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Political Disagreement, Arrogance, and the Pursuit of Truth

This chapter explores two contributing factors to cognitive polarization. The first is what is known as epistemic disagreement—or disagreement over what is known, who knows it, or how we know. Crucially, even the perception that such disagreement is widespread—whether or not it actually is—can be dangerous. The second factor is intellectual arrogance. This is arrogance about what we know or think we know; it is the kind of arrogance that tells whites they have nothing to learn about racism from people of color and that reassures those who believe they know more about infectious diseases than those who spend their lives studying them. The chapter also attempts to argue that these two factors can be mutually reinforcing. This makes them doubly dangerous, because by increasing cognitive polarization, they in turn undermine the democratic value of the pursuit of truth.