Why Would He Say That?

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We want to believe that theyre we're getting a window into their soul, and we don't always think of them as behaving strategically. It's really easy oes it to say, why would he say that? He doesn't really believe that, does he? And cantser answers. Of course he doesn't. He's a politician. He's trying to. It'slik. Why would you think he would be a transparent on twitter or in the press conference? That's not the goal. Tat's that woutd the it's theatre. Don't you get it? Wer, we wont o lik, have the suspension of of disbelief. Now, this is actually

To the Founding Fathers it was free libraries. To the 19th century rationalist philosophers it was a system of public schools. Today it's access to the internet. Since its beginnings, Americans have believed that if facts and information were available to all, a democratic utopia would prevail. But missing from these well-intentioned efforts, says author and journalist David McRaney, is the awareness that people's opinions are unrelated to their knowledge and intelligence. In fact, he explains, the better educated we become, the better we are at rationalizing what we already believe. Listen as the author of How Minds Change speaks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about why it's so hard to change someone's mind, the best way to make it happen (if you absolutely must), and why teens are hard-wired not to take good advice from older people even if they are actually wiser.