The Problem of Political Myths (w/Michael Huemer)

On this episode of the Utterly Moderate Podcast we are joined by Michael Huemer, a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is here to talk about political myths and why they are dangerous.

Political myths are factual claims which are believed by members of a political tribe that strongly support an element of that tribe’s ideology—yet they are demonstrably false or highly misleading.

Professor Huemer has written a book taking a look at how political myths operate among liberals in America titled, Progressive Myths, available on Amazon.

In his book, Huemer writes that:

“I think truth matters. Society cannot be reliably improved through lies, exaggerations, and misleading stories; it requires knowledge of the real, factual situation we face, in whatever area we seek to improve matters. . . To be clear, my problem is not that progressives have bad values, nor is it that I don’t like them or that they don’t belong to my tribe. My problem is that they are factually mistaken. They hold beliefs that objectively conflict with the way the world is in many respects; they misunderstand the current state of society, the causes of social problems, and the effects of social policies. This leads them to advocate policies and behaviors that worsen society and even undermine their own values.”

Political myths are a problem in America today, as people are more and more isolated in ideological silos and bombarded with questionable claims that feel right to their side and are shielded from information that might undermine those claims. We hope you enjoy our exploration of this problem!

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The Utterly Moderate Podcast is the official podcast of Connors Institute for Nonpartisan Research and Civic Engagement at Shippensburg University.

The core mission of the Connors Institute is to disseminate high-quality nonpartisan information to the public.

Utterly Moderate is hosted by Lawrence Eppard, a researcher, university professor, and director of the Connors Institute. On each episode, Eppard is joined by a guest (or two or three!) who helps listeners understand important topics by focusing on just the weight of the empirical evidence and none of the unneeded opinions or political agendas. We are aggressively nonpartisan in our approach.

Be sure to visit us at ConnorsInstitute.org to learn more about all that we do!