Taking stock of our fragmented political landscape, Michael Patrick Lynch delivers a trenchant philosophical take on digital culture and its tendency to make us into dogmatic know-it-alls. The internet—where most shared news stories are not even read by the person posting them—has contributed to the rampant spread of "intellectual arrogance." In this culture, we have come to think that we have nothing to learn from one another; we are rewarded for emotional outrage over reflective thought; and we glorify a defensive rejection of those different from us.
Interweaving the works of classic philosophers such as Hannah Arendt and Bertrand Russell and imposing them on a cybernetic future they could not have possibly even imagined, Lynch delves deeply into three core ideas that explain how we've gotten to the way we are: our natural tendency to be overconfident in our knowledge; the tribal politics that feed off our tendency; and the way the outrage factory of social media spreads those politics of arrogance and blind conviction. In addition to identifying an ascendant "know-it-all-ism" in our culture, Lynch offers practical solutions for how we might start reversing this dangerous trend.
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Michael P. Lynch is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, where he directs the Humanities Institute. He is the author or editor of seven books, including, most recently, In Praise of Reason: Why Rationality Matters for Democracy, as well as Truth as One and Many and the New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice True to Life. The recipient of the Medal for Research Excellence from the University of Connecticut’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Lynch has held grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times’ The Stone series.