Liberals and Libertarians
The Libertarian Wing of the Conservative coalition has started to peel off from the Limbaugh-Beck-Fox News-Tea Party wing. Here’s Julian Sanchez(Cato Institute) last week. Sanchez accused the Red meat wing of “epistemic closure”. Here’s how Sanchez now defines what he meant.
One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with that reality can be dismissed out of hand because it comes from the liberal media, and is therefore ipso facto not to be trusted. (How do you know they’re liberal? Well, they disagree with the conservative media!) This epistemic closure can be a source of solidarity and energy, but it also renders the conservative media ecosystem fragile. Read more…