Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification

The informational value of repetition is rooted in one of the heuristics we use to overcome our cognitive limitations: the availability heuristic. A person employs this heuristic “whenever he estimates frequency or probability by the ease with which instances or associations come to mind.”

John Stuart Mill held that government oppression is generally less burdensome than the tyranny of friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens.

The figure bears upon a long-standing controversy concerning the evolutionary role of ideas. The fount of social change, say many intellectual historians and cultural anthropologists, generally lies in the realm of ideas. By this logic, historical explanation ordinarily must begin with an account of what people were thinking. Other scholars, includ

A basic reason for the rarity of compensatory transfers is preference falsification. The conformist pressures of public opinion induce the harmed individuals to refrain from pressing for compensation, lest they damage their reputations.

The democratic cities of ancient Greece required their citizens to give so much of themselves to politics that little time was left for the production of wealth.

If one distinguishing characteristic of preference falsification is that it brings discomfort to the falsifier, another is that it is a response to real or imagined social pressures to convey a particular preference.

Where differences fascinate, says Stephen Jay Gould, generalities instruct.

A quarter-century before the American Civil War, Tocqueville predicted that the United States would never free itself of interracial conflict.

There are two additional lessons here. First, a generation may continue to influence public opinion long after its days are over. Second, an established public opinion may get carried into the future by generations that bear no responsibility for its inception.