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Podcast

#400 — The Politics of Information

Making Sense with Sam Harris

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  • US Political Polarization
    • US political discourse is highly polarized, often framed as existential battles between communism and fascism.
    • This polarization hinders nuanced understanding and discourages shifts in party allegiance. Transcript: Helen Lewis Let’s try that one. Yeah, I think I’ve been trying that one for some time. It hasn’t worked yet, but it might do. Sam Harris How would you describe the difference between US and UK journalism at this point? Maybe it’s journalism and political culture. I mean, how would you, what could one side learn from the other or which are you more worried about, which is showing the signs of erosion of our ability to make sense of the current moment More? Helen Lewis Oh, I mean, I think my work in America has definitely helped by having one foot still in Britain. And I know it’s very easy to be jingoistic and assume that your country is sort of doing everything right because it’s what you grew up with. But just think about our last election here we had last year in which we went from a conservative majority government, we’d had conservatives in power for 14 years to a big swing to the Labour Party. But absolutely nobody called that as being the most important election of our lifetimes. It’s an existential election on which democracy depends. If the other side get in, either it’s communism or it’s fascism. Where are those things that I heard when I traveled around Pennsylvania in October? You know, once I genuinely thought that Kamala Harris, I would talk to people who genuinely thought Kamala Harris was a communist or a Marxist or whatever it might be. And I would talk to people who thought Trump is bringing in fascism. And when that’s your opinion of the other side, it’s very hard to see why anyone would vote for that person or why you might ever switch your party allegiance. And so you get into the same situation that you have with the problems of party corruption in much more religiously sectarian societies, right? Where if your family’s Protestant and you always vote for the Protestant party, and there’s nothing on earth that can make you vote for the Catholic party, that is not an invitation To the Protestant party to behave really well. They know that they’ve got a certain level of block votes. And I think something similar feels very true to me about US politics is if the number of swing voters is so small, that is fundamentally very unhealthy for the parties. (Time 0:04:25)
  • Media Polarization
    • The decline of local, impartial news sources contributes to political polarization.
    • The rise of opinionated media outlets creates echo chambers and reduces exposure to diverse perspectives. Transcript: Helen Lewis And I think particularly in terms of the media, so the BBC is our state-funded broadcaster. Everyone has to pay their license fee of 160 pounds a year. What you do there is you have political programs that have a duty to be impartial, a duty to present both sides. You know, I’ve sat on question time panels with people who are on completely different places from the political spectrum to me, and I have to listen to them and their opinions are given Equal weight. And you don’t really get that in American media. You know, I would watch CNN a lot during the election and they would have Scott Jennings, who’s their kind of Republican, vastly outnumbered and everyone would scream when he said something. And then you’d watch Fox News and then maybe occasionally they let a liberal creep through the door, but then they’d say something and would immediately kind of get screamed down. And so you just don’t have that tradition of listening, of being forced to listen to the other side. And then social media obviously allows you to opt out completely of listening to the other side. My boss at the Atlantic, Jeff, did an interview with Obama a couple of years ago in which he said he watched the change happen even during his runs for president. He said he used to go to a little town in a swing state and there’d be a guy with a bow tie who edited the local newspaper, right? And maybe he was a Republican, but he knew that he had a district that had all kinds of different people in it and he’d give you a fair shake. And those people got, you know, those local papers have just been obliterated, replaced by very opinionated talk radio and now very opinionated conservatives. And so the number of places in the media that see their duty as talking to a wide spectrum of people has really dwindled. (Time 0:07:25)
  • Manufactured Narratives
    • Partisan media sources often propagate memes and talking points that quickly permeate public discourse.
    • These orchestrated narratives can manipulate public opinion and create a sense of artificial consensus. Transcript: Helen Lewis I mean, you must notice sometimes where you see these memes kind of creep through, and it’s like everybody’s been issued a kind of order, like there’s some events that everybody now Cares about, or something that you say that just gets thrown at you, and you just can’t quite work out where it’s come from. It’s like overnight everybody has heard the same phrase or the same argument. Quite often I find that those come from those very partisan media sources. There is an almost kind of droid-like way that suddenly they kind of crest and they go into the public consciousness and then they move on and everyone’s talking about someone else. It’s very hard if you’re outside of them to kind of get an insight into how those things are happening and to understand why everybody’s talking about this and because of the BBC there Is still a sense in Britain that you do you know you are more likely to hear what the other side are talking about rather than these these memes arise that you just you know like sort of invasion Of the body snatchers. Suddenly everyone is talking about something you’ve never heard of before, like it’s always been there and it’s the most important thing in politics. (Time 0:09:20)
  • Genital Inspections Misinformation
    • The claim that Republicans want genital inspections for athletes is a recent example of misinformation spread online.
    • The actual method involves cheek swabs and blood samples, not invasive physical examinations. Transcript: Helen Lewis When I’m writing about youth gender medicine, for example, there’s a couple of ones that come up recently. And you heard them in the congressional hearings on girls’ sport, the idea that actually what Republicans want are genital inspections. You know, and people just go, of course, what the right one to genital inspections. And you go, well, actually, the way that they sex test in sport is through a cheek swab and then through a blood sample, right? This was, genital inspections used to happen in the 60s, but then a lot of bad stuff used to happen in the 60s. That’s not what actually we are asking for now. But I presume they’ve had a briefing from some charity or governmental lobby group or whatever it might be, or there has been something that’s been in, you know, some very prominent Influencer in their social media feeds has been putting this in. And then suddenly everyone kind of goes, of course, what the right really wants are genital inspections. And there’s a question for me as a journalist is always about how much time do you spend rebutting stuff versus how much do you spend actively trying to make the points that you want to Make? And I think I still don’t know where the balance is for that, because actually there is still a merit in somewhere like the Atlantic, writing stuff down. And if it’s not true, saying that it’s not true. But you also do get this feeling that you’re spending an enormous amount of time chasing phantoms. And actually, is it stopping you from doing the good work that you would otherwise be doing? (Time 0:10:47)
  • Pick Your Battles
    • Be selective about which topics to engage with publicly, considering the potential hassle and impact on one’s life.
    • Not every worthwhile point needs to be made by oneself, especially if it invites excessive negative attention. Transcript: Sam Harris And these are many topics we will, however, regrettably cover here. Before we do, is there anything that you in your daily life as a journalist are just refusing to touch because of the hassle or perceived hassle of touching that topic? I mean, for me, it has always been, I noticed you got here way before me, but for some period of time, I was avoiding the transgender activist debate just because I saw other people dealing With it. And it just seemed like it was more trouble than it’s worth. Right. I mean, it really had this outsized negative impact on everyone’s life who touched it. You know, I just saw what happened to Jesse Single, and I’m sure there are many people who are in his orbit who shared some of that pain. J.K. Rowling, obviously. Is there anything like that that is still out there that you are just inclined to ignore, though it’s a real issue that could be talked about in good faith? Helen Lewis I think there are issues that I don’t think about it exactly like that. I don’t mind sticking my fingers in the plug socket, mostly because I kind of feel like if you don’t, someone else always will, right? This is the kind of, the idea that there is any way that the media can gatekeep what people talk about. You know, if the media doesn’t talk about illegal immigration, then no one will think it’s a problem. You know, that has just obviously turned out to be, you know, that’s been very demonstrably proved to be not true. I take a different approach, which is, I think this is probably how you maybe felt more about the transgender issue, which is there are some issues on which I don’t necessarily have the Expertise to add a lot. I don’t think my voice necessarily is the one that’s needed. Sam Harris There’s that and also just that there is a perceived sense that just personally, it’s just the hassle factor is too high. I mean, I distilled this once myself, you know, in a piece of advice that I never wound up taking, which is not everything worth saying is worth saying oneself. Right. Enough of a hassle associated with certain views, however valid they might be, that you just spend way too much time cleaning up the mess that everyone is eager to make on your behalf, Right? Your people are going to willfully misunderstand what you said, even if it was only, you know, for two minutes on a podcast. And you could spend the next year of your life having that be the first question you’re ever asked in every context. And in hindsight, it just wasn’t worth it because either the point wasn’t important enough, the topic wasn’t important enough, or it’s just so easily misunderstood that, albeit important, You’ve got better things to do. (Time 0:12:30)
  • Internet Echo Chambers
    • The internet allows individuals to self-segregate into echo chambers based on shared interests and pathologies.
    • This can amplify unhealthy behaviors and limit exposure to diverse perspectives. Transcript: Sam Harris What is the internet doing to us, in your view? Helen Lewis The thing I keep thinking about is the fact that we used to live in geographic communities. And they were, you know, people obviously sort themselves into people who live like them. You know, if you are rich, you can go and make sure that you only live near other rich people. Lots of people end up living soft lives of racial segregation by the places where they choose to live. You know, that is all possible. But nonetheless, your neighbours were much more likely to be varied in age and political temperament and actually just personality terms, right? You have this kind of just mixture of people around you. But what the internet has done, as far as I can see, you know, and I’m somebody who’s been online since I was a teenager, is it’s allowed people to sort themselves by interest. And that’s had just some incredibly weird effects on us, I think. You know, we’ve ended up over-indexing on people who are very like us in particular ways. And you see some very unhealthy communities. I don’t think it’d be so easy to form in real life. So my friend, Hadley Freeman, for example, she wrote a brilliant memoir about being anorexic. And she talked about how unhealthy being on a hospital anorexia ward was for her, because it was full of anorexic women competing with each other to who could eat the least and who could Weigh the less, you know. And that’s really, those things are really unhealthy, but that’s a quite a specific environment. But if you go onto the internet, you can find pro-Anna forums, you can find very unhealthy situations for teenage girls to be in, you know, who we know are really prone to social contagion, And they are just absolutely everywhere. You know, you want to find somebody to get into competition with about your dissociative identity disorder or your, you know, your alts or whatever it might be. Like, that’s just something that, you know, is just lying in the middle of the road for you to pick up. And I think those things, you know, and you see it now, I think that what’s happened with Twitter is a really fascinating example of this, which is that it’s gone in the space of two years From an unrepresentative left-wing echo chamber to unrepresentative right-wing echo chamber. And people have just aggressively sorted themselves into the place that they want to be with only people who are very much like them. You know, I’ve just finished writing a piece about Ayala, who does these kind of massive work research surveys and people’s fetishes and even things like that even at the level of human Sexuality people have now got ideas about things that they could do that they probably never would have met someone in normal life in the 1990s who was into that thing and I think I just Don’t we don’t really have a way of kind of conceptualizing that we don’t really have a way of talking about that but if the way that people organize themselves has just become narrowed In these ways, never mind the fact that now we’re interacting with these things one on one, it’s just you and this black screen that you stare at for hours and hours a day. All of that is really changing. I’ve been writing a bit about young men and their approach to the presidential election. And it really just struck me how ready-made the kind of whole lifestyle from those podcasts is. You know, you have your Zin pouches, you have your protein powders, you have your crypto ice baths, you have your day trading, you know, your gambling. And it’s like a whole pre-packaged consumer lifestyle that you kind of buy off the shelf, but it’s kind of sands a lot of the rough edges off. And when I see people kind of complaining about, you know, online dating and stuff like that, a lot of the, you know, the complaints seem to be about it feeling so much like a marketplace, But then everything online feels like a marketplace or a slot machine. And you just don’t get these kind of baggy, messy human interactions in the way that, you know, I think if you had to live in a small village somewhere, even though you’d be seeing any very Limited number of people, they’d all be kind of weird in different ways rather than you finding all the people who are weird in the same way. (Time 0:18:22)
  • 9/11 Trutherism Online
    • Sam Harris describes how a family member’s embrace of 9/11 conspiracy theories was facilitated by the internet’s anonymity.
    • Online platforms allow the spread of misinformation without revealing the source’s potential dysfunction. Transcript: Sam Harris Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that’s a very interesting insight. I mean, there’s something about the internet that also filters the social idiosyncrasies and pathologies that would disqualify a person a source of information, too. I remember seeing this in a family member now almost 25 years ago with the 9-11 truth conspiracy theory stuff. So this is the early internet phenomenon, at least in my world, where I saw someone go down the rabbit hole with 9-11 trutherism. And one thing was clear is that if he had had to go to a conference, a physical conference out in the real world and meet the people who were similarly obsessed with this idea that 9-11 was An inside job and that all those voicemail messages from the doomed passengers on Flight 93, those were faked by CIA voice faking technology, and that plane landed, and those people Were brought off and murdered, et cetera, et cetera. It gets as crazy as you want it to get. If he had gone to a conference and met the people who were manufacturing these ideas, in many cases, he would be able to see at a glance the dysfunction in their lives, the fact that their Attitude toward what was passing as journalism for them was born of, you know, psychological and social pathologies in many cases that were quite stark, right? And what you get with the internet is a webpage or a, you know, now a feed on X, which is exactly as the person wants it to be. I mean, some of them are shrieking psychopathology, you know, despite the best efforts of the person involved, but still you can’t tell that this, that the person who made, to go back To 9-11, the documentary Loose Change that deranged the brains of a generation on that topic was, I think at the time, you know, 18 years old and living in his mother’s basement. What you saw was the product online, and it was radicalizing because it was just a pure information vector of ideological contamination. And yeah, now we’re living in a context where if you want to stay on the anorexia ward, surrounded by the most persuasive anorexics on planet Earth, you can stay there forever now on the Internet. (Time 0:21:57)
  • Rebuilding Trust in Journalism
    • Rebuilding trust in journalism requires emphasizing the correction mechanism and acknowledging that errors are inevitable.
    • A diverse media landscape with mutual scrutiny is crucial for approaching truth. Transcript: Sam Harris And what do you think we can do to regain that trust? Helen Lewis I really worry about it because I know what you mean. The difficulty in talking about it is about keeping the correct sense of proportion between the errors. You know, I’ve written a lot about errors in journalism. There are some, but it’s, you know, it’s the same procedure as with science is that what really matters is not the idea that you’re never going to get anything wrong. What matters is what you do when you get it wrong and what the correction mechanism is. And journalism does have a correction mechanism. It should do. The idea of a free and diverse press is that everybody scrutinizes each other. And yes, you won’t get a complete picture of reality from the New York Times or the Atlantic or Fox News. But if you have all of them in the same environment, then you are hopefully, you know, if you want to, getting somewhere closer to a kind of picture of the truth. And so that worries me that people don’t seem to care about that. And I do wonder how much of that is about a feeling of just the fact that the world is very overwhelming and people want a kind of simple narrative. Conspiracy theories are very simple usually, right? There’s a bad guy who did it or a load of bad guys in a room who did it. And it’s very obvious and the solutions are very obvious. And that’s what strongman politics is. So I think I see some of those things as being a reaction to what people feel is just overwhelming complexity in the world. But from my point of view, you know, all, you know, all of us are only kind of stonemasons who can only build our own little houses one by one, right? I just I don’t think it’s possible to, to fix everything at once. What I can do is kind of keep going out and doing the work that I think is important. And I suppose, you know, that doesn’t feel very meaningful, but this is, tell me whether or not this is unbearably bleak, or if it is in fact actually quite hopeful at the end of the day, Which is that I just think that we’re also an incredibly complacent society. And I think that’s true of both Europe and America. I’m primarily talking about professional middle class people. When Louis Pasteur invented pasteurization, people were absolutely delighted. When they got the smallpox vaccine, people were absolutely delighted, the measles vaccine. They were absolutely delighted because they knew what the alternative was like. At the end of the Second World War, when we built all of these liberal institutions, people knew what it was like to experience a world war, to experience the idea that your son wouldn’t Come home or that your entire family was murdered. And I think we’ve just been coasting for a really long time on things getting a little bit worse, but for most people still extremely tolerable. And so I think when I talk to people, and this is true on both sides of the political aisle, there is a kind of great deal of complacency about how bad the world can get and how bad it still Is in lots of places. (Time 0:26:04)
  • Societal Complacency
    • Societal complacency, particularly among the professional middle class, contributes to a tolerance for worsening conditions.
    • Experiencing hardship can motivate people to react against negative trends and demand better. Transcript: Helen Lewis Something I think about a lot is the fact that Michael Lewis wrote, I think in The Fifth Risk, about these awards they had for civil servants, you know, who’d done really great bureaucratic Things, or they’d come up with great initiatives. And he found that a hugely disproportionate number of them were from first, I think, and second generation immigrants. So if you’ve come to the US from Somalia, then you are not complacent about the fact that it’s nice to have drinking water and not to have a militia come around in the middle of the night. And I wonder if some of that, you know, this is my, I cling to as Trump passes ever more kind of crazy executive orders, is that when things do get bad, that’s the necessary mechanism for People to react against it. And what has happened at the moment is that people have had things a little bit bad, but not actually that bad. And therefore, you know, when I talk to people, I talked to a young woman who was very interesting in Pennsylvania, and I asked her about, she was a Trump supporter, and I asked her about January the 6th. And she said, well, you know, if he didn’t respect democracy, why is he running for president? And I thought that was a really great and insightful thing to say, because from her point of view, there was nothing that I could say that would, you know, that would counteract that. He was paying deference to the electoral system by participating in it. And I thought, yeah, you know what, we’re right. She, you know, she believes that if he was, if he was a maniac, the Republican Party would have stopped him. And the Republican Party didn’t stop him. And that’s the, that’s the failure there. But it’s not, she doesn’t have a bad understanding of politics. It’s just that politics has let her down in some profound way. Yeah, (Time 0:28:42)
  • Mott and Bailey Tactic
    • The “Mott and Bailey” argumentation strategy involves making extreme claims and then retreating to more moderate positions when challenged.
    • This tactic allows proponents to claim victory even when their initial arguments are debunked. Transcript: Helen Lewis There’s an awful lot of Mott and Bailey, though, isn’t there? And that term for the argumentation strategy, where you go out on a limb and say something really crazy, and then in challenge, you know, withdraw back to your castle. And, you know, some of the claim about that was that COVID was a bioweapon developed in a lab, right? And that’s not what anybody who’s now saying, well, look, we don’t know what was happening. So that, you know, that’s, and I think the same thing is possibly true with the case of the air crash in the tracing wood grains who used to be a reporter on Blocks and Imported, did some Really interesting reporting on the FAA under Obama changing the regulations. But what that’s turned into is the fact that the relatives of the female pilot who died were afraid to have her name released because they thought she’d be torn apart as a kind of tokenistic Hire. But people will kind of just throw this sort of chaff up into the air. And then if any tiny bit of it is true, they claim victory. And I think that’s the bit where I really struggle because it does make you feel very, you know, like the kind of ground shaking beneath your feet in that, you know, that you can point out The facts all you want, but the vibe is just so much stronger. I had a friend who described the point of journalism as the war of facts against narrative. And I think that is the kind of, that is the big challenge now today for journalism is saying, yes, there might have been this going on, but it’s actually a little bit more complicated Than that. And that bit of that you believe isn’t true. Whereas what people want it to be is, you know, yeah, was it a Chinese plot? Yes or no? And you kind go, well, it’s a bit more complicated than that. Was it DEI, yes or no? Well, actually, yes, it might be a bit more complicated than that. And no one really kind of wants that. And I think it leads to a lot of faulty thinking because people just apply that heuristic, don’t they? They just apply the frame that they are now used to thinking of everything through to every new situation. Sometimes that frame is right, but as a shortcut, inevitably, sometimes it’s wrong. (Time 0:34:04)