more modern issues when it comes to the exchange of ideas in these polarized times where people are more tribal than rational.
Rauch begins this book by discussing philosophers like Socrates and how we can get closer to discovering truth through having conversations and asking questions out of genuine curiosity. While I think some people view books like this as some Right-wing argument that you should be able to say anything without consequence, Rauch does a better job than many others by arguing that we need to do better about slowing the spread of misinformation, but we also need to be able to debate ideas with one another. As a progressive, there are plenty of ideas that bug the hell out of me, but authors like Rauch bring me back to reality and are able to argue the importance of free speech as well as the potential consequences of limiting those who have ideas that I strongly disagree with.
I think Rauch did an incredible job setting up the foundation of his argument and primary thesis in the early chapters of the book before diving into specific issues that we’re facing today. He covers the spread of misinformation from people like Trump, the challenges social media platforms face when it comes to slowing down misinformation, how professors are afraid to teach certain subjects, and how cancel culture is ruining lives. I was personally attacked by the outrage mob in 2019, which was one of the worst experiences of my life, and that’s why I think books like this are so important for everyone to read and really take in.
2nd read:
I read this book when it first came out and had the honor of having Jonathan Rauch on my podcast to chat about the book. Recently, I’ve decided to read some Ayn Rand to see what she’s all about, and it’s hurt my brain so much that I had to revisit this book from Rauch. This book from Rauch is extremely important, and I gained more from it the second time I read it. In this book, Rauch argues that knowledge and truth isn’t something that any of us have, but it’s something that we come to together as a community. He draws from various philosophers and also dives into some of the evolutionary psychology of how we reason. From there, he discusses how both the Left and the Right side of the political divide are doing a disservice to what Rauch calls the “constitution of knowledge”. This constitution is basically a rule book for how we come to know what we know and what information we should use to inform our daily lives. There are a lot of people breaking these rules. On the Right, you have a lot of trolls and people spreading misinformation, and Rauch discusses how Trump is one of the best trolls and manipulators of information there’s ever been. On the Left, we have people who shut down conversations and bully people into silence. This book is extremely important, and I really hope as many people as possible read this book so we can try and get to some sort of sanity in this world.
Rauch begins this book by discussing philosophers like Socrates and how we can get closer to discovering truth through having conversations and asking questions out of genuine curiosity. While I think some people view books like this as some Right-wing argument that you should be able to say anything without consequence, Rauch does a better job than many others by arguing that we need to do better about slowing the spread of misinformation, but we also need to be able to debate ideas with one another. As a progressive, there are plenty of ideas that bug the hell out of me, but authors like Rauch bring me back to reality and are able to argue the importance of free speech as well as the potential consequences of limiting those who have ideas that I strongly disagree with.
I think Rauch did an incredible job setting up the foundation of his argument and primary thesis in the early chapters of the book before diving into specific issues that we’re facing today. He covers the spread of misinformation from people like Trump, the challenges social media platforms face when it comes to slowing down misinformation, how professors are afraid to teach certain subjects, and how cancel culture is ruining lives. I was personally attacked by the outrage mob in 2019, which was one of the worst experiences of my life, and that’s why I think books like this are so important for everyone to read and really take in.
2nd read:
I read this book when it first came out and had the honor of having Jonathan Rauch on my podcast to chat about the book. Recently, I’ve decided to read some Ayn Rand to see what she’s all about, and it’s hurt my brain so much that I had to revisit this book from Rauch. This book from Rauch is extremely important, and I gained more from it the second time I read it. In this book, Rauch argues that knowledge and truth isn’t something that any of us have, but it’s something that we come to together as a community. He draws from various philosophers and also dives into some of the evolutionary psychology of how we reason. From there, he discusses how both the Left and the Right side of the political divide are doing a disservice to what Rauch calls the “constitution of knowledge”. This constitution is basically a rule book for how we come to know what we know and what information we should use to inform our daily lives. There are a lot of people breaking these rules. On the Right, you have a lot of trolls and people spreading misinformation, and Rauch discusses how Trump is one of the best trolls and manipulators of information there’s ever been. On the Left, we have people who shut down conversations and bully people into silence. This book is extremely important, and I really hope as many people as possible read this book so we can try and get to some sort of sanity in this world.
moseslh's review
5.0
Prior to the 2016 election, most of us took truth for granted. Sure, Stephen Colbert had coined the term "truthiness" as early as 2005, but we assumed that most reasonable people could at least agree on what the facts were, even if they had radically different interpretations of those facts. In The Constitution of Knowledge, Jonathan Rauch has created a fascinating, informative, and thought-provoking assessment of the systematic assault on science, from the left and especially the right, of the past five years or so.
The Constitution of Knowledge explains the epistemological infrastructure of modern society, i.e. the systems that weed out misinformation and pump out truth in academia, journalism, etc. It also explains how social media, as an unintended byproduct of its design, does the exact opposite, empowering right-wing trolls that "flood the zone with shit" to make it difficult to sift truth from fiction as well as a left-wing cancel culture that impedes truth-seeking academic discourse by creating a climate of fear and conformity.
The first half of the book (about epistemological infrastructure), while excellent, was a bit wonkier and might appeal to a more niche audience, but the second half (about trolls, cancel culture, and what to do about them) includes the strongest defense of free speech I've seen since John Stuart Mill's [b:On Liberty|1770886|On Liberty|John Stuart Mill|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1340764768l/1770886._SY75_.jpg|2387235], and one that feels much more relevant to the modern reader.
(As a side note, Rauch frequently cites [a:Jonathan Haidt|55727|Jonathan Haidt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1627223252p2/55727.jpg], a moral psychologist whose book [b:The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion|11324722|The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion|Jonathan Haidt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1534528902l/11324722._SY75_.jpg|16252969] was very formative for my current political identity. I highly recommend both books.)
The Constitution of Knowledge explains the epistemological infrastructure of modern society, i.e. the systems that weed out misinformation and pump out truth in academia, journalism, etc. It also explains how social media, as an unintended byproduct of its design, does the exact opposite, empowering right-wing trolls that "flood the zone with shit" to make it difficult to sift truth from fiction as well as a left-wing cancel culture that impedes truth-seeking academic discourse by creating a climate of fear and conformity.
The first half of the book (about epistemological infrastructure), while excellent, was a bit wonkier and might appeal to a more niche audience, but the second half (about trolls, cancel culture, and what to do about them) includes the strongest defense of free speech I've seen since John Stuart Mill's [b:On Liberty|1770886|On Liberty|John Stuart Mill|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1340764768l/1770886._SY75_.jpg|2387235], and one that feels much more relevant to the modern reader.
(As a side note, Rauch frequently cites [a:Jonathan Haidt|55727|Jonathan Haidt|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1627223252p2/55727.jpg], a moral psychologist whose book [b:The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion|11324722|The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion|Jonathan Haidt|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1534528902l/11324722._SY75_.jpg|16252969] was very formative for my current political identity. I highly recommend both books.)
julessssss's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
I first heard of this through a recommendation from the one podcaster that I have ever listened to regularly(ish), Stephen Bradford Long & Sacred Tension - (I think this makes the second recommendation I've taken from him)
though this is pretty academic, Rauch spends paper space outlining exactly what he is talking about as well as the history leading up to his arguments - I would say that it is accessible, though part of his argument lies in philosophy (which I find inaccessible, personally), he puts energy into making things as easy to understand as possible
there were some parts that did not fit into my interests, but I appreciated what he had to say nonetheless
I do believe I have further insight into cancel culture as well as into the current political scape that is feeding into that
overall, would recommend if you are interested in the subject(s)
though this is pretty academic, Rauch spends paper space outlining exactly what he is talking about as well as the history leading up to his arguments - I would say that it is accessible, though part of his argument lies in philosophy (which I find inaccessible, personally), he puts energy into making things as easy to understand as possible
there were some parts that did not fit into my interests, but I appreciated what he had to say nonetheless
I do believe I have further insight into cancel culture as well as into the current political scape that is feeding into that
overall, would recommend if you are interested in the subject(s)