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A few days ago, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I heard a flock of world worlds as analyzing this week’s inauguration of Donald Trump. The solemn, with dinner with baked trout, they brought their fears of economic, political and geopolitical turns. Then one world leader turned to the old Greek.
“We have an epistemological crisis,” he said, referring to the Greek words epistems (“knowledge”) and Logotypes (“study”). More specifically, different social tribes now interpret knowledge in so many different ways that he fears that “democracy is” undermined. “
Just like that. It doesn’t matter that Trump besieged Davos this week with his intentionally provocative hyperbole, which “hesitates the facts, fiction and fantasy”, as Graham Allison, a Harvard professor, told me.
What is more important is the findings of two recent studies. One, who spent Wef, shows that For the second year in a row (mostly) the elite delegates of the meeting is considered to be a “disinformation” with the largest short -term global threat, above the war and the weather. The problem was not even on the list of worrying before 2024.
other pollThe Edelman Public Relations Group shows that 61 percent of people (in 28 countries) feel dissatisfied with governments, businesses and rich – and 40 percent supports enemy action to extort change.
Moreover, two -thirds believe that business leaders, governments and media are deliberately lying to them, which is a sudden increase in recent years. The fact that Trump is bouncing on elite and experts – including scientists in National Health Institutes – He reflects this. As one PRO-TRUMP told me the executive director after the US president held a bombastic address to WeF: “People are angry.”
So how should elites and experts answer? Judging by chatting in Davos, two answers prevail. Some business leaders (such as those in technology) simply ignore Trump’s “fabrications” to make arrangements. Others (like bitter advanceds) reject him and his supporters as misconceptions, stupid or evil – and want Trump to disappear and/or to make regulators and big tech “corrections” of lies.
However, I suggest that there is one more time: leaders should think about what they can do for themselves to help treat this epistemological division. How? There are several possible steps. The first is to get involved in “deep listening“To quote the concept advocated by journalist Emily Kasriel. This means listening to what Trump’s supporters say with as little pre -created filters as possible. We need empathy to understand why public dissatisfaction exploded.
We also need this to understand another thing: many of Trump’s supporters believe that they are in the struggle for the salvation of Western civilization – with the same emotional intensity as, say, climatic activists. This cannot be dismissed or despised.
Second, if the leaders want to restore the public respect for expertise, they must accept the “Error tape”, a long -time scientific principle that researchers should honestly show their level of confidence in research results. This was forgotten during the pandemic, when politicians made dogmatic statements about medical issues (vaccines, for example) – and sometimes restrained the discussion – even when science was temporary.
That may have been understandable in the middle of a panic. But it contributed to public cynicism about “experts”, such as entrepreneur Peter Thiel recently recorded in FT. Thus, the leaders of all political lines must accept the mistake of errors in the future if they want to restore credibility.
Third, leaders have to (as I am often written before) admit that vertical trust – in authority and institutions – is being collapsed today. Instead, people are increasingly relied on to groups of peers or local communities as sources of advice (in other words, to the side relations between trust). The leaders could hate this, but they have to work on it – not to want to give up.
Fourth, if you believe in the enlightenment principle of critical reasoning, you must put your money behind. This means paying for quality journalism, supporting intellectual research in Think-tank and universities and promoting it in the creation of politics. See the inspiration 314ACIJA.orga political action committee created by American scientists with the aim of setting up several scientists on public duties. He has already gathered thousands of volunteers. But it could be a lot more.
Fifth, leaders should advocate initiatives to suppress misinformation online. This does not mean the use of hierarchical power to suffocate freedom of speech. But this means setting up protective fences against violent activism and supporting the community platforms to check the facts. These tools aimed at many are now the main agent against an online lies, since the target and others have decided to reduce the moderation of content.
These steps are not a magic wand. But they are better than calm, despair and blaming. The difficult truth is that neither Big Tech nor the government can or want to fix the epistemological crisis. The responsibility is on all of us.
