America’s long epistemic struggles
To evaluate whether social media is responsible for America’s epistemic crisis, we must first clarify what that crisis is. And here, it is essential to note that many of America’s epistemic challenges are not new. Problems such as political ignorance, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and bitter intergroup conflict have plagued the country throughout its history.
Research in political science has consistently documented astonishingly high rates of political ignorance among American voters. A landmark 1964 study found that most voters were unaware of basic political facts, estimating that roughly 70% were unable to identify which party controlled Congress. Similarly, from the Salem witch trials in the late seventeenth century to the widespread Satanic panic of the late twentieth century, false rumors, misinformation, and widespread misperceptions have been ubiquitous throughout American history. As political scientist Brendan Nyhan writes, there was never a “golden age in which political debate was based on facts and truth,” and “no systematic evidence exists to demonstrate that the prevalence of misperceptions today (while worrisome) is worse than in the past.”
Political polarization and vicious intergroup conflict have been more intense at previous stages in American history, not least during the Civil War. Although there was little polarization between the parties in the mid-twentieth century, this was a historical anomaly. It was also partially due to the parties’ shared interests in upholding a system of racial apartheid in the South. This system was, in turn, supported by widespread lies, racist myths, and censorship, from “scientific” racism painting Black people as inferior to the suppression of anti-lynching journalism.
Elite-driven disinformation has also been a pervasive force throughout American history. Both the tobacco and fossil fuel industries waged sophisticated propaganda campaigns to deny the harms caused by their products. McCarthyism involved systematic political repression based on largely fabricated communist threats. And there is nothing new about catastrophic, elite-driven epistemic failures, including their role in events as recent as the Iraq War and the 2007-08 financial crisis.
Perhaps most surprisingly, there is little evidence to suggest that rates of conspiracy theorizing have increased in prevalence in the social media age. In a recent study, political scientist Joe Uscinski and colleagues conducted four separate analyses to test for possible changes over time. They conclude: “In no instance do we observe systematic evidence for an increase in conspiracism, however operationalized.”
Today, many are reasonably worried about the dangers demagoguery and populism pose to American democracy. However, these forces have always posed profound political challenges. Nearly 2,000 years before the emergence of the printing press, Plato argued that democracy inevitably leads to tyranny by elevating demagogues who are skilled at catering to voters’ prejudices.