On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Stephen Macedo, a Professor of Politics at Princeton, stated that one of the lessons from the coronavirus pandemic is to ensure “that we’re open to dissent” and stated that science, journalism, and “even universities, to some extent, have been reluctant to ask some hard questions about our COVID experience because of the partisan inflection of some of these issues.”
“NewsHour” Correspondent William Brangham asked, “Does your authorship of this book help you give us a sense of how we ought to do things differently if and when — most likely when — the next pandemic comes?”
Macedo answered, “Yes, I would say so. I think we need to make sure that we’re open to dissent and that we’re open to dissent when it comes from the other side. One of the things that we found is that the pandemic became very polarized. Democratic states were on one side, Republican states were on the other side. We should have been more open to criticisms that were associated with the other side. That, I think, applies to science, because science became politicized, journalism, unfortunately, and I think even universities, to some extent, have been reluctant to ask some hard questions about our COVID experience because of the partisan inflection of some of these issues.”
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