January 2023
Intermediate to advanced
248 pages
3h 45m
English
Zebra stands for Zero Evidence But Really Adamant. ‘Zebras’ are people who see things in black and white. They are sure of their own opinions, and they disdain information, facts or science that undermine their beliefs. Donald Trump was a zebra and he famously dismissed countervailing reports as ‘fake news’.
Tom Nichols writes in his book The Death of Expertise that ignorance is now seen as a virtue: ‘To reject the advice of experts is to assert autonomy, a way for people to demonstrate independence from nefarious elites and to insulate their fragile egos from ever being told that they are wrong.’21
A poll by the Washington Post in 2014 asked Americans if they favoured US military intervention in Ukraine.22
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