Private Truths, Public Lies

The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification

Timur Kuran (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

448 Seiten

1997
Harvard University Press (Verlag)
978-0-674-70758-0 (ISBN)

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Preference falsification, according to the economist Timur Kuran, is the act of misrepresenting one's wants under perceived social pressures. It happens frequently in everyday life, such as when we tell the host of a dinner party that we are enjoying the food when we actually find it bland. In Private Truths, Public Lies Kuran argues convincingly that the phenomenon not only is ubiquitous but has huge social and political consequences. Drawing on diverse intellectual traditions, including those rooted in economics, psychology, sociology, and political science, Kuran provides a unified theory of how preference falsification shapes collective decisions, orients structural change, sustains social stability, distorts human knowledge, and conceals political possibilities.

A common effect of preference falsification is the preservation of widely disliked structures. Another is the conferment of an aura of stability on structures vulnerable to sudden collapse. When the support of a policy, tradition, or regime is largely contrived, a minor event may activate a bandwagon that generates massive yet unanticipated change.

In distorting public opinion, preference falsification also corrupts public discourse and, hence, human knowledge. So structures held in place by preference falsification may, if the condition lasts long enough, achieve increasingly genuine acceptance. The book demonstrates how human knowledge and social structures co-evolve in complex and imperfectly predictable ways, without any guarantee of social efficiency.

Private Truths, Public Lies uses its theoretical argument to illuminate an array of puzzling social phenomena. They include the unexpected fall of communism, the paucity, until recently, of open opposition to affirmative action in the United States, and the durability of the beliefs that have sustained India's caste system.

Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University.

Preface Living a Lie The Significance of Preference Falsification Private and Public Preferences Private Opinion, Public Opinion The Dynamics of Public Opinion Institutional Sources of Preference Falsification Inhibiting Change Collective Conservatism The Obstinacy of Communism The Ominous Perseverance of the Caste System The Unwanted Spread of Affirmative Action Distorting Knowledge Public Discourse and Private Knowledge The Unthinkable and the Unthought The Caste Ethic of Submission The Blind Spots of Communism The Unfading Specter of White Racism Generating Surprise Unforeseen Political Revolutions The Fall of Communism and Other Sudden Overturns The Hidden Complexities of Social Evolution From Slavery to Affirmative Action Preference Falsification and Social Analysis Notes Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	30.10.1997
Zusatzinfo	17 line illustrations
Verlagsort	Cambridge, Mass
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 235 mm
Gewicht	567 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Philosophie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Allgemeine Psychologie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Sozialpsychologie
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Psychologie ► Verhaltenstherapie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	0-674-70758-3 / 0674707583
ISBN-13	978-0-674-70758-0 / 9780674707580
Zustand	Neuware