When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows... Quotes

“the repression of controversial ideas is no longer a hallmark of theocracies and dictatorships but increasingly a fixture of universities, the very institutions most committed to exploring ideas.”
― Steven Pinker, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows...: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life

“A common saying in the Soviet era, sometimes attributed to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, was “We know they are lying. They know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. We know that they know that we know they are lying. And still they continue to lie.”
― Steven Pinker, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life

“cognitive scientist, I have spent my life thinking about how people think. So the ultimate subject of my fascination would have to be how people think about what other people think, and how they think about what other people think they think, and how they think about what other people think they think they think. As dizzying as this cogitation may seem, we engage in it every day, at least tacitly, and in the limit this state of awareness”
― Steven Pinker, When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life