From Rational Persuasion to Psychological Manipulation: How Social Science Overturned Liberal Governance

According to Aristotle, despotism is a distinct form of misrule. The despot rules over creatures who are presumed to be devoid of reason. Yet in liberal countries we increasingly find that governments make this presumption about the citizenry. How did this happen? During the 1990s and 2000s, certain currents of academic thought in political science and economics prepared the ground for the kind of political situation we find ourselves in today. Our discussion explored those schools and how their aspirations came to fruition. Our special guest speaker was Matthew B. Crawford, a Senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

Photo by Timothy Eberly on Unsplash