Summary
Strategic ignorance and knowledge resistance: Laurie Taylor talks to Mikael Klintman, Professor of Sociology at the University of Lund, Sweden about our capacity for resisting insights from others. At all levels of society, he argues, our world is becoming increasingly dominated by an inability, even refusal, to engage with others' ideas. It does not bode well either for democracy or for science. They're joined by Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University at Essex, whose new study explores the use of deliberate and wilful ignorance by elites in pursuit of the retention of power - from News International's hacking scandal to the fire at Grenfell Tower.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.5 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:31.5 | Once upon a time there was a radio program that began by asking listeners if they were sitting comfortably. |
| 0:37.0 | Well I'm Lori Taylor and I like to think that my program, Thinking aloud, now entering its 21st year, positively disturbs and determinately |
| 0:44.7 | discomforts with its ever controversial analyses of the modern social world. |
| 0:49.4 | Download Thinking aloud from your usual podcast provider. Hello, what is truth? Our Sponches Pilot, and famously stayed not for an answer. |
| 1:13.0 | philosophers and Bible scholars still argue as to whether |
| 1:16.5 | pirates question was merely a jest, |
| 1:18.5 | or whether it was a profound reflection |
| 1:21.0 | on the impossibility of ever ascertaining the real truth. |
| 1:25.0 | Certainly in my school days, religious truths could never manage on their own without a generous helping of faith. |
| 1:31.0 | Anyone in my MRI class who even mildly resisted |
| 1:35.3 | religious truths was pejoratively dismissed as a skeptic. I can remember thinking |
| 1:40.8 | that when I grew up I might become a skeptic. It sounded a healthy |
| 1:45.2 | trade. But in recent years it appears that skepticism, the questioning of authorities of all sorts, |
| 1:51.3 | has taken a perverse turn. Nowadays skepticism too often |
| 1:55.2 | involves not mere questioning but the blanking out of facts that don't fit one's |
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