Great article from Niall Ferguson, another one from one the best modern thinkers – a top “Intellectual Dark Web” member 🙂
Emotions are replacing facts and analysis. This is a real threat to democratic and free societies.
Quote:
“We live in an “emocracy”, where emotions rather than majorities rule and feelings matter more than reason. The stronger your feelings — the better you are at working yourself into a fit of indignation — the more influence you have. And never use words where emojis will do.
… truthiness – the quality of being ideologically convenient, though not actually true – is now bipartisan…
Alexandria Occasionally-Correct shares with the president a genius for the crucial tool of emocratic politics: social media, where moral truthiness always travels faster than the boring old dry-as-dust vérité…”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/feeling-beats-truth-in-our-indignant-emocracy-fn2d6rhpg