Adam Serwer on America's "new dark age"
"They see this as a long-term investment in a more ignorant population reliant on sources of information they can control."
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Today, as a bonus for subscribers, we’re publishing a Q&A with Adam Serwer, a renowned writer for The Atlantic, originator of the phrase “the cruelty is the point,” and author of a highly recommended recent article about America’s “new dark age.”
“The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science,” Serwer writes. “If this assault is successful, it will undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us. Like the inquisitors of old, who persecuted Galileo for daring to notice that the sun did not, in fact, revolve around the Earth, they believe that truth-seeking imperils their hold on power.”
We began our conversation by asking Serwer why he thinks the Trump administration is so focused on bringing elite universities like Columbia and Harvard to heel.
“They don’t regard any political opposition as legitimate,” he replied. “Their view is that they need to destroy these institutions or bring them under strict political control, and it doesn’t matter if they end up destroying their incredibly profitable, effective, and substantive research infrastructure, because they don’t want anyone producing empirical knowledge that might be used to foster political opposition.”
“They want everyone to believe what they believe. When Trump changes his mind about something, then you need to believe that, too. It’s functionally a totalitarian political view that says, ‘You’re allowed to think and say what I want you to think and say.’”
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Without further ado, what follows is a full transcript of Serwer’s conversation with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for clarity.
Thor Benson