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The Good Fight

Cass Sunstein on Campus Free Speech

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk

News

4.6907 Ratings

🗓️ 30 November 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Yascha Mounk and Cass Sunstein discuss the meaning of free speech and how it should be applied on campus. Cass Sunstein is an American legal scholar and the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University. Sunstein was the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs under Barack Obama, and is considered to be the most widely cited legal scholar in the United States. Sunstein is the author, with Richard Thaler, of Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, The World According to Star Wars, and Campus Free Speech: A Pocket Guide. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Cass Sunstein discuss his "law of group polarization" and how it contributes to today's factionalism; how echo chambers work (and why social media makes them worse); and whether meeting the challenge of misinformation requires new government regulations. This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Please do listen and spread the word about The Good Fight. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following this link on your phone. Email: [email protected]  Website: http://www.persuasion.community Podcast production by Jack Shields, and Brendan Ruberry Connect with us! Spotify | Apple | Google Twitter: @Yascha_Mounk & @joinpersuasion Youtube: Yascha Mounk LinkedIn: Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:27.5

Now let's talk about politics. If you have an echo chamber, and the reason the word is useful,

0:35.0

if it is, is that it helps clarify why group polarization occurs.

0:40.3

So if you're a group of people who tend to think, let's say that one presidential candidate is good,

0:47.3

and the other is not so good, and let's bracket the question whether they're right.

0:52.3

As they talk to each other, they'll hear lots of arguments in favor of the goodness of the

0:57.0

one they prefer, and not many in the other direction.

1:01.0

And as they talk to each other, they will become more extreme, not because there's anything

1:06.6

weird about them, but because they're hearing arguments in support of the conclusion to which they're drawn.

1:11.6

And that's how Echo Chambers were.

1:13.6

And now the Good Fight with Yasha Monk.

1:19.6

My guest today is Cass Sunstein.

1:26.6

Cass is the Robert Wormsley University professor at Harvard Law School.

1:31.3

He was also a senior political appointee in the Obama White House as the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

...

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