Author: Lee McIntyre Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262345986 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 242
Book Description
How we arrived in a post-truth era, when “alternative facts” replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence. Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into “information silos.” What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism—specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its attacks on science and facts. McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.
Author: Marius Gudonis Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000198227 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
History in a Post-Truth World: Theory and Praxis explores one of the most significant paradigm shifts in public discourse. A post-truth environment that appeals primarily to emotion, elevates personal belief, and devalues expert opinion has important implications far beyond Brexit or the election of Donald Trump, and has a profound impact on how history is produced and consumed. Post-truth history is not merely a synonym for lies. This book argues that indifference to historicity by both the purveyor and the recipient, contempt for expert opinion that contradicts it, and ideological motivation are its key characteristics. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this work explores some of the following questions: What exactly is post-truth history? Does it represent a new phenomenon? Does the historian have a special role to play in preserving public memory from ‘alternative facts’? Do academics more generally have an obligation to combat fake news and fake history both in universities and on social media? How has a ‘post-truth culture’ impacted professional and popular historical discourse? Looking at theoretical dimensions and case studies from around the world, this book explores the violent potential of post-truth history and calls on readers to resist.
Author: D. Stephen Long Publisher: Wesley's Foundery Books ISBN: 9781945935503 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 196
Book Description
Where would we be without the truth telling of Moses, Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr.- and you? The choice is clear: truth, justice, and freedom, or lies, injustice, and bondage? The good life and a just society depend on truth telling- but are we more comfortable with lies and fake news?
Author: Abdu Murray Publisher: Zondervan ISBN: 0310562058 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 246
Book Description
How can Christians defend truth and clarity to a world that rejects both? Increasingly, Western culture embraces confusion as a virtue and decries certainty as a sin. Those who are confused about sexuality and identity are viewed as heroes. Those who are confused about morality are progressive pioneers. Those who are confused about spirituality are praised as tolerant. Conversely, those who express certainty about any of these issues are seen as bigoted, oppressive, arrogant, or intolerant. This cultural phenomenon led the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary to name "post-truth" their word of the year in 2016. It's popularity and relevance has only increased since then. By accurately describing the Culture of Confusion and how it has affected our society, author Abdu Murray seeks to awaken Westerners to the plight we find ourselves in. He also challenges Christians to consider how they have played a part in fostering the Culture of Confusion through bad arguments, unwise labeling, and emotional attacks. Ultimately, Saving Truth provides arguments from a Christian perspective for the foundations of truth and how those foundations impart clarity to the biggest topics of human existence: Freedom. Human dignity. Sexuality, Gender, and Identity. Science and Faith. Religious pluralism and Morality. For those enmeshed in the culture of confusion, Saving Truth offers a way to untangle oneself and find hope in the clarity that Christ offers.
Author: James Ball Publisher: Biteback Publishing ISBN: 1785902504 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 293
Book Description
2016 marked the birth of the post-truth era. Sophistry and spin have coloured politics since the dawn of time, but two shock events - the Brexit vote and Donald Trump's elevation to US President - heralded a departure into murkier territory. From Trump denying video evidence of his own words, to the infamous Leave claims of £350 million for the NHS, politics has rarely seen so many stretching the truth with such impunity. Bullshit gets you noticed. Bullshit makes you rich. Bullshit can even pave your way to the Oval Office. This is bigger than fake news and bigger than social media. It's about the slow rise of a political, media and online infrastructure that has devalued truth. This is the story of bullshit: what's being spread, who's spreading it, why it works - and what we can do to tackle it.
Author: Gabriele Cosentino Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 3030430057 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 151
Book Description
This book discusses post-truth not merely as a Western issue, but as a problematic political and cultural condition with global ramifications. By locating the roots of the phenomenon in the trust crisis suffered by liberal democracy and its institutions, the book argues that post-truth serves as a space for ideological conflicts and geopolitical power struggles that are reshaping the world order. The era of post-truth politics is thus here to stay, and its reach is increasingly global: Russian trolls organizing events on social media attended by thousands of unaware American citizens; Turkish pro-government activists amplifying on Twitter conspiracy theories concocted via Internet imageboards by online subcultures in the United States; American and European social media users spreading fictional political narratives in support of the Syrian regime; and Facebook offering a platform for a harassment campaign by Buddhist ultra-nationalists in Myanmar that led to the killing of thousands of Muslims. These are just some of the examples that demonstrate the dangerous effects of the Internet-driven global diffusion of disinformation and misinformation. Grounded on a theoretical framework yet written in an engaging and accessible way, this timely book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, policymakers and citizens concerned with the impact of social media on politics.
Author: Steve Fuller Publisher: Anthem Press ISBN: 1783086955 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 220
Book Description
‘Post-truth’ was Oxford Dictionaries 2016 word of the year. While the term was coined by its disparagers in the light of the Brexit and US presidential campaigns, the roots of post-truth lie deep in the history of Western social and political theory. Post-Truth reaches back to Plato, ranging across theology and philosophy, to focus on the Machiavellian tradition in classical sociology, as exemplified by Vilfredo Pareto, who offered the original modern account of post-truth in terms of the ‘circulation of elites’. The defining feature of ‘post-truth’ is a strong distinction between appearance and reality which is never quite resolved and so the strongest appearance ends up passing for reality. The only question is whether more is gained by rapid changes in appearance or by stabilizing one such appearance. Post-Truth plays out what this means for both politics and science.
Author: Ignas Kalpokas Publisher: Springer ISBN: 331997713X Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 135
Book Description
This book combines political theory with media and communications studies in order to formulate a theory of post-truth, concentrating on the latter’s preconditions, context, and functions in today’s societies. Contrary to the prevalent view of post-truth as primarily manipulative, it is argued that post-truth is, instead, a collusion in which audiences willingly engage with aspirational narratives co-created with the communicators. Meanwhile, the broader meta-framework for post-truth is provided by mediatisation—increasing subjection of a variety of social spheres to media logic and the primacy of media in everyday human activities. Ultimately, post-truth is governed by collective efforts to maximise the pleasure of encountering the world and attempts to set hegemonic benchmarks for such pleasure.
Author: Erkan Ali Publisher: Taylor & Francis ISBN: 1000933636 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 239
Book Description
Drawing on debates from a multi-disciplinary perspective, this book examines what it means to offer a genuine sociological critique of religious faith, illiberalism and anti-secularism from a macro perspective. Arguing that as a discipline concerned with real issues in the social world, sociology should be at the forefront of any analysis of religious power and legitimacy, the author contends that much religious faith is fundamentally incompatible with any twenty-first-century society that seeks inclusive, utilitarian and humanistic principles as its goals. With an emphasis on sociology, the effects of organised religion’s overall decline in modern Western contexts are explored, while the troubling re-emergence or persistence of faith-based and other non-evidentiary perspectives is also discussed via debates around identity politics, postmodernism and multiculturalism. Through an analysis of the rise of irrational thinking in our politics and our entire social and cultural fabric, the book moves to conclude that religious beliefs and other forms of dogmatism are underpinned by powerful, influential and potentially dangerous ideological structures at various levels of society and that viable, secular alternatives to faith teachings ought to be nurtured in their place. A critique of religion that advances modern, secular humanistic thought, Truth Claims in a Post-Truth World will appeal to scholars of sociology, social theory and philosophy with interests in religion, political thought, ethics and civil society.
Author: Bruce Mccomiskey Publisher: University Press of Colorado ISBN: 1607327457 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 59
Book Description
Post-Truth Rhetoric and Composition is a timely exploration of the increasingly widespread and disturbing effect of “post-truth” on public discourse in the United States. Bruce McComiskey analyzes the instances of bullshit, fake news, feigned ethos, hyperbole, and other forms of post-truth rhetoric employed in recent political discourse. The book frames “post-truth” within rhetorical theory, referring to the classic triad of logos, ethos, and pathos. McComiskey shows that it is the loss of grounding in logos that exposes us to the dangers of post-truth. As logos is the realm of fact, logic, truth, and valid reasoning, Western society faces increased risks—including violence, unchecked libel, and tainted elections—when the value of reason is diminished and audiences allow themselves to be swayed by pathos and ethos. Evaluations of truth are deferred or avoided, and mendacity convincingly masquerades as a valid form of argument. In a post-truth world, where neither truth nor falsehood has reliable meaning, language becomes purely strategic, without reference to anything other than itself. This scenario has serious consequences not only for our public discourse but also for the study of composition.
Author: Lee McIntyre
Author: Marius Gudonis
Author: D. Stephen Long
Author: Abdu Murray
Author: James Ball
Author: Gabriele Cosentino
Author: Steve Fuller
Author: Ignas Kalpokas
Author: Erkan Ali
Author: Bruce Mccomiskey