In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Common Knowledge 10.2 (2004) 359



[Access article in PDF]
Cass Sunstein, republic.com (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 224 pp.

This concise book, to hear the author tell it, has an immodest task. Sunstein hopes his arguments will fortify "the preconditions for maintaining a republic." Crucial among these are "the social foundations of a well functioning system of free expression." The second half of the book represents a quite sensible brief for the crucial role of government in sustaining any such system. In the process, Sunstein skewers libertarian fantasies about how communications (and other) markets ought properly to be government-free zones. That deflationary exercise is salutary and probably cannot be done too often; but as his self-referential footnotes make clear, Sunstein is largely summarizing arguments that he himself has made at length in earlier books. In this latest summary, he wraps his sensible case in a fantastic package. He devotes the first half of the book to spinning a tale of how individuals might use Internet technologies in ways that—in the aggregate and unintentionally—might subvert the deliberative politics so essential to his own republican vision. But this tale is quite literally incredible. Sunstein depicts a dystopian world populated by large numbers of wholly isolated consumers who successfully deploy information and communication technologies to avoid entirely any and all unexpected, unplanned, unwanted exposure to divergent points of view. The risk is a population dangerously bereft of common experiences, impervious to divergent political views, and susceptible to rampant, rapid cascades of fallacious information. A dire, fearful, perilous world indeed! In painting this portrait, however, Sunstein trades on a mix of equivocation, exaggeration, and implausible inference. The irony is not just that his rhetorical strategy invites any readers even slightly predisposed toward libertarian views to dismiss his sensible arguments. The greater irony is that his strategy, relying as it does on inducing apprehension, fear, and suspicion, may well leave duly alarmed readers even less inclined to engage in reasoned, deliberative politics than they might be otherwise. How does that accomplishment fortify the bases of republican politics?



James Johnson

James Johnson teaches social and political theory at the University of Rochester. He is working on a pragmatist interpretation of democratic theory.

...

pdf

Share