Our post-truth era

By: José Azel - 2022/01/26

Share:     

In 2016, post-truth was selected by Oxford Dictionaries as its word of the year due to a 2,000 percent increase in usage compared to 2015. So, what exactly is post-truth, and what are its implications for democratic politics?

`

The Oxford benign definition is that post-truth “describes circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief ”. But what this definition does not capture is that post-truth is more problematic and dangerous than old fashioned lies.We have always understood lying to be wrong. The book of Exodus describes the Ten Commandments as being spoken by God. “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is the ninth of the Ten Commandments commonly understood as moral imperatives in Judaism and Christianity.

Mendacity is a constant in human history. Yet, mendacity changes forms and post-truth differs from lying in that the truth itself is demeaned. Post-truth ignores and dismisses science, evidence, facts, and the truth itself. A defining characteristic of post-truth is that those employing it continue to insist in their positions even after those positions are proven to be false. Post-truth does not mean that truth disappears, but rather, that truth ceases to be important and is replaced by our emotions and personal beliefs.

In our post-truth era, feelings have more weight than evidence. The term post-truth became widespread in 2016 during the “Brexit” referendum in the United Kingdom, the presidential elections in the United States, and the Colombian peace agreement referendum that was to ratify the final agreement on the termination of the conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC guerillas. In Colombia, based on opinion polls, approval of the referendum was taken for granted. The unexpected victory of the “No” approval fell along lines of personal beliefs as happened with the Brexit vote in the UK, and Donald Trump's presidential victory in the US.

Social scientists claim that we have developed a certain disdain for uncomfortable truths. We tend to associate truth with bad news, and we do not want to hear bad news. Thus, instead of searching for the truth, we distance ourselves from it. It appears we are electing to live in an era of post-truth.

Social media, the internet, and cable news amplify the dominance of post-truths. In the past, news came to us as well-researched propositions, or carefully thought-out opinions from respectable newspapers and other media. But, as we are now able to choose where we get our news from, we choose outlets that reinforce our own opinions. If FOX News is your favorite news source, you are unlikely to switch to MSNBC for your political information.

Ironically, even when news outlets seek to be impartial, they can create a false balance that favors unverified claims. This is because, in the effort to be impartial, news outlets give unsupported claims equal emphasis with factual claims. If we treat facts the same as opinions, everything becomes relative and subject to our perspective. Truth loses its moral value.

Today, like-minded individuals have the ability to gather and create data clusters aided by social media and the internet. This results in pockets of information that ratify ones beliefs and discards information that points in a different direction. Studies show that over sixty percent of us use social media as our primary source of information (Pew Research Center). That is, we get our information from unreliable postings on Facebook and the like.

Most disturbing, according to Professor Filippo Menezer (Indiana University), who's research focus is on social networks and social media, there is practically no difference in the popularity of false news and truthful news. During the final days of the 2016 presidential campaign in the US, fake news gained just as many “likes” on social media as real news. Apparently, there is nothing to be gained by speaking the truth in politics.

The implication of post-truth is that opinions have the same value as facts. This is destructive for democratic politics because, without facts we can agree on, political consensus becomes impossible.

Dr. Azel's latest book is “Liberty for Beginners.”

“The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author”.