Countering conspiracism requires wisdom, not just factual honesty

Evidence

We echo the conspiracist in chief’s warning: “There’s something going on that’s really, really bad. And we better get smart, and we better get tough, or we’re not going to have much of a country left. O.K.?” But we turn the warning back on itself. We are paying attention. We are smart enough to enact democracy, tough enough to speak truth to conspiracism. Our formidable political challenge is to recognize that “it is not enough, in this war of hoaxes and delusions and perpetuated lies, to be merely honest. It is necessary also to be wise.” — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 393

Categorization

• APHORISMS: In fighting hoaxes and perpetual lies, honesty alone is insufficient; wisdom is also required — a genuinely reusable principle.
• XREF: connects to: Conspiracism’s corrosive work can be mitigated by coordinated truth-speaking across partisans. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 43; Factual correction of conspiracism usually fails or backfires — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 119; Conspiracism undermines rather than expresses democratic skepticism about experts — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 269 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Countering conspiracism requires reaching open minds only #qualifies (0.85) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 348
• Resisting conspiracism needs honest witnesses, not heroic martyrs #corroborates (0.75) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 364