Post-truth: The Word of the Year 2016

On Defining Post-Truth

• After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. (Source: Oxford Dictionary)

Why was this chosen? (Click to read)

A brief history of post-truth (Click to read)

How should we read Post-truth?

• The compound word post-truth exemplifies an expansion in the meaning of the prefix post- that has become increasingly prominent in recent years. Rather than simply referring to the time after a specified situation or event – as in post-war or post-match – the prefix in post-truth has a meaning more like ‘belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant’. This nuance seems to have originated in the mid-20th century, in formations such as post-national (1945) and post-racial (1971). (English Language and Usage)
• In many election campaigns, misinformation and disinformation have victory over information. Facts are no longer considered important in campaigns characterised by post-truth situation. People, manipulated by emotional appeals, treat misinformation and disinformation as information. Recall two recent events — the Brexit and the Trump campaigns. In both the campaigns, emotional appeals and feelings, and not facts (truth), were the factors for Britain leaving the European Union and the triumph of Trump.
• Evidence-based facts and analysis that Brexit will not be beneficial to the country did not convince fifty-two per cent of the voters in the UK. As Sir John Major has said, the voters were bamboozled by ‘a whole galaxy of inaccurate and frankly untrue information’. It was a post-truth campaign. Take the recent US Presidential campaign by Donald Trump. Though about seventy percent of the statements he made during the election campaign were rated false (by PolitiFact), which was nearly three times the falsity score of Hillary Clinton, Trump was considered more honest and trustworthy than Clinton.
• It is a classical example of post-truth politics. The nouns that collocate with post-truth are: politicians, era, age, politics, journalism, journalists, brigade, presidency, etc. Examples: post-truth politicians, post-truth era, post-truth journalists, and post-truth brigade. Here are examples of how the word is used in sentences: Mr Trump has been described as the leading exponent of post-truth politics — a reliance on assertions that “feel true” but have no basis in fact.
• Post-truth politicians along with post-truth journalists and post-truth campaigners are responsible for creating post-truth voters. In the post-truth age, using euphemisms is a trend to convey that someone is a liar. He misinformed the public. (Albert p'Rayan)

Here are some interesting observations by Kathleen Higgins: (Source: nature.com)

• Post-truth refers to blatant lies being routine across society, and it means that politicians can lie without condemnation. This is different from the cliché that all politicians lie and make promises they have no intention of keeping — this still expects honesty to be the default position. In a post-truth world, this expectation no longer holds.
  This can explain the current political situation in the United States and elsewhere. Public tolerance of inaccurate and undefended allegations, non sequiturs in response to hard questions and outright denials of facts is shockingly high.
• More radical forms of relativism are often denounced as under­mining basic values. Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth-century phil­osopher who is often invoked to justify post-truth, was such a relativist, and he does suggest at times that deception is rife and should not be cat­egorically rejected. His point is to complicate our view of human behaviour and to object to moral certainties that encourage black-and-white judgements about what’s good and what’s evil. Thus he denies that there are moral facts, saying that we have only “moral interpretations”, and in doing so denies that moral assertions are unconditionally true. But this does not mean there is no truth. Even when he claims that our truths amount to our “irrefutable errors”, he is pointing to the exaggerated clarity of abstractions by comparison with empirical reality.
• In fact — contrary to how he is often presented — Nietzsche held intellectual honesty at a premium. His most strenuous rejections of ‘truth’ are mostly directed not at truth, but at what has been asserted as true. Yes, Nietzsche was an elitist who was sceptical of democracy, and so his work does not necessarily fault leaders for talking down to the public. But it also points out the inconsistency of religious teachers who assume they have the right to lie.
• Scientists and philosophers should be shocked by the idea of post-truth, and they should speak up when scientific findings are ignored by those in power or treated as mere matters of faith. Scientists must keep reminding society of the importance of the social mission of science — to provide the best information possible as the basis for public policy. And they should publicly affirm the intellectual virtues that they so effectively model: critical thinking, sustained inquiry and revision of beliefs on the basis of evidence. Another line from Nietzsche is especially pertinent now: “Three cheers for physics! — and even more for the motive that spurs us toward physics — our honesty!”

• Teaching in the post-truth era - Paullete Delgado

• Click here to read

• Here is an interesting example:

The students of Nirma University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat were agitating regarding weekend holidays.

The news paper reported it like this:

The news reads: "The students of Nirma Univeristy are agitating as they are given holidays on 2nd and 4th saturdays which is normal practice in Public Universities and govt institutions.

As soon as this was posted on Instagram, the comment from one of the students was posted. Read it:

• Humour helps understand difficult concept:

Can technology replace teacher?

Can technology replace teacher?

Is teacher replaceable by technology?

The answer to these questions is another question. The question is why do we ask such questions? Has anything as such happened where humans are replaced by technology?

Well, may be there is something of this sort in our subconscious memory that humans are replaceable by technology and tools. Perhaps, collectively we all have memorised that there are very significant spaces which are encroached by technology and tools.
What is it? Where are these spaces? Are these spaces really existent?
Well, there are such spaces in urban and rural spaces where technology and tools have replaced human beings.
It is factories in urban spaces and agriculture in rural spaces.
The integration of technology in factories has minimised use of humans to almost one tenth.
The technological innovation in agricultural equipment has not only reduced human beings but have changed the skills of people working in agrarian societies.  They have readily accepted the change and adapted new skills necessary to work in rural spaces / agrarian society.
In both these spaces, people have forgot old traditional knowledge and skills and have learned new knowledges and skills.

Moreover, what is interesting is the in both the spaces outcome has not only increased but have become qualitatively better.
Is it this in our memory that makes us feel panic about technology as teachers?
Have we turned technophobic because of this in our collective unconsciousness?

Are we more afraid of technology because it's intervention has bettered the outcome?

May be yes.

We question this because of collective memory.
We deny to accept that teachers can be replaced because we fear that it may give us incredible challenge. It may force us to increase and improvise on our teaching skills and knowledge of pedagogy. If we do not do so our unhoned skills and old knowledge will make us obsolete. We as teachers will soon be outdated and updated technology will replace such outdated teachers.

Teachers will have to remember and understand that Google is not their friend. It is an enemy. One shudder know the language and capacities of  an enemy. Today's teachers shall know the language and capacities of Google. And then master all Google can do . . .  And then go beyond what Google can do.

Google can give information. What Google cannot do is connect dots in such a way that innovation and creativity can be perceived.
Teachers should not be mere information giver. They shall be connectors of dots in this networked era.
Google is just a tip of iceberg so far as technology integration in real world is concerned
Lest much more advanced technology is surely going to replace teachers as it has replaced humans, unhoned skills and old knowledge in factories and agrarian society.

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There are some interesting comments on this in Comments on this Facebook post:

Hollywood, Foreigners, and the Press

MERYL STREEP'S POWERFUL GOLDEN GLOBES SPEECH

(If you cannot view the video, click here to open in YouTube: https://youtu.be/EV8tsnRFUZw )

Thank you, Meryl Streep for reminding that American multiculturalism is not only Salad Bowl but a Melting Pot where people around the globe has melted in one, global culture. It should have been an illustrious example for the world to follow in the 21st Century. . . and this is the right time to remind that we, as human beings, are regressing and disconnecting in the highly connected, networked world. We cannot allow a few groups of fanatics to make all of us fanatics. A few violent groups should not be victorious to make all think and speak the language of violence.

Whether the disabled reporter was mocked or not; what is important in the speech is a reminder about multi-nationality and multi-cultural identity of Hollywood.

 Thank you for this bold and brave pronouncement against Power. Your resistance will inspire and give confidence to many to who stood for the better world then what is unfolding in our times. 

Read full transcript here:

"Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Please sit down. Please sit down. Thank you. I love you all. You'll have to forgive me. I've lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend. And I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year. So I have to read.

Thank you, Hollywood foreign press. Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said. You and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it. Hollywood, foreigners, and the press. But who are we? And, you know, what is Hollywood anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places.

I was born and raised and created in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola [Davis] was born in a sharecropper's cabin in South Carolina, and grew up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was raised by a single mom in Brooklyn. Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Italy. Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem. Where are their birth certificates? And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Ethiopia, raised in -- no, in Ireland, I do believe. And she's here nominated for playing a small town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here for playing an Indian raised in Tasmania.

Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. If you kick 'em all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts. They gave me three seconds to say this. An actor's only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, passionate work.

There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege, power, and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life.

And this instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.

This brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage.That's why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood Foreign Press and all of us in our community to join me in supporting the committee to protect journalists. Because we're going to need them going forward. And they'll need us to safeguard the truth.

One more thing. Once when I was standing around on the set one day whining about something, we were going to work through supper, or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me, isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor. Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight.

As my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once, take your broken heart, make it into art. Thank you."