Jonathan Rauch on Polarization, Information Warfare, and Cancel Culture

Conversations with Bill Kristol

News, Society & Culture, Government, Politics

4.7 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2021

⏱️ 81 minutes

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Summary

How has America become so polarized? Has negative partisanship opened the floodgates for disinformation and propaganda in our politics? How is cancel culture related to information warfare? How can those who believe in free government fight back? In this Conversation, Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, shares his perspective. Drawing on his new book, The Constitution of Knowledge, Rauch argues that to understand contemporary polarization, we must focus on deliberate campaigns of disinformation conducted by political actors who benefit from the weakening of institutions through the diffusion of falsehoods and conspiracy theories. Considering the phenomenon of cancel culture, Rauch argues it should be understood as a systematic attempt to weaken the expression of opinions and civil debate upon which American government rests. Though alarmed about the spread of disinformation, Rauch suggests we may be seeing the beginning of mobilization against cancel culture. He calls on those who believe in America’s constitutional government, civil society, and pluralism to stand up on behalf of those institutions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Bill Crystal. Welcome to Conversations, and I'm very pleased to be joined today by Jonathan
0:20.3	Roush, a long time friend and someone I've admired a lot and looking very much, looking forward
0:26.4	to hearing from author of an excellent new book, the Constitution. I should hold this up here that's
0:31.2	what you're supposed to do. The Constitution of Knowledge, a defense of truth, published by the
0:36.1	Brookings Institution where he's seen your fellow. In a way, this book, John, I think is a
0:41.4	follow-up to a book you wrote. I'm sorry to believe, almost three decades ago, kindly inquisitors,
0:47.4	attacks on free thought, which I remember well, reading at the time. So, John, thanks for joining
0:53.6	me today. It's a special pleasure. I love the podcast and your father helped me with the kindly
1:00.0	inquisitors at AEI all those years ago. So, this in that way closes a circle. Oh, that's great. I
1:05.4	didn't even, I didn't know that. So, that's good. That's good to hear. You also wrote an excellent
1:09.1	piece last year. I thought we'd just be getting with that for a couple of minutes before getting into
1:13.0	the things you particularly focus out of the book. In National Affairs, I think is about a year
1:19.1	or two years ago, I guess, on polarization and partisanship. But it does seem to me that that was more
1:25.2	about the political moment and sort of, but it seems to be the later groundwork for what you talk
1:31.5	about in the book. So, say a few words about how we got to be so polarized and partisan.
1:41.2	Well, they relate to each other. The way we're used to thinking about polarization is as people
1:48.9	divided ideologically over issues. Taxes up, taxes down, abortion, yes, abortion. No. What we've
1:56.3	seen emerge in the last 10, 15 years is something different. It's what people call affective polarization
2:03.2	and negative partisanship. And that's where it's not so much about issues. It's about not liking the
2:08.2	other side. It's actually hating and fearing them. And the interesting thing about that is it doesn't
2:13.7	necessarily correlate with people liking their own party. It's that they like the other party even
2:20.9	less. It's called the lesser of two evils identity defense, which is when I don't really like my
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