NCAT Homepage. WHO SAYS WE KNOW: ON THE NEW POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE By Larry Sanger. There are a lot of things that "everybody knows. " Everybody knows that Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, that 2+2=4, that most people have two eyes—and a lot of other things. If I were to go on, it would get tedious very fast, because, after all, these are things that everybody knows. But there are also a lot of other things that "everybody knows," except that not everybody agrees that everybody knows them.
For example, everybody knows not only that there has been significant global warming recently, but also that human beings caused this by burning fossil fuels. Those dissenters, however, don't matter much when it comes to most journalism, reference, and education. To be able to determine society's background knowledge—to establish what "we all know"—is an awesome sort of power. So today, if you want to find out what "everybody knows," you aren't limited to looking at what The New York Times and Encyclopedia Britannica are taking for granted. Why not? WHO SAYS WE KNOW: ON THE NEW POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE By Larry Sanger. Change Magazine -- November/December 2010: In This Issue.