Comment: On “the pathologies of persuasion”

Kenneth Boulding’s “The pathologies of persuasion” appeared in a 1989 book of essays honoring John Kenneth Galbraith (Boulding 1989). For many years prior to this publication, terms cognate to persuasion—information, communication, education, knowledge, learning, teaching, adaptation, evolution—had been central to Boulding’s work. By and large, however, prior to this point he had given short shrift to both “pathologies” and “persuasion.”