On display at the Wheeler stall or museum of course circa 8 So here's the story how the world's oldest profession helped finance Aspen aspens 1st tax generating business was not mining freighting dry goods or even saloons it was prostitution the city of Aspen ordinances adopted in 1980 set aside a special area near the railroad depot for cribs and female lodging in order to. Trade to a few blocks and to keep tabs on the disreputable businesses for tax collections the ladies of the night only accepted cash unlike most of the other businesses in town so they were the 1st businesses able to pay their taxes the best 1st to worst decide for yourself. And here is the writers for Monday the 26th of June 20179971 this date an unemployed single mother named Joanne rolling sat on a train and got the idea for a book about a black beard be spectacled boy who was a wizard and was just finding out about in the beginning of the 7 Harry Potter books it's the birthday of the blues musician Big Bill Broonzy born in Scott Mississippi in 898. It's the burst of Walter Farley born Syracuse New York 1916 who always wanted a horse when he was a boy but his parents could not afford one so we started writing stories about horses and while he was a student at Columbia he wrote a novel The Black Stallion story of a boy and a wild horse who survive a shipwreck and become friends on a deserted island the book sold so well Walter Farley went on to write 20 more novels about horses. And it's the 1st of pearl s. Buck born Hillsborough West Virginia 892 her parents were missionaries in China she was raised there from the age of 3 months she spoke Chinese 1st said she did not consider herself a white person when she was a child spent the afternoons with her beloved Chinese nurse to could visit friends where the child listen to women gossip Pearl Buck married a missionary they lived in Northern China and then Nan King in 1920 she gave birth to a daughter Carol who had a severe developmental disability she would scream and cry for hours on end by the winter of 1927 buck was living in Shanghai she had just finished the manuscript of her 1st novel and the manuscript had been destroyed by looters her marriage was deteriorating her husband did not want to leave China pro buck knew that the only hope of giving her daughter long term care was to go to the United States she had to figure out a way to provide for her so she returned to writing she moved to America with her daughter she published her 1st novel east wind West Wind in 1930 and started work on her. 2nd novel which took her just 3 months Pearl Buck was amazed when the 2nd novel was chosen by the book of the Month Club and she got a check for $4000.00 enough money to pay for several years of her daughter's schooling the 2nd novel was the good earth it sold nearly 2000000 copies in its 1st year and Pearl Buck won the Nobel Prize in Literature and 1938 Here's a poem for today by an Iverson entitled plenty to. Even near the very end the frail cat of many years came to sit with me among the glitter of a bulb and glow Tried to the very last to drink water and love her small world would not give up on her curious self and though she staggered shriveled and weak still she poked her nose through ribbon and wrap and her piece and her sweetness were of such that when I held my ear to her heart I could hear the sea. Plodded to a poem of an Irish and from mouth of summer published by Kelsey books and used by permission here on the writer's. Supported by Lumosity brain training develop as scientists and game designers who turn cognitive research tasks into challenging games learn more at the masa to dot com And by Staples Staples offers copy in principle or sions for businesses from color copies to presentations to promotional products more at Staples stores or stables dot com Staples it's pro time bit while the good one and keep in touch. From a.p.m. . You know I'm Christian and this is awesome public radio broadcast from the Ideas Festival from the ask. In just a moment we'll be taking you for who's your son for lying and the meaning of truth from the intersections track classical music from Aspen will resume after the session we expect to get started in just a moment support for the Ideas Festival broadcast on Aspen Public Radio is provided by over Myer would Investment Council an independent investment advisory firm that works with individuals corporations and foundations through its offices in Aspen and Denver you'll be able to listen to this discussion and full later today on our website Aspen Public Radio dot org support from public radio comes from the Aspen music festival in school opening its 27000 season this Thursday June 29th with a romantic recycle of trios with violinist r. Nod Suzman cellist David Finkel and pianist with Han more at Aspen music festival dot com Again we expect to get started in just a moment with our library cast from the Aspen Ideas Festival. From the. Title. We're waiting for the start of a live broadcast from the 27th. Titled life and the meaning of true. Public radio. Recession I want to get going my name is Kitty but I just want to bring a little bit of the more ality track which we picked before the election and moral thinking is a big part of what the Aspen Institute does in terms of our seminars and we try really very hard to get people to think about timeless values and we thought that we would try to integrate a little of. Our own philosophy and values oriented thinking into the festival. And of course as things transpire. We have a time when people's morals are question we had a really fascinating the session this morning about. Framing. How you frame moral framing and how you talk to somebody that doesn't agree with you and how you try to understand their values and so this track if you look at it will have a number of sessions within it on on how we think about moral questions today and I think there's a lot of diverse thinking about this and so I welcome you to the 1st deep dive. In the festival this year there are 2 other concurrent and I'm loving the fact that so many are here the way this is going to go is I going to introduce you to your mc Russ and your head who is a professor at Dartmouth College we have multiple parts in every deep dive so you're going to hear from a number of presenters in very very interesting ways thinking about different kinds of. Ways we get to truth and I just want to make a quick comment on the title of the session we were going to have Harry Frankfurt and he couldn't come as of last week who wrote a very famous essay which is short and you can download it called on bullshit and he was a Professor of Philosophy at Princeton and he talks about the nuance between truth and lying and I highly recommend that you download it unfortunately he couldn't come to be interviewed you'll meet his wonderful replacement who just wrote the cover story of National Geographic on why we lie so with no further ado I'm going to introduce you to rest in your head thank you for coming I think this is such an important topic really happy to have you. Thank you Thank you Kitty I think this is an inspired Session thank you for coming . I teach political philosophy at Dartmouth College and. Any student of political philosophy reads thinkers such as Machiavelli and learns that powerful people people who want power will do ruthless things they will certainly and most certainly lie if they need to to advance their ends lying is a in the limit of all part of politics and everywhere in the political world not just because power seekers are ruthless but also because liars like political people want to be free they want to reshape the way things are and resist the recalcitrance the stubbornness of the world as it is and remake it according to their wishes and desires and that's what political people want to so political people are deep have a deep affiliation with mendacity with lying and that goes back as far as politics goes none the less There's a widespread sensibility in the United States today that we are up against something new not just the customary affiliation of politics and lies but something different and just Sunday David Leonhardt and Stewart Thompson in the New York Times compiled the definitive list of president of the law is that they say President Trump has uttered merely since he's been rated beginning with statements like The reason I lost the popular vote is because between 3 and 5000000 people voted illegally and they isolate each lie and stack them up one by one. Like bricks in a wall that eventually separates us from reality such that we are disoriented and don't quite know what's true and what's false anymore Indeed they say every president has shaded the truth or told some occasional whoppers but no other president of either party has behaved as Trump is behaving he is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant today's deep deep dive is meant to help orient us as citizens in this moment when when some fear that our relationship to reality is being altered and when the place of lying in politics is taking a new direction so 1st to help us understand our own relationship to truth and falsity we have Fred dust from idea. And he is going to lead us in an exercise that's meant to illuminates for ourselves our own something of our own relationship to truth. Fred thank you thank you. Ok so I'm also here to make sure that you're all awake after lunch so that's a piece of it so this is going to a very interactive very short so it least if it's interactive and it's awkward it's very short just now that you so it's actually good but exactly right we want to hear from you guys today a little bit about what does it mean to think of to have truth as individuals and how much commonality do we actually see in the truth as we have so we're going to do a quick exercise called Truth and Lies we're going to be asking you guys questions about what we believe is true and why so to help you with this this conversation there's a paddle everybody grab their paddles these are really fun and so basically when I ask you to I'm going to ask you to answer a question truth or lies and if you both agree with the truth you're going to hold it up like this Ok good if you disagree we're going to hold it up like this and you all get to take this home and use it with your spouse afterwards so it's great it's like I promise you in our household it makes everything work so it's like a thing you can use it in all kinds of different things so but it's the fun I am going to ask people to kind of volunteer a little bit so get ready and it's no it's on volunteers I'm going to call and so we're going to go from there. So here's the premise of what I want to talk about and then we're going to go we're going to go into like a few examples so I'm going to throw out some truths and I'm going to ask you 1st of all. The 1st question is What do you know is true do you believe this is true so I'll throw out a truth and I'm going to have you basically look at the screen don't look at each other and put up your paddle one way or another and tell me yes I agree or I don't agree the next question I'm going to ask is What kind of evidence do you have evidence for this piece of truth and I'm going to call on you around the room to be Yeah I think I can prove this but the in the end I don't actually care if we prove it or not that's not the goal what I really want to discover is so what if what if despite all the evidence you have if it wasn't true how would you feel and that's the question I'm going to be asking you kind of in the latter part of. So the feel pretty straightforward we're all ready for it we all have hands on our paddles it's like where they're good so I'm going to throw out the 1st question and the 1st the 1st truth and see how you guys respond to it and I'm not going to and I won't vote ready the earth is round us so forget if you don't believe it or whatever Ok so you do look at other Everybody look at each other pretty much everywhere there are no flat earth in this room that I can see any flat no no one Ok no right so there are no flat or there's in this room so that's you guys kind of fundamentally believe that's the truth that's great so let's go to that next question that I had which is bring the paddles back up because I know you all believe this one so who has evidence what are the things that people believe that they actually are holding true that they can actually say actually makes them feel like there's truth and you want to give it and it doesn't have to be scientific just what makes you believe this is true you've got something here that's. Great so that's basically said it's like there's 2 things you give 2 examples which are great examples one is that we learned it so there's actually something that feels like it's fact but also it feels observable to you so you feel like when I when you look out you can see it over a distance Anyone else want to add something into that yes Robert. You think you traveled around the world Ok awesome but isn't this kind of like auction paddling I wish I was selling something right now because it's like it's anyone who else has the evidence or yes here I can see your name satellite photo so that's a great example and I wonder how many of us would have hold that you know and which is actually there's a very famous 1st image right of like taken from a spacecraft but also satellite photos the basically tell us oh observably it looks like it's at least round it might be you know round on the other side as well but we don't but it looks like it so we believe we have observable evidence exactly anyone else Yes Galileo. Right great so here's here's the things that we have learning in education we have things we've observed ourselves we actually have kind of outside evidence of observation it's been studied and you would say that science is there so those are those are things that we actually say we actually believe and let's go back to the thing that I think is sort of the harder question so. What would it mean to you personally if this wasn't true so let's say something comes through tomorrow and it basically says. We just figured it out and it's actually it turns out it's triangular And you know it's you know as it's like and we're the only thing here well how what would that mean to you so how does that feel and what does that do to your worldview so it's a harder question but I really want somebody to kind of offer up it. Right here. There you go so so it has huge business implications for the cruise ships and whatever it is you like how we're going to keep doing this if we don't believe in it fundamentally yes it would so I can say one more time a little out of. It would shake my faith in science so I think this is a really important one like think about that found fundamentally there's there's an amazing book that I found because it was on Obama's reading list called the 3 body problem that basically talks about what happens when basically physics is disproved what happens to scientists and how they kind of like have this huge issue around it so anyone else yes you'd say the opposite so that's really interesting so the basically the argument there is like if there's new science it's actually kind of definitively proven that actually it's kind of giving me more faith in science so it's an interesting kind of nuance anyone else this is one way in the back of your hand you might have to really yell sorry. Thing is physically. If nothing is physically change I feel like it would be irrelevant that it's been found to be true that the earth is round Ok so stop for saying this is really interesting so it would change my faith in science it would actually make me feel more faithful and it really wouldn't change that much like it's like if everything seems like it's kind of work and them I feel Ok with it for the moment so so that's it I'm going to tell you in the world I'm going to show you $33.00 truths in the world this was actually meant to be the easiest one so it's like after this it gets a lot more difficult and I think some people think the last one is the hardest the next something or should I think is going to be absolute the hardest one for this room so I'm going to go on to our next truth are you ready for it dogs and cats can love me I'm going to put in me so who agrees or disagrees dogs and cats can love. All right so as you look around the room most people agree and there's about like 7 or 8 people who want to really explore with them what's wrong with them and who basically disagrees so so so 1st let's go put the paddles back up who can what's your evidence that dogs and cats can love who wants to actually for something out somebody come on Ok you. Ok So Ok so your dog is not stimulating a motion for food it's basically saying I really love you and that you're Ok so it's like you you have you have direct physical evidence you believe some of the state somebody else over here Ok so even after I feed my dogs they still want to be with me so that's that's pretty nice that would be proof unlike a spousal contact certainly sounds like. Behind you. So basically she was saying that it's like I've seen evidence of 1st of all there's actually been some study that's kind of seemed to prove that actually dogs and cats are so so connection to other species so it's actually not it could be any other species actually if I'm correct so it's like I mean or any other kind of creature So there's multiple things there it's both the evidence as well as kind of its goes beyond maybe even humans yes they can feel pain so that's a great so they can feel pain so they should be able to feel the opposite and that's a really great I think it's an example of a deep empathy perhaps as a way of going to proving it so you're saying well I feel this so and if I can feel this and I also feel this is there's some connection between it which is an interesting thing. It's a business like it is you're just saying it's a low low bar for love and you Ok great so it's like. There's like 7 people I just want to the people who were like no way Ok So over here I have completely different. Dogs are different they're lovable the cats completely indifferent towards me Ok that's my observation so there's no thank you right so there's not more debate about whether cats or dogs can love like this some people believe dogs can love and cats can't I'm just curious so in the middle you know you've got a lot to say must. Think it completely depends on how you're defining love. Ok interesting that the Pens on a definition so you back you. So so I don't think either dogs or cats can love but I think they can exhibit other tendencies that we would equate with love between human beings for example so I think they can have dependence I think they can have loyalty I think they can show 'd appreciation I think they can show disappointment if they don't expect and if they don't receive an expected outcome and for me that doesn't add up to love although many of those things can sometimes be characteristics of love that's that's really interesting so I really want to comment on because I think all these answers been great examples but I think this is one of things we're most interested in exploring this this year where we're at the festival is and how are we defining the terms that are putting our place and what you did very well I think is you defined He said I don't think it's it's it could be something like love but it's not our definition of love it's a different definition of love and that's one of the things that I think we have to really going to be careful around as we're thinking about truth and lies is that how often are we bringing our definition to the table and how often have we spoken through what that definition is I'm going to go to the hard one for the people who basically relate to my dog loves me like I was me what would it mean to you if it wasn't true let's go back and see the paddles again there's one way in the back who has a very. As a really big animal lover I think it's kind of like a lost sense of companionship if it's just it's like a false sense that you build because for a lot of people like your your pets become like part of your family and if feels like that motions reciprocated and what if it's like a lion it's kind of like our man made concept then it's kind of like well what was I believe in. So it's 2 things there which is both like you feel a little more alone in the world maybe and also it's actually shaking your faith so going back to the earlier things that I mean when you actually believed it so what happens when it goes away who else there. Which is coming from my animal even if I threw a poem or if I was the emotions coming from my ever ML's it doesn't change the fact that I love them it's interesting so actually it might not change your perspective at all so the reality is that I actually like even if it's like you still love them and that's what matters in this case I don't think necessarily I love them because I perceive them only because I perceive them loving me back that's interesting. So Ok so by the way so the president of the response or as it might call into question what human love is so let's go back to the 1st question I asked which about flat earth and if you remember it was like it might call into question science it might actually consecrate make actually previously like a firm science or it might not matter at all and you just basically trying it at the same exact thing so I don't care because I still love it like that dog or cat I actually know it calls into question my faith and you're basically saying it actually calls into question the faith that inventions I have about humanity or what it means to be alive. Ok so interesting things so I'm going to do one last one and arguably this should be I'm curious to see what this plays out and this is a this is the yeah but here we go climate change is manmade not as fun as the other 2 so. So let's let's let's see the paddles and see a correlation between people who think dogs can love and climate change but I'm not going to I'm not going to tell you what that is. All right so who has who has an evidence that they want to search. But so do many other things. So there's lots of they have been in significant climate change not involving human activity. In fact that may be the most important source of climate change we may be added for another ice age but it may come a little late great because we have tipped the balance in the short term in a way that is likely to be very disruptive to. The rest of nature as we know interesting so that's a great thing and I think it's really interesting thing to think about as you think about truth which is that your point is that it may or may not be the most important factor but it's a factor that actually has kind of as contributed and the reality also is that we it doesn't matter because it's still moving forward so you're kind of like your Greek contextualizing it can get somebody else on this yes. Yeah. So this is it's a great point and I think it goes back to that and I know I have to wrap up here because back to defining our terms right which is you're sort of saying it's a simplistic question but often true there lies are often simplistic we actually keep them at that level for reasons so we're actually not having to draw the things back around that so I'm going to leave you with this I'm not going to ask you what would it mean if emotionally this was untrue but I do want to talk about this for a moment as you go forward I think the critical thing here that we want to talk about and one of things we're most interested in the festival is making sure that we understand how we're defining our terms as we're talking about things and I think that's as true with truth and lies and the things we might call truth and lies as anything else like you must stop for a moment and basically say why it is sort of the not saying what proves it but what what do I have at stake if it's not true and what's not making me kind of think about so as we go into this conversation this afternoon Think about that you have things at stake what does that mean when we think about truth and lies so with that I'm going to pass that off for the next panel. Ok Thank you Fred. You know it's interesting it's listening to you causes me think when somebody contradicts you you never take it in a I never take it in a dispassionate way and I think oh there must be some interesting examination to conduct to find out whether I'm right or. Passion flair when when something you think is true you know someone tells you is false and so you so yeah it's never just a scientific thing it's always a human thing. Thank you and let me welcome. Jeff Stone from the University of Chicago scholar of constitutional law and Jack Reiko of a legal historian great scholar of the American founding from Stanford. Here to join us this afternoon to talk a little bit about how the law in particular the 1st Amendment. Relates to truth and and life does our law protect lies was it meant to protect a culture of lying or a politics of lying or is it is it really motivated by a desire to protect the truth. And and so let me let me turn 1st to you Jack and ask you about the founders How did they understand what say the 1st Amendment was meant to do. Was it meant to make the political world safe or for lying. So the kind of death I'm supposed to provide is the death of historical context my own view is if you don't have historical context you can get you can never properly understand any use in our in our own time so I think the starting point to this answer 'd us is to say that there was a dominant idea about free speech and free refracts in something you can 18th century Anglo American involved in the drama idea is that while there was no prior restraint and what presses could publish in a theory and what people could say in any public forum there was a well defined tradition that said that if you engage in speech acts that were Satish is that were destructive to the authority of government you would be we liable says the doctor we know is the distance libel truth has no place in this doctrine. The key are being done is that a statement you may make is going to be so derogatory 'd so when in the culture of the authority government it's going to impose some kind of net our model social well being and political stability so what you save in criticism of the king and his ministers or let's say a royal governor it might be perfectly true but if it's really destructive to the 30 government then then should become subject to subject or prosecution then that argument is under a lot of strain in the American Revolutionary Era And by the time we get to there were $900.00 century it's effectively been undermined. So the question arises What's the nature of the strain that's imposed on the dominant idea that says to this is libel is bad I don't care whether what you say is true or not the net are was there and there therefore we have to prosecute and the story I want to tell. The historical dead site actually says there are 2 parts of the 1st Amendment that we have to pay particular attention to 1st Amendment begins with the religion clauses Congress will make no law respecting establish religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof and then proceeds to the freedom of speech or repress clauses and then on to our right to assemble in piece of attention there is a kind of hierarchy there and I want to suggest historically that religion really mattered in a way that's hard for us now to understand which I think would play at the kiddies kids theme about morality in the Argos something like this under the pressure raised by you know in the aftermath of the early 16th century Reformation you know taking place 500 years ago you know you know with within 2 years the dominant understanding this is followed by people like John Wagner the end of the sentence entrance really by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison the end of the agent century is that religious belief is essentially a matter of opinion. Of course there are the great truths of Christianity you're expected to subscribe to but that you what what what exactly you believe about the structure of a church or the the proper mode of salvation Are you think about. Anything but the sacraments how you think about baptism all of these in the under matters of opinion and we want to protect the individual's right and less individual I mean men and women he created them both we want to protect an individual right to make up one's mind that opinion and maybe even the American Revolution. The American Congress did not set out as being hard felt devil taze of theories of religious liberty they wanted for themselves were not the groups that they disagreed with but by the middle of the 18th century I think around the eve of the revolution after the year the great religious divide revival we we call the 1st great awakening I think this acceptance of a kind of sovereign autonomy on the part of individuals to decide what they believed was going to be broadly recognized the problem with this is opinion is not a matter of truth opinion says I have some final right of judgment based on my individual read the Bible you know that you can argue it out with your neighbors and you know within your church but essentially if it's a vote if it's a lower threshold for jury was really true and what's not so we're going to recognize your moral autonomy as an individual what happens after that didn't run a story pretty quickly is I think a set of beliefs about the importance of pinion it actually originates not in the realm of politics words today interests but in the realm of religion starts to move into the political sphere that happens to the American Revolution it's reinforced by the great political disputes of the century ninety's Jefferson Madison onesided Hamilton in Washington and John Adams the other side which call this the passing of the famous Sedition Act of Sunday night again which did allow truth to become a defense. So there is some significant wrinkled legal doctrine but I keep point is that what originates in the realm of religion moves into the realm of. So there's a kind of sequencing here which on the moral side I think the board has to understand the last one I want to make here is that there is a Jefferson the Jefferson Madison angle here is that they they align themselves being built on opponents of this edition that they did believe very much freedom of speech freedom of press and they felt in the kind of the great Jeffersonian calculus that the best way to resolve these issues was to be able to argue them out in the realm of religion and in the realm of politics and like the more open debate we have the more truth test will emerge in the process of the debate in the better off we will be not just individually but collectively to figure out what is politically or religiously drew it what isn't true it is. 'd because Jerry and then today had a somewhat different opinion that didn't happen in fact but that isn't Jefferson's you know Cherry prediction represents his own belief about all those as would operate so so we've become over the course really of many decades a country where each person has a right to his or her own opinion but we didn't start out necessarily that way. I. I can't help but read these tweets and I notice a tweet by President Trump where he said it's not freedom of the press when newspapers and and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even if it's completely false and I have to say I I'll I'm I'm inclined to agree with him at a commonsense level it does freedom of the press protect fake news does it protect us in publishing and voicing our opinions even if those opinions have no basis in fact is that what the 1st Amendment is about and let me turn to the content scholar of contemporary cust to show our Jeff is that freedom of the press so the Supreme Court 1st. Touched on the question of false statements in the very 1st opinion it ever issued on the meaning of the 1st Amendment 117 Oliver Wendell Holmes confronting the question Congress shall make no law bridging the freedom of speech or of the press well what does that mean it sounds that it's absolute and what Holmes basically said it can't be absolute it would make any sense it was absolute and he gave the famous hypothetical of the false cry of fire in a crowded theater and what makes that hypothetical work is that the cry of Fire is false the true cry of Fire is a completely different thing of course and so is it from the very 1st the court understood that false statements of fact are different and indeed they don't actually that presumptively serve any purposes that the 1st Amendment itself is designed to further and therefore for the next 40 or so years the basic assumption was that false statements of fact were not protected by the 1st Amendment and that came to a head in 1964 in a landmark decision called New York Times versus Sullivan which involved a libel action brought by a public official against the New York Times for a statement that was factually false about that public official and the Supreme Court said that consistent with the 1st Amendment the plaintiff the public official cannot recover damages even though this was a false statement of fact unless the public official can prove that the speaker acted with either reckless disregard for the truth or knew it was false it was a lie and the court said that because it recognized that even though false statements of fact don't have any value if we allow false statements of fact to be punished then that will chill the willingness of people to make statements that they think may be true but they're not sure and they will therefore be silenced in a way that would dampen in a serious way the robustness of. And that became a landmark and critical decision in the years since then the court has recognized that there are certain types of false statements that can be subject to government action libel being one in the circumstances identified in New York Times others would be perjury in a court of law Another would be fraud in which one defrauds another person by making false statements Another would be false commercial advertising but the court has since taken the basic view that even false statements of fact cannot be restricted in lest there is at the very least a very substantial government justification as in the defamation the perjury the fraud situations and even then only if the person acted with reckless disregard or knowledge of false it now the question then is what what about false statements in public discourse right what about lies in public discourse write people tell lies and they influence others and they have a serious impact potentially in the un on how people vote and how you behave as political actors and the court up till now is taken the view that those lies are not actionable consistent with the 1st Amendment and it's done that for basically 2 reasons one of them is the chilling effect problem. If you know that you are going to be held or potentially be held liable for a statement you make in public discourse because some jerk finds it to be false you'll be very careful about what you say and the sacrifice of freedom from that the court says is to be taken very seriously the other and even more compelling justification is in the realm of public discourse the idea of allowing government officials to decide which false statements to prosecute and which not to prosecute puts in the hands of public officials in extraordinary power to manipulate public discourse. And imagine for example if the trumpet ministration had the authority to decide which false statements it would prosecute and which would not it's easy to see how that would completely distort the marketplace of ideas and so for those reasons the court has basically taken the view that the government is not allowed to restrict that sort of false speech now one of the interesting questions we face going forward in our society is up until now we've been able to rely upon what Holmes called the marketplace of ideas as a way of hoping to to sort out truth and falsity that basically when people tell lies in public discourse even if there's no criminal prosecution for it other people will correct it they will say the truth and individual citizens will be able to decide for themselves in a rational way what is true and what is false in a world of social media that now becomes much more problematic we now have a world in which people are increasingly fragmenting polarising in their sources of information and in which they only hear one side of the debate and in that context false statements can have an increasingly powerful effect much beyond what every just before and whether that opens the door to saying there may be circumstances in which false statements can be restricted poses a really dire problem for democracy for on the one hand ignoring the problem is a problem on the other hand addressing it by allowing the government to decide who to prosecute not to prosecute is also a dire problem and that's of that we will have to face going forward it sounds like you can. Dimly imagine Supreme Court changing 1st name in law I think it was back to the way it protect I think it would be loath to do that I think the danger of allowing government the power to decide who to prosecute and not to prosecute is overwhelming but at the same time we face a real problem how do we address this polarization in information so as to avoid the kind of fragmentation and and ignorance that this invites and the solution shouldn't be prosecution it should be figuring out ways to make people have access to ideas and facts different from the ones who are now choosing to focus on. So the solution to the lies in the public sphere it's not going to come from law you know you hope it doesn't come from God got to come from the from the culture from character from something else right it'll come partly from education and we need to educate people much more seriously about the dangers of getting all of your information from highly polarized sources and a lot of come I think from the media from entities like say Facebook and others who may start developing mechanisms instead of sending people only things that reinforce what they really look at instead beginning to send the sources of information that are different from the ones that they automatically look at your resume and I'm a big story and I'm a big believer in the passage of time and though there is the common expression the trump yours are dog years going back to our prior present danger and you are already some months into this impetus ration the disturbing yes to this one might say is so much material came out during the election campaign itself I think the work done by The Washington Post in New York Times I receive pealing to do a liberal reading body was pretty compelling work in there was ample evidence of the difficulties the nation finds itself now there's already available so that wasn't countervail enough at that point in terms of electoral politics but you know it's only some months in and it's seems to me it's still a highly dynamic situation and you know there is movement in the public opinion polls I mean I ever met believer I think even though Jefferson was a real Pollyanna it was terribly naive about a lot of things but I think the Jeffersonian norm that we want to argue things out as much as we possibly can 1st without having strong government restraint I think that's a powerful norm if we look around the world the number of authoritarian regimes that are flourishing in other countries that are quite happy to start cracking down on free speech free in present ways that would be wholly unacceptable I Merican standards I think we're better off sticking so far at least with the conventional wisdom that the story play out into panic. You know it's a libertarian libertarian machine when it comes to when it comes to speech and writing and also religion and religion but we've moved from a world where most people used to get their information from mainstream reasonably responsible relatively moderate sources where there was a fairness doctrine which required radio and television stations to present both sides of all issues if they allowed one candidate to appear to actually have the other candidate to appear that's all gone and the source of information we get now is completely different from what it was 3040 years ago is there an analog that you could locate in American history when when citizens got their news from very strict good sources and maybe this election played out that in today's New York Times to Miles your taxes historians don't believe in analogies and we don't make comparisons we want to take every case he telling us that's right but on the other hand you know it's not unlike the 70 nineties and sad holy unlike 'd the 850 s. I mean those were periods of deep political passion you know one leading to an election where you know half the population thought the of the Union might well devolve the 2nd one lead to an election where the union really did devolved so you know taking the long view is the struck by d.h. Or want to do and so kind of some slack this may it may not be white you know these are bad a crisis you know it yet seems so when it comes to differentiating finding our way in a world where where where there's truth and where there is lots of lies and lots of deception you're both libertarians you're believers in reason you think it's up to citizens to to sort this out is as best they can manage through argument through discussion through reflection and that the solution isn't going to come you hope from from law and will care for them from education and I think that's important. All right well thank you thank you so much. We're going to turn to our next the next episode in this session Thank you Jeff thank you Jack. Hi Were you welcome. Thanks to. Let me welcome you digit by the cherry Bhattacharjee thank you digit. A contributing writer for The National Geographic who's also written for a variety of publications The New Yorker The New York Times and also the author of a book What's the title the title of the book is The spy who couldn't spell this by who couldn't spell a true story of espionage that you can download to your Kindles after the session and read on your flight home. To that and we've also. Recently done a long piece for The National Geographic. On lying and the result of your BUSY own investigation into the into the science of lying to better understand it and. And let me say I don't know myself I've never looked into the science of lying but if I were to guess I suppose what I'd say is that most people are liars most people tell the truth most of the time all the time there are a few people maybe bad apples rotten apples 'd Well that's Or at least that is a lie if that's not true everyone was telling us that it works because it turns out and you know you were only slightly exaggerating when you said that I investigated the science of lying I actually spoke to researchers who investigated the science of why but but to 'd simplify matters yes indeed it turns out that lying is a very common human trait it is both universal it is it is it is done frequently people on average live least 2 to 3 times a day most people I see people there are outliers. As in people who both lie a lot more and egregiously than others as well as people who are you know just by default so on as to as as you said your wife is right well. She may be here that's how I think of her but I think you know and it's true there are there are some people who maybe go every evaluate after having Well there are some people who just who are truth tellers almost to a fault certainly but the fact is that most of us lie and we lie frequently and what are we lying about every day so 2345 times right to our day to day allies are mostly sort of polite lies the white lies that sort of lubricate social interactions. We lie when we say to a friend that we're supposed to meet that oh I'm on my way actually you're just sitting in. Your bathroom to get ready or something so those those lies are sort of harmless lies but we we tell them because.