Democracies around the world are under threat from populist movements, demagogues, and dogmatic extremists who use disinformation, conspiracy theories, shaming, cancel culture, and other tactics to weaponize social media and challenge our ability to distinguish fact from fiction and truth from falsehood.

In his new book, our guest, best-selling author, journalist, scholar, and public intellectual, Jonathan Rauch, offers a stirring defense of the constitution of knowledge— our social system of checks and balances that is crucial for turning disagreement into truth.

"This global network of people hunting for each others' errors is far and away the greatest human technology ever invented," Jonathan tells us in this episode of "How Do We Fix It?" The constitution of knowledge, he says, "is a global conversation of people looking for truth, and more especially, looking for the error."

What’s the greatest crisis facing America today? — Racism and hate crimes, exploding government debt, climate change, or the mess at the border?

It may be none of these.

America and many other countries are trapped in high conflict. Both sides are paralyzed by fear and anger as they demonize the other. The national narrative of "us versus them" is a threat to democracy and stops us from working together to build a better world.

Best-selling author and investigative journalist, Amanda Ripley, is our guest. She is well-known for her writing in The Atlantic, Time, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. Her latest book is “High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out."