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A History of Facts: Do They Still Matter?
Philosophy and Post-Truth
Science is not powerful because it is true, but true because it is powerful.” Hilary Lawson
“The secret of theory is, indeed, that truth doesn’t exist.” Jean Baudrillard
“Freedom of opinion is a farce unless factual information is guaranteed, and the facts are not in dispute.” Hannah Arendt
In 2016, the Oxford Dictionaries chose “post-truth” as r.
Post-truth marks an epoch of Trumpism and wokeism, where facts seem to have lost their power to bring and hold people together. In their place, “alternative facts,” disinformation, misinformation, conspiracy theories, political correctness, and “social justice” activism came to erode trust in institutions, academia, experts, journalists, and governments.
Steven Brill, the author of , sees the cause of post-truth in the technology driving information creation and dissemination: the internet, social media, and programmatic advertising.
