Partisan Politics Makes Smart People Stupid

I’ve started a new blogging gig at Learn Liberty, a project of the Institute for Humane Studies. I’ll be putting links to these posts here. My posts there will have the benefit of an editor, which is probably something I need.

The first is on partisan rationalization and why epistocracy may not save us after all – a suitable topic after this election, no? Here’s the lede:

Highly informed voters are also highly biased. That’s a serious problem for democracy, but also for any other system of political decision-making in big groups.

Two new books, Against Democracy by Georgetown moral philosopher Jason Brennan and Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government by Princeton University political scientist Christopher Achen and Vanderbilt University political scientist Larry Bartels, deal intellectual hammer blows to the political system so many of us take for granted: democracy.

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