The Poisoning of the American Mind - Paperback

by Lawrence M. Eppard (Editor), Jacob L. Mackey (Editor), Lee Jussim (Editor)

What would you have to believe in order to dress up as a shaman, paint your face, and storm the U.S. Capitol? What could possibly lead somebody to claim that it upholds white supremacy to encourage hard work, self-reliance, rational thinking, punctuality, and politeness?

Such behaviors would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. And yet here we are, witnessing millions of people across the political spectrum displaying these clear indications of an epistemically poisoned mind. Both red America and blue America are retreating into their own information bubbles, seceding from a common reality. Both consume far too much misinformation and disinformation, developing worldviews that can sometimes be unintelligible to others.

This book explores these disturbing developments and what they mean for our society and implores us all to recover a shared sense of what is true.

Author Biography

Lawrence M. Eppard is Associate Professor of Sociology at Shippensburg University. He is author of Rugged Individualism and the Misunderstanding of American Inequality.Jacob L. Mackey is Associate Professor of Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture at Occidental College and author of Belief and Cult: Rethinking Roman Religion. Lee Jussim is Professor of Social Psychology at Rutgers University and author of Social Perception and Social Reality: Why Accuracy Dominates Bias and Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.