Living in a Post-Truth World
It is that time of the year again — no, not Christmas time — the Oxford Dictionaries have revealed their word of the year: post-truth. In recent weeks, there has been an immense increase in the spread of fake news. Has Hillary Clinton killed someone? Is Donald Trump the inventor of the light bulb? For some, it is hard to tell these days.
The spread of fake news leads to several problems. Not only do actually true and important stories get lost in a maze of nonsense, but — as the result of the recent presidential election has shown — they can have a massive impact on our everyday lives. It does not matter if something is true or not, if it is out, it is out. It is in people’s heads and influences them, consciously as well as subconsciously. It does not matter if something is true or if there is any proof — it just has to be printed.
There are different kinds of people believing these fake news. Undeniably, there are people who simply are not able to differentiate between true and false stories. They are gullible and assume that if it is on the Internet, it must be true. Nobody is saying that you cannot be wrong from time to time. However, if this is the case, you should be willing to educate yourself and also to accept when you have been proven wrong. Worse, however, are the people who just do not care. Even if you prove to them that they are wrong, they will still not care. They consider something to be true, if it fits their own narrative and deliberately ignore the rest, not (exclusively) because of stupidity but because it is more convenient to them.
It is alarming how the line between truth and lie becomes more and more blurred these days. To some it is just not that important anymore.
