Preference Falsification- Suppressing the change

Preference Falsification. What is the thing first comes to your mind when you hear or read these words? The exact meaning of these words is the following, “The act of misrepresenting one’s actual opinions or preferences due to fear of social pressure.” This term was first coined by social scientist Timur Kuran. He used this word in his book ‘Private Truth, Public Lies’ which was published in the year 1997. After coining this term by Timur, the term has been used to explain some abrupt and unforeseen political and social revolutions happens. The fear of society and the social rejection can sometimes cause us to remain stuck to false preferences for a long time and remain unexposed. This happens when a group of people remain silent for the false preference and will get to know suddenly.

In general, this term means that people will convey preferences that differ entirely from what they know actually. The author Timur Kuran expresses that conveying fake and untrue choices by certain people about a fashion, political law, or a policy causes discomfort to other people who genuinely want to express their original thoughts. The consequence of this falsifying action is that people hide their knowledge on which the issue rests. This causes distort, corrupt and exhaust the true knowledge. This makes it harder for others to know about the drawbacks of the main issue. Also, this will widespread the stopping of creating a big change. In the long run, this will dampen the major change from happening for the community thus narrowing down the intelligence and implanting the untrue nature.

As a part of the community, we should prevent this preference falsification from happening as much as possible for the welfare of the society. It is our duty to be true where in our integrity lies. Let us bring a change by being true to ourselves and in our opinions so that you are benefiting some people to whom you are not directly related but belonging to the same community.

Thanks for reading. Good luck.