POLITICS
The Rise and Fall of Truth
Thoughts on ritual, correspondence and totalitarianism
For the last eight years, much of the world has been living in what political scientists and philosophers call a “post-truth” era. Post-truth refers to “a situation in which people are more likely to accept an argument based on their emotions and beliefs, rather than one based on facts.”
Post-truth became popularized in the context of two watershed moments of 2016: the United Kingdom vote to leave the EU in what became known as the Brexit referendum, and the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States. For many commentators, one of the most noteworthy elements of these events was the degree to which both campaigns displayed an utter disregard for facts, instead relying on emotive and often demonstrably false statements designed to sway voters.
It has long been accepted that politicians lie. What distinguishes post-truth politics from the established decorum of neoliberal consensus politics is the lack of concern about getting caught in the act of lying.
As a student of history, what troubles me most are the parallels I see between our own culture’s disregard for truth, and the totalitarian propaganda of the early twentieth century. Hannah Arendt could have been describing…
