The McCourtney Institute for Democracy hosts author and journalist Jonathan Rauch for public lecture on combatting disinformation

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — On Tuesday, Nov. 14, guest speaker Jonathan Rauch shared with the audience at the Business Building the tactics employed in epistemic warfare as well as how to combat disinformation and deceitfulness; by following what Rauch dubs the “Constitution of Knowledge.”

When asked what the one thing Rauch would leave readers with would be, Rauch said “My one takeaway would be that every individual can find things that they can do to stand up for free speech, true facts, and viewpoint diversity. No one person can change everything, but everyone can improve their own environment, and help others around them to do the same.”

Rauch began presenting the “epistemological crisis", or the war on knowledge, present in today’s world and attributed it to the usage of an ideologically sound yet incomplete “marketplace of ideas” system for the free exchange of information and opinion.

Rauch called for “a system in society for moving towards consensus and deciding what is true for public purposes - When those systems cease to function when they go wrong, you get some pretty severe consequences.”

That system, Rauch coins “The Constitution of Knowledge,” which is also the name of his 2021 book.

Rauch emphasized how the United States is under fire both internally and externally from epistemic warfare and outlined ways individuals and institutions can prevail unscathed, including depolarization and pre-bunking propaganda and lies.

“This idea of having a Constitution of Knowledge I think is really helpful to people because it helps [people] appreciate that knowing things is a collective social accomplishment,- you have to build a whole infrastructure [around it]” said John Gastil, a Penn State communication arts and sciences scholar.

Trip Tagle is a first-year student majoring in digital and print journalism. To contact them, please email tnt5403@psu.edu.