Private Truths, Public Lies
Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including ones rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities. Private Truths, Public Lies uses its theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena. They include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India's caste system.
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- Timur Kuran writes about this idea (preference falsification) in "Private Truths, Public Lies".
He explains that its this idea that had kept the Soviet Union (this bad idea/system) from dying sooner. People thought it was the system of oppression but in reality it was people who hated the system showed approval. https://youtu.be/xzjqjU2FOwA?si=aTG0GnJKVDoK_-qb&t=819
"Accordingly, for all the hardships of life under communism, they remained politically submissive for years on end." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification
- I would distinguish between "the left" as a political persuasion and as a political movement, and between "the left" and "liberalism." Both versions of "the left" could further split into "left progressivism" and "left socialism." Or again, as "Progressives" and "Socialists" (or Communists). "Progressives" in my ontology are "left liberals" (as opposed to "right liberals/libertarians").
By "the left" do you mean "socialism" or "progressivism?" If socialism, then both as a political persuasion and political movement I agree that "the left" "hates" the Democratic party. For one, the Democratic party is not socialist. Two, they compete for mindshare and the socialists always lose. I did not bring up the "left/right" dichotomy in my comments and don't believe they are that helpful in the current context. That said, the socialists don't really matter. Socialists don't/can't/won't/shouldn't hold power so their only function is as a faction within the broader "left coalition" that has broken down since the 1990s when global liberalism reached its apex. That coalition is dominated by "left liberals" (aka Progressives). These are not all that different teleologically from Communists, but seek to push forward a type of Whig history. The representative expression of this Whig history is Obama's "The arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice." Sometimes, it doesn't bend fast enough and has to be bent by technocratic governance. And this can't be limited to the borders of a polity or nation, but logically requires a global scope. It is both interesting and convenient that such an ideology happens to provide cover for the administrative actions of global empire. It would be hard to convince the individual people to act against their better judgment. Much better if they believe they are a force for good. Hence the role of indoctrination towards ideological conviction. You see the effect when this fails while the government persists in the later stages of Soviet and Communist governance. The people just didn't believe it anymore. If interested, you can read a sociological study of this effect in Timur Kuran's "Private Truths, Public Lies".
Nobody is "cunning enough to come up with a whole nefarious plan to indoctrinate the kids." Holding to such formulations is obtuse and a trivial form of casuistry. Ideology and its supporting indoctrination programs are emergent in the modern era. That said, plenty of past Propaganda Ministers have existed who did take an active role in managing popular opinion. They don't call themselves that anymore, but they still exist. (Interesting books have been written on the topic[0].) In the modern context, propaganda may seem subtle until some kind of crisis occurs when all points converge and you get those hilarious memes of all news anchors somberly enacting the same exact text at the same moment. It is at those times that one sees behind the arras and understands that "news" is not organic nor is it independent. Editorial boards collude regularly to shape public opinion. (I would call it a subtler version of Pravda but people who lived under Eastern European propaganda have scoffed at the heavy-handedness of our version compared to the actual Soviet programs.) The breakdown of this function/ability is one of the more interesting phenomena of our current times.
All that is to say that the process of indoctrination is not all that mysterious, but its conspiratorial aspects, while real, get too much attention imho.
[0] For examples, see Walter Lippman's "Public Opinion", Edward Bernays' "Propaganda", Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent", Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda", Sheldon Wolin's "Democracy Incorporated", Martin Gurri's "The Revolt of the Public", etc...
- "seem to be independent thinkers, but they pretend to follow the in-group for the purpose of maintaining social harmony"
Preference falsification [0]. There's a book called Private Truths, Public Lies by Timur Kuran which delves into this.
- Private Truths, Public Lies by Timur Kuran is a good read.
In the book he gave the theory of Preference falsification.
- The book "Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification" by Timur Kuran offers a good model on this topic. It explains why revolutions are so hard to predict.
Because the true preferences of members in a society can be effectively hidden for extended periods, and members all have their own threshold where they may feel compelled to reveal a preference, there is no sure way to foretell the dynamics of a revolution.
- A four-week book club on Timur Kuran's Private Tuths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification.
Ever wondered why revolutions come out of nowhere? Why arguments over subtleties of agreement or minor nitpicks can generate such anger? Why you feel obligated to say you like your friend's baby photos?
If so, you should hop on the Progress Studies Book Club's reading for April, where we'll do our best to express our private truths on Kuran's groundbreaking discussion of preference falsification.
Club Info:
https://www.notion.so/Private-Truths-Public-Lies-Progress-Studies-Book-Club-d3978762e9034a2a8f745c7e04a9a48a
Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1016932.Private_Truths_Public_Lies
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Private-Truths-Public-Lies-Falsification/dp/0674707583
