NONFICTION
On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done
by Cass R. Sunstein, $18
When most Americans hear conspiracy theories suggesting the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were an inside job, the Holocaust never occurred or that AIDS was manufactured by doctors, they are left scratching their heads and wondering, “Seriously, who makes this stuff up?”
Still, these and other wild fictions manage to take root in some circles, allowing the falsehoods to persist. Cass R. Sunstein’s “On Rumors” explains how such chatter spreads and why certain tales gain traction with specific groups.
Some of Sunstein’s conclusions are somewhat intuitive, such as “If a rumor cannot be made to fit with your existing stock of knowledge, it will seem ridiculous and have no force,” or that a person is more likely to believe stories that are accepted by large groups of people.
But the most interesting ideas are the less predictable ones. Sunstein describes research showing that people usually do not moderate their position after hearing an opposing opinion, but rather become more extreme about their original view. And, as easy as it is to spread a rumor, it can be extremely difficult to squelch one. Attempts to correct a rumor often backfire and only cause people to believe it more deeply.
Sunstein also delves into the role the Internet plays in spreading rumors. “To an increasing degree, your silly, confused, flirtatious, angry and offensive moments, on Facebook and in e-mail or in daily life, are subject to being recorded and stored (forever) and, potentially, mischaracterized,” he writes. And because of the Web’s broad reach, these tidbits can travel faster than ever before.
In revealing how easily and blindly we accept rumors, Sunstein’s book is likely to make readers think twice before believing or repeating the next bit of gossip that comes through the grapevine.
NONFICTION
Essays
by Wallace Shawn, $18.95
Wallace Shawn is the first to admit he’s got it pretty good. Raised in an elite Manhattan family and having made his living as a playwright and actor, he writes that he has had “probably the most comfortable, cozy and privileged life that a human being can live on this earth.”
But he’s hardly congratulating himself. Instead, “Essays” is refreshingly self-aware and self-deprecating, with Shawn depicting himself as an undeserving everyman with unusually good luck.
Often the result is very funny, as when he explains his decision to be a playwright: “I could sense that the whole field of theater was really a strange sort of non-field, in which the whole business of ‘standards’ just didn’t apply.”
Not all the essays are humorous. Some reflect on his experiences in the arts and others analyze the effect of post- 9/11 politics on his own life.
One of the most compelling is about the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq. Comparing the American people to passengers in a car headed toward a fire, he writes, “Don’t seem to know how to reason with the driver. Don’t seem to know how to stop the car from going. Don’t seem to know how to get out of the car.”
And his observations about class and culture are searing — a reminder of the our complacency about the gaps between rich and poor, free and oppressed.
