Peter Wehner: What’s different and more dangerous about American politics today than before, and why is this epistemic disruption so much worse now than ever before? Or is it worse now than ever before?
Jonathan Rauch: It probably tracks polarization, to which it’s closely related. And indications are that polarization is at its worst since approximately the time of the Civil War. That’s not a sentence anyone enjoys saying or thinking about. And I think the same is true of the epistemic crisis.
There was a big one in the 1850s. The South engaged in a campaign to create an alternative reality in which the North was the aggressor and it was coming down to destroy the South and its lifestyle. And that was very effective in ginning up
— source theatlantic.com | Jonathan Rauch, Peter Wehner | 2021/07