Escape the Echo Chamber
Perhaps you know someone who can't help but make comments about the deplorable state of America—because of X political party or Y group of humans. Maybe this person watches one news channel (or one type of news channel) relentlessly, grows irritated with social media posts they dislike, and associates only with like-minded friends. This person tends to discredit ideas based on their source rather than their substance, while considering anyone from the opposite side intellectually—even morally—inferior, regardless of the actual idea. The word "they" gets thrown around liberally. Maybe you know someone like this. Or maybe this is you, and you don't realize it? As economist Joan Robinson observed, "Ideology is like breath: You never smell your own."
It's unfortunate that public discourse has become littered with terms like post-truth, alternative facts, fake news, bias, misinformation, and disinformation—weaponized words used to disparage (if not outright discredit) opposing ideas or launch ad hominem attacks. C.T. Nguyen captures our contemporary predicament: "Something has gone wrong with the flow of information. It's not just that different people are drawing subtly different conclusions from the same evidence. It seems like different intellectual communities no longer share basic foundational beliefs. Maybe nobody cares about the truth anymore, as some have started to worry. Maybe political allegiance has replaced basic reasoning skills."
The triumph of echo chambers over the quest for truth poses a serious problem—especially for a pluralistic society that depends on consensus and fairness. In this class, we're going to examine echo chambers and learn how to recognize them while exploring ways to combat their influence on ourselves and others. In addition to reading C. Thi Nguyen's "Escape the Echo Chamber," we'll watch Megan Phelps-Roper discuss her firsthand experience living inside an echo chamber and what it took for her to break free.
Texts: “Escape the Echo Chamber” by C. Thi Nguyen
Learning goals:
- Understand the difference between an echo chamber and an epistemic bubble.
- Explain the mechanisms that lead to the formation and maintenance of echo chambers as well as the difficulty of escaping them.
- Consider how echo chambers impact the social fabric.
- Articulate ways in which we can avoid and escape epistemic chambers and epistemic bubbles.