>> hello i am the executive director here also the executive producer of our literary series i am happy you are with us tonight. tonight we welcome public intellectual philosopher to the interest innovation leadership series with his new book than a little society. he is a frequent contributor

to the new york times among other publications also a professor of philosophy at the university of connecticut a highly sought after speaker around the world he is in such prestigious venues as the nantucket project he has written numerous books including the internet of us and jim who you saw here last year with the groundbreaking history book is the philosopher of truth so let's review how tonight will work. first you should have a copy of the book. it comes with your purchase of your ticket. you should also have a drink. soon michael will replace me up here to talk about the book for a bit before sitting down to talk who is the deputy editor of yankee magazine.

and we will turn to you for questions and answers. our event concludes in about an hour and you will exit the way you came in. we will go out the big blue door and meet you in the lobby where he will personalize your book if you like. the line forms along the bar conveniently. in case you are wondering, he is my brother. before we get started a few words of thanks. first, thank you for being here. it is great to see people come to life of the mind events which is so important these days. and thank you to our lead sponsor also to our contributing partner

university of new hampshire and the presenting sponsor of innovation leadership and new hampshire public radio and atlantic orthopedics and sports medicine and bangor savings bank. give them a hand. [applause] i want to acknowledge that c-span is here tonight with book tv for go david murray will be taking photographs. looking past tonight we have other fabulous writer events happening and your tickets you can buy that and any event that looks good including annie. or through the box office. so please join me to welcome michael patrick lynch.

>> thank you for coming out tonight to talk about the no little society i will start with a few remarks and then we will sit down and have a chat. if you spent more than five minutes or even just five minutes on social media, you get the distinct impression on either spectrum don't like each other very much. and they may feel more polarized than we actually are when recent studies show on a wide range of issues they agree as much as they disagree

in the immoral and then to look at us in the same way and we resent them for it. what those arrogant know it all's. and the person you elected president of the united states and maybe we are all know it all's and that's part of the problem. i don't think americans have ever been afraid of confidence we like to think of ourselves as top of the heap and deserving of special recognition. that you pick out the attitude dominating political

interactions b competence but arrogance. the arrogance of our own belief to have it all figured out. and we don't have to listen to anyone else. so the idea of this arrogance personally or politically and those that invented the essay to say that it does wonders for hatred i think he knew what he was talking about because he lived through several religious several wars that left france littered with corpse from and to and.

and built himself in ivory tower prickly can actually visit it's not ivory anymore. build that with books and into the arms of wounded virgins brick i don't recommend that strategy didn't work out that well for him. but in a democracy we need to be engaged the unengaged electorate is no electorate at all but the warning that he gave us what he called the arrogance of man to plague on mankind of what we heat at this political moment that is

what we call the know it all society of course leaving enough for us to dig into. the first factor is psychology how we form and maintain political convictions is not just a deeply held belief. i deeply believe two plus two equals four butts that is not a conviction but that is a commitment to something that matters to you. a commitment to the value that reflects your self identity and self image the person you aspire to be a part of an

conviction is where belief meets identity. so in the book i talk about german philosopher had something really profound to say. and what to say about conviction to say convictions have a history but what he meant by that is that often they don't start out as identity centered values but passing opinions that climate change is not a real thing. but that opinion under the right circumstances hardened into conviction something that

is reflective of that person's identity and the tribes identity to be a part of. and then to change her mind about that as you change your mind about yourself. so it's not surprising they will go to great lengths to defend themselves against what they see as a threat. so this idea of conviction , that convictions come out of our opinions come is particularly important to focus on if you think of another ingredient of the know

it all society. is something that we know has been changing and how we form our convictions what happens when we can now share our convictions to carry around devices in our pockets a lot of our political conviction for many people are shared and informed and policed online. to keep track if other people toe the party line. so the other focus about technology is that much of what you read online or what you encounter is personalized. everything from the ads that come across the wall street

journal page to your facebook feed is tailored to fit your pre-existing conditions. that's great and it's not so great when shopping for fax. if you just get the facts with the pre-existing convictions that's not just for bursting your bubble but conflating it. so social media is a conviction and speeding up the process. to take opinions and that in turn is enforced by the internet personalization which

ends up rewarding us with a constant validation if you are doubtful then just google it for almost anything. that brings me to the third factor that is politics and arrogance arrogance is attractive especially if you don't notice it is arrogance it can give you the feeling of power and keeping the feeling of knowledge without needing real knowledge and can be easy to make support confuse with confidence especially if you feel threatened or insecure and insecurity is an attitude

that authoritarian leaders are keen to stoke in the minds of their followers throughout history this is a point that was made almost seven years ago so what i noticed is that when leaders want to feel part of a tribe one of the best ways to make them feel under attack. and this is paradoxical but also part of psychology to say make them feel superior to justify that superiority with the historical narrative the

leader who tells it like it is to heroically articulate the enemy. so i think this point that the followers could be made both insecure and superior is conducive of the characteristic of people and the public and that is the confusion of ego intrusive. so this is also the defining characteristic of authoritarian leaders which she noted have the on ending

sense of their own infallibility. they cannot ever admit they are wrong. [laughter] to admit you are wrong that is powerful and then speaking over decades to say the leader can get so much power to bend reality to their will that propaganda is extreme content of the facts because it is whatever they say they are that is the replacement.

so this is a happy stuff. so this is a happy stuff. to talk about three ingredients a psychology , technology and ideology or politics and i say in the book to solve these problems we have to do some pretty heavy lifting. no surprise for redesign digital platforms and reengage with civic institutions. the talking about this early with people these are not just technical problems they are human problems those own human

attitudes. so suck tease and the oracle delphi told him he was the wisest man to which socrates famously replied is that i don't know anything. that's a paradox in itself but not defeatist. he is not saying i can't but i still have something to learn i have more to know.

socrates was don't confuse ego and truth. truth is taking something of a beating recently. rudy giuliani said thereby to sum up the cynicism of that concept eating at the way the foundation of our democracy. that's not a new idea either. managed the measure of all things. that inevitably becomes the measure of all things and slowly over time the philosophy of thinking truth

is whatever the powerful say it is. and once you accept that critical dissent comes. because you cannot speak truth to power but that is not the heart of a concept to understand it is just to simple ideas. then we wrap it up and then the other to paraphrase there is more to heaven and earth and the powerpoint presentation. [laughter] that is the essence of truth and also intellectual humility.

with that intellectual humility and to be open to improvement from the evidence and experiences you may not have had but to see yourself as capable of learning and to remember your socrates. thank you. now let's chat. [applause] >> we have some work ahead of us. you and i especially. i want to start with the news

that broke today with the impeachment inquiry what does this mean for what you're talking about quick. >> i think what it means is that points to first of all that we have reached our tipping point with regard to what i talk about in the book is living in the unsettled time in which not just rules and regulations and laws are broken or not, but norms are unsettled. norms are different than laws. there is a formal process and a norm is a social custom. and those are the sorts of things that even backup our laws.

and even to make a choice. pelosi i suspect like a lot of us thinking is this the point if we don't call out certain norm violations, certain ways of behaving that we may now be shifting our norms. though social customs if you stop following them they cease to exist. >> is this a chance over the last couple of decades yes i do. and i am hopeful but actually

i am reasonably optimistic i think it is a point where we still have time i talk about the norms of respecting truth in what i have seen is this norm a lot of us would have thought respecting truth our moms caught taught us that but nobody will say a truth this into truth but we are there now. so it is a little bit - - a little bit like what has been in danger like we have been

standing outside in the rain and that person has been telling us it's not rain but it is but then they say it's raining and they say no is to be getting what you say but you are and they say no so this is a weird conversation what would you say you might just walk away so one of the problems we are in there is a tendency to walk away because who hasn't been in a situation where you say where's my power quirks. [laughter]

so i am hopeful people not walk away but actually deciding we need to remember the norms did you ever feel like escaping to a tower quick. >> i feel like each book sounds the alarm a little louder. are you surprised at where we are now quick. >> yes. like all of us so are many of us you do look around of how do we get to a point every day something is said and done in the news cycle that would have just destroyed careers quirks every day. that gets us to the point to

talk to representatives and senators and many of you have read about this or have had the same privilege people are not even spending time with one another. going to the bar or getting their kids together so i am surprised talk about truth in technology but the norm breaking has gotten to a point to stand up and take note. in the old days i was sounding the alarm but not an alarm that more like maybe we should pay attention to the fact. [laughter] excuse me cracks could you pay attention cracks excuse me

cracks? so now we just need to be very clear. not just with norms of truth but basic respect for government institutions and democracy. one thing that really scares me is recent evidence from the pew research center a couple years ago they ask a lot of the same questions of people for decades. they are useful because you can track changes. so to asked people do you think democracy is a good thing? for a long time you say that's a dumb question. even if they don't they will say that.

now increasingly the plurality of people that democracy is not that great we need another form of government. >> while. >> wow. >> wow. >> if you think about that they say things for scientific practice and fact-finding initiatives and inquiries and respect for truth is that not really hold traction that they cannot trust anything and there is no such thing as investigative facts? at that point how does democracy hold on?

>> i am hopeful but i'm surprised. >> you have an interesting arc as a reader when you start out to say i know so many people would benefit from this book than halfway through you say i'm one of those people. [laughter] you have me and what most of the people here how do you reach the sean hannity and rachel maddow of the world? . . . .

should listen to other people's opinions and i think we should. that doesn't mean i think you should really try to find what's the good in nazi-ism. just to be clear about that. in case you were wondering. but i think in order to reach people like that, i tried, i don't know if i was successful in that case, you be the judge. he is to try to remind all of us that listening to kind of understand what other people are coming from can teach you a lot about yourself. and i think many of you if you think about conversations that are increasingly rare but i'm sure all of you have had a moment with somebody maybe a

relative maybe somebody in an airport may be started on uncomfortably and probably nobody was convinced by anybody else, maybe you even talk about politics he just skirted around the edge but you had a sense of why that person might be concerned in the way they are that's helpful. those sorts of conversations or conversations frankly, one of the things of socrates, one of the things that he did is he went and talked to people. sort of like he was a smart ass about it but he talked to people and in this time we are all obsessed with the black mirrors of our phones we are all staring into that, it might be helpful to remember even if we do need an ancient greek dead guy to remind us to look up from the black mirrors and maybe see something other than ourselves. >> how did you emerge from this book? did you move the to the world a little differently after writing this?>> that's a

great question. i am a white middle-aged man, liberal college professor. if you look up "know it all" in the dictionary, you will see my face. >> you have a killer haircut though. >> thank you, you too. [laughter] writing a book like this you can't help but change you because it does force you to confront your own biases and prejudices. the part that was hardest in the chapter was the hardest for me to write not surprisingly am sure a lot of people would not be happy with it both on the left and the right is the book on the arrogance of the left. because that was my tribe. it was very difficult to write.

the ark that i took in my own thinking by writing that chapter was really interesting and profound. i tell a story and not about being at a barbecue scientist we had just been to a section on polarization again, he's an expert on it and a lot of experts say you won't figure out who it is. we were talking over beers at his house and he turns to me he says, all this be open-minded stuff i'm done with that but are not i just think screw them. he didn't say screw them he said a different more colorful term. and he meant, like there is a limit. nazis and all.

at the time i was really torn and i suspect many of you, whatever your political persuasion can feel that being torn like you want to be like, yes. on the other hand i felt like, are we on this thing i like polarization together. like you i was thinking about myself. the fact that i was like yes! burn the witch! [laughter] let's go! that sort of thing. [laughter] it was this moment of realizing, wait a second, are you going to walk the walk while i'm talking the talk and it is very difficult. i do think that looking for those moments of conversation as banal as it sounds we are at a point in our public where

that is an active civic engagement. >> what's been the reaction from some of your liberal friends and liberal colleagues? >> mixed. i get the questions, you want us to be nice? even from my friends. do you want us to be nice to nazis? that's why bring it up first. i think there has been a mixed reaction. i think some people want, a common thing is to be like politely like yes this is a good idea but trump supporters are all evil, right? i think that's the leap that's too far. i think it would be helpful if we refrain from making broad generalizations about people as

much as we can. and politics is a point at which politicians have to do that and i understand that. politics is about often making policies and policies are inherently generalizations. in those moments of conversation of real moments i think it would be helpful to try to not do that. >> there is a pretty sobering stat in the middle of your book about the fact that 60% of all shared news stories are not actually read by the people who shared them. i've been guilty of that. i suspect a lot of people have. these people here read every single thing. >> what you think that says about us? >> i think what it tells us is something important about what's happening on the digital media platforms. been writing about these type

of information technology for some time and this is a revelation for me. what we are doing on social media is not often what we think we are doing especially when we share content, what we think we are doing is we think we are just passing on information that people think if i share a story this is a good story and you should pay attention to it. of course that's what i would do. or the new york times or the wall street journal. but often what we are doing is not that. we are doing is actually expressing our emotions. and particularly with political content we are expressing sometimes strong moral emotions like outrage. the evidence for that is most people don't read what they share according to studies. and things that are shared the thing that will predict is the best predictor of whether your

post will be shared is whether it has strong motive content. thoughts what will include things in pictures having kids or kittens because that's emotional. but if it involves strong words. words that have convey strong moral emotion. those words are good predictors of how much your content will be shared. often what we are doing is we are engaged and we think we are playing on social media we think were playing by the rules of reason, the rules of evidence and testimony but really we are playing a game, we don't know it, playing a different game or playing the game where the rules are more like the rules of the water cooler in the playground and the thing is, for people who

want to manipulate us. the best con is the person, the con artist, knows what's really happening and you don't. so if a lot of people don't know that what they are doing online is really just expressing their emotions, then the people who know that, it's going to be a lot easier to manipulate the people who don't. so i will add one footnote i was at an event in the national press comp and there was a vp from facebook, i can't tell you who it is, there's a lot of vps. he said you could share this but i'm never going to admit it publicly. apparently, i can verify this, take it for what you will. what he said was that their internal data shows it's actually closer to 90% of

people don't read what they share. he said we will never let that data, because it undermines our business model. but it really doesn't actually. because the model is not to allow us to convey information to each other. the business model is based on the idea of ãit's just what they say, connect each other emotionally. right? how are we supposed to react to posts on facebook when we have choices we have we have happy face, this is how we are supposed to react. >> social media is feeling a lot of this what you think should be done about it? there's talk about regulating it. you think that's a good course of action? >> i would say my own view, like all these views, it's a completed issue but my own view is that breaking up facebook would be a good thing.

i think i'm one of the people that thinks we are facing our monopoly. people tell me, if people say, i use instagram, that's owned by facebook. [laughter] i do think it's permissible sometimes to intervene when capitalism starts an enterprise successful business is able to start to monopolize a segment of the industry. i think that might be happening. i agree it's in legally it's not politically easy to do that. it might be impossible really with this political climate predicate something we should do. i also think we need to rethink our digital platforms. although i thick it's difficult to do at ted and was lucky enough to have some drinks with

heads of some of the big digital giants, big five. this is not making me look very smart. [laughter] i was like, oh boy, i have my big moment to tell them what to do! so i did! and this is what i said. i said imagine, and was at ted, imagine that we had, instead of like the emoji's that we used to a react on facebook. imagine we had three buttons, one that said for content, like news story content justified by the evidence, we could pick that. not justified by the evidence. and we could pick, need more information. [laughter] i was like what you

think? they laughed and laughed. they laughed, they laughed so hard. seriously, it was like this, say it again! the one guy came in from going to the bathroom, say it again! tell him. they thought it was hilarious. and i realized they were sort of right because of course if we had that what would happen? those buttons would morph into ea this booth is who cares this is why i was emphasizing at the end that a lot of it really does, we can't just rest on fixing a few buttons. they knew that they are playing on how we react as individuals. it's a lot of it. social change what it does for individual change.

>> you bring up the topic of gay marriage in your book and am wondering if the evolution of americans viewpoints on gay marriage there something to draw from that. >> exactly. i think it's an excellent point and indeed very inspiration for me in the inspiring social movement we witnessed in our lifetime and really just in the last decade. in some cases more recently than that. shows us that there can be actual rational social change and it does require intervention at the institutional level, at the legal level, and the political level it does require that. it also requires changing our norms, back to that again. changing our norms and how do you change norms? how do you change norms of social justice, norms about racism, norms about marriage, how do you do that? in part you try to change people's attitudes. not just their beliefs but how

they regard their beliefs and those beliefs of other people. i think one of the things that that example does is give us hope that we can do that. i'm old enough to think i remember a time you could be disparity you can be, that's not gonna change. people are gonna change about that but people have changed. not everybody. that's too much. >> but a lot of people. >> should i feel hopeful? >>. >> we got deep fakes, come climate change that will institute more uncertainty. >> we should be really depressed. [laughter] what was i saying? [laughter] we should be hopeful. we should think of the fact

that rational change takes time it takes an effort on all of us and i think we can also be hopeful by looking particularly at climate change right now we are all, i hope, some people are not inspired by greta's leadership. but many people, that a teenager could be speaking as the voice of reason. also notice what she's doing she's telling us we have to change our attitudes we have to think differently. that's what we been talking about some people think lynch i'm concerned about stability i love it peaceable afterwards. but civility is just behavior. in order to change action and

behavior you have to change what's inside the head. if you listen to her speech yesterday that's part of what she's talking about is that we got to change our minds. >> this is great. let's open it up to the audience for questions. >> i'm 50 years old i grew up in a house as a registered republican evangelical family. 2 and a half years ago my whole world to rock because i voted for what i thought was ãband i can't understand and i feel like my whole family is divorcing me or i'm divorcing them they bring up the bible and they think trump is a

product of god. i can't understand how i grew up with a whole family who i thought were educated, intelligent, rational people and all of a sudden it's like, that's out the window. every bit no how to be open-minded. never even know how because i grew up the same way. they pick and choose things out of the bible to apply to their truths and they think that i'm ã >> doing the same thing, probably. >> yes. >> ã >> this is the question i get and i asked myself too.i don't have your life history but it's a much more dramatic version of the things we face when we have the sort of conversation. first of all, i want to say i

can tell already that you are doing the right thing, which is struggle to see how to get to a point where you can have some sort of conversation over these issues. the first thing i would say, i think you know this already is that it's okay to just continue these moments of trust. i think with family of course you want to keep that that's always hopeful you will be there but it's important sometimes to realize to get to a point where you can start to have conversations about politics you need to first say it's okay maybe that's not happiness time. that i think is worth reflecting. bob talese has been talking a

lot about how one bad way of responding to this sort of dilemma that most of us face is to go all in in overdue democracy. like we are going to settle this now before the gravy comes out we are going to settle this! [laughter] the person hosting thanksgiving that year is not going to be happy. [laughter] so i think there's a real point about that. on the other hand, to talk more politics, first of all, in the book i have a chapter on this puzzle about evangelicals because i think a lot of us in the public have been puzzled about how evangelicals in particular could see trump of all people, trump is really being picked by god. you are completely right, my research and talking to people in the evangelical movement

it's very much not a universal opinion certainly a number of people believe that. so you think, if people think that then that something that now you need to start to track. then maybe the discussion is, is that on its own grounds a reasonable view to have? one thing i talked about for people and i got this advice from an evangelical pastor who is not a boater for trump, who suggested that, one of the things i like to point out is that he's not the best representative. that's an interesting tactic. which is rather than try to take them on with dueling

quotes you quote the new york times, they quote the bible or whatever the killer sean hannity show. it is to actually talk about the shared values. >> i'm in the legislature here and. >> thank you for coming. >> one of my colleagues, we disagree primarily on women's issues. it used to be if you had disagreed on the issue work on it but that's not the case. i said you and i should get together and have lunch and find stuff we agree on. we agreed that food was important.at the end of that

conversation, i know a lot about him, where he went to school, his wife, his kids, his service career from his job career, where he goes on vacation. he doesn't know anything about me. i would say, where did you go to school? he would tell me but he didn't reciprocate with, where did you go to school? there was no conversation. it was like i was interviewing him. i'm thinking afterwards, where do i go with this? how much was to work with this person. what do i do. i still make a point to say hi, how are you? when we are in session and i get a cryptic smile and maybe a grunt. so i know a number of other legislators we talked about this we say we are going to reach out and try to do this but it's got to be two ways. how far do i go and when do i say basically what you said before, screw them.>> i feel you. in this case it's hard not to be gender politics into it. my gender is particularly great at talking. men are great at talking about

themselves and not really asking about anybody else. not all men of course. ian is the exception. [laughter] it would be interesting as if it was not a he but is she. i do think that there is, there is data on this. men are particularly think they are series of controlled studies, men are much more likely to tell rate themselves of super intellectually humble and their partners generally don't rate them as highly.

the women are more prone to say i can be arrogant sometimes. it's not universal of course. at a certain point politics plays a role in maybe we turn our attention not to converting the person who is our political opponent but trying to convert the fabled person who might still be on the edge and i know that right now you know more about this than i do and in politics it's a rare piece nowadays. we are very much at least effectively polarized which as i mentioned in the beginning. it's also the case that there are people, you know this better than i, correct me if you think i'm wrong but there's a lot of people that just don't pay attention that much to politics. those of us who do it for a

living, pay attention all the time. but a lot of people are not like that. part of what i'm trying to do is reach, in my own egghead way is to reach and not in the way that you would but as a politician to reach people who might be susceptible to hearing about judging attitudes. we go back to gay marriage, it's been done. there was a point in which people of a certain age would have even thought about that. like what?

of course that's wrong. and that has changed. >> this has been a great conversation.i got a lot out of it, thank you so much. >> thank you. thank you so much for coming. [applause] [inaudible background conversations] you are watching booktv on c-span2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. booktv was on hand at politics and prose bookstore in washington dc where cbs news legal analyst kim whaley discussed her book "how to read the constitution and why". here's a portion of her talk. >> a monarchy traditionally the power comes from god. if you slay the monarch on the

battlefield and the jolly shares of england the idea is god decided you would be king. or clean. the power comes from god, the people are separate. in our government the power ultimately always comes from the people and that document is designed to hand out, i call it job descriptions, there's a job description for congress, there is a job description for the executive branch, there's a job description for judges. all of us who have had jobs there are consequences for violating your job description if you so up late seven times in a row or steal something from the tail, there's a consequence. the institution can't function with that kind of bad actions, you will get fired. i use this analogy, you signed a contract to renovate your bathroom put a $5000 deposit on

it they come and do demo and then walk off and leave you with the mess and take the rest of your money. they get to keep the money, the contractor is not going to get your money back. you have to go to court and you have to put some muscle into enforcing the contract and the constitution is the same way. >> to watch the rest of the program visit our website booktv.org and search the authors name kim whaley using the box at the top of the page. [inaudible background conversations] [applause] welcome to the new york public library. please silence your cell phone. tonight we present the first conversation from the common center of our 20th anniversary year cory robin will discuss his new book the enigma