In many democracies around the world, people are divided over facts, not only over values. Lies, propaganda, and fake news have hijacked political discourse on polarizing issues, distracting the electorate from constructive engagement of the problems we face, from climate change to mass immigration. This series of Uehiro Lectures offers a diagnosis of this problem and suggests how we can reconstruct the ways we talk to one another across partisan and social identities, so that democratic institutions are better able to devise sound solutions to the problems we face together.