Private Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of Preference Falsification.

• Author: Khalil, Elias L.

Kuran argues that agents choose "public preferences" which are contrary to their "private preferences" in order to attain "reputational utility." Such "preference falsification" pushes, in turn, ideas away from private consciousness, originating "knowledge falsification" (i.e., indoctrination). Kuran's book is well-argued, never dull, and studded with diverse anecdotes. It is destined to become a classic, providing a methodological individualistic alternative to Karl Marx's theory of ideology. In the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Marx reasoned that the gap between the objective politics of French peasantry and its subjective hostility towards progressive politics is the result of rationalization - i.e., where peasants avoid cognitive dissonance resulting from supporting the oppression they have to endure: what Marxists later called "false consciousness."

Kuran discusses committee voting rules, freedom of free speech, politics as meddling in other people's choices, propaganda, public opinion, revolution, and affirmative action. The discussion proceeds in light of a three-way distinction among "reputational utility," "intrinsic utility," and "expressive utility." While intrinsic utility is the familiar one, expressive utility emerges only when one has the courage to express intrinsic utility in public. One may suppress expressive utility in order to obtain reputational utility, the approval of pertinent observers.

I find that "reputational utility" invites double counting. This is apparent in the three case studies to which Kuran dedicates eight out of the nineteenth chapters. First, Kuran attributes the stability of communist regimes in Eastern Europe to preference falsification, the pursuit of reputational utility where "living a lie" has almost become part of private preferences through brainwashing. However, how can such reputational utility be different from well-calculated method to attain intrinsic utility, employment? Second, Kuran argues that the caste system in India persisted because many untouchables genuinely believed in the system and, in order to receive reputational utility from upper caste members, ostracize their cohorts who try to improve their profession. However, such reputational utility can be traced also to well-calculated strategy to gain economic favors. Third, Kuran traces the reluctance of the U.S. public to criticize openly affirmative action to the fear of being stigmatized as "racist." But why does the...