Timur Kuran on Why We Lie About Our Beliefs

The Good Fight

Yascha Mounk and Timur Kuran discuss the perceived social and political pressures that lead individuals to conceal their true beliefs—and what that means for our politics.

Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science and the Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University. He is the author of Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification and Islam and Mammon: The Economic Predicaments of Islamism.

In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Timur Kuran discuss how the phenomenon of people falsifying their preferences explains why revolutions are so unpredictable; how preference falsification operates in journalism and whether journalists get rewarded or punished for breaking taboos; and how we can move towards a society in which more people feel empowered to truthfully express their beliefs.

This transcript has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

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Podcast production by Jack Shields, and Brendan Ruberry

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