There's a quote by journalist Ned Resnikoff in Brooke Gladstone's latest book, The Trouble With Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time. It's one of many quotes she cites that guide her through a meditation on whether the election of Donald Trump signals the worst existential crisis we've known.
Consensus is the bedrock of democracy...Interlocutors must be aware of their shared rights and responsibilities, and they need to be capable of proceeding from a common set of facts and premises. When political actors can’t agree on basic facts and procedures, compromise and rule-bound argumentation are basically impossible; politics reverts back to its natural state as a raw power struggle in which the weak are dominated by the strong.
Gladstone knows that facts are not relative. But truth is a more subjective thing. Opening her eyes to that reality challenged her belief that democracy works along certain rock-solid principles.
GUESTS:
- Brooke Gladstone - Co-host for WNYC’s On the Media with Bob Garfield and the author of The Influencing Machine and most recently, The Trouble with Reality: A Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time
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Colin McEnroe and Chion Wolf contributed to this show.
