Post- Truth
"MOST PEOPLE DON'T REALLY WANT THE TRUTH, THEY JUST WANT A CONSTANT REASSURANCE THAT WHAT THEY BELIEVE IS THE TRUTH."
Oxford university selects a word every as the word of the year. Here we are discussing a word chosen in 2016 ‘Post- Truth’. We will look over the words of the year of the last few years.
There are also some Hindi words added in Oxford dictionary like aadhaar(2017) , Nari shakti(2018), Samvidhan(2019) and Atma nirbharta (2020).
Post-truth: "Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief."
In 2016, Oxford dictionary chose the word ‘Post truth’ as a word of the year. The concept of post-truth has been in existence since a decade but Oxford dictionary saw a sudden rise in frequency of its use in 2016- 2017. There are many nouns that go with post-truth, the most classic example is post-truth politics. Other nouns are politicians, age, era, brigade, journalism etc.
It is easier to fool the masses than to convince them that they have been fooled. Today we have got a cultural trend to place emotional truth (ethos) over logical truth (logos). To understand in a simplest form, Post- Truth is where logical facts become less important than emotional feelings. Post- Truth is not a lie, it’s a public relation with false or things which are not true also we can say it is about people not valuing the truth. Post-Truth is not news/views, it is a contradiction between what you want to hear, knowing it's false and then deciding ‘This is true’.
We saw this situation when the corona vaccine was introduced. Many scientists and doctors were influencing people to take vaccines but they were not ready to get a vaccine, they were afraid. So doctors had to take help of ‘Dharma Gurus’, once the guru said it to be reliable all were ready to take the vaccines. This is an ethos over logos.
The simplest example. We students waste a lot of time on mobile phones. We are already aware about our pending works but still we convince ourselves that we also need to rest, get fresh etc. excuses. We know the truth of time is being wasted. We need to study but we somehow convince ourselves that ‘This is true’. Over here, factual truth is we need to study and emotional truth becomes our wish to use and spend time on mobile.
Emotional truth and Actual (Factual) truth:
Actual truth is what is existing in reality or matter of fact i.e. real or genuine. We don't find any specific definition of emotional truth but we can understand it through an example. It is, as Steve Yates writes, that "heartfelt connection that arises between reader and character or characters through the unfolding of an invented, narrated conflict”. This connection brings emotional truth. Fiction is a lie that tells the truth. The lie is that the characters were or are living people and that the events in the story happened. The truth is an emotional one.
We can understand ‘Fiction is a lie that tells the truth' with an example of a movie ‘Raazi' by Meghna Gulzar. In Harinder Sikka's book ‘Calling Sehmat' She came back to India in an Airforce plane to Delhi And she was given a grand warm welcome.(This is the actual truth). While in a movie Sehmat reached India through a side by side road where she fainted showing her to be weak and exhausting. Sehmat in the movie was shown depressed at the end of movie by killing her husband.(This is an emotional/ fictional truth). This scene makes a heartfelt connection with the character and we find it to be the truth while the fact is something different. The connection which we realize is through emotional truth. Your emotional truth is what you feel about a situation, and sometimes it has nothing to do with actual facts.
Post- truth and Politics:
Since the 2016 presidential election, it's been hard to ignore the fact that political rhetoric has become increasingly difficult to trust. Cognitive ease or fluency is the measure of how easy it is for our brains to process information. The problem arises because cognitive ease can be easily artificially created in many ways and one way is by repeating the stimulus. This process is used majorly in politics by politicians. Before elections the politicians rant a lot of things and promise many deeds which he will fulfill after being at a post. But since years we are seeing the promises done are rarely fulfilled yet the society people believe in them. After the completion of tenure when elections are on the way they come with ranting of what they have done , what changes they brought but if we compare them with the promises done before they barely completed. Here we already know the reality but still we blindly follow the sheple. No one stands out to question or share the reality. We can recall a historical even - The Brexit in which the campaigns, emotional appeals and feelings, and not facts (truth), were the factors for Britain leaving the European Union.
Social media and truth:
There have been a number of studies which have shown that an overwhelming majority of people polled believe there is a lot of misinformation on social media, and a majority feel themselves as not being able to differentiate between what is true and what isn't.
The problem is especially prevalent on Instagram, for example, where bot accounts create large amounts of fake likes and followers in order to make money off them. On Facebook, false news stories are being presented as fact more often than not, often encouraging unwarranted fear or outrage.
At this point in time, it seems that everyone has an opinion on anything and everything, but no one is taking responsibility for their opinions or information. If you had asked me 5 or 10 years ago if I thought that people would rely more on propaganda than real information, I would never have guessed that they would trust absolute strangers over real journalists with extremely verified credentials. But here we are.
In today’s time we see many people spreading lots of fake news in WhatsApp and in the corona pandemic period India has become the top in spreading the fake news. In the era we are seeing that people are depending more on the WhatsApp messages, WhatsApp university. They gain more information whether it is right or not.
As a journalist who prides herself on never publishing anything that I can't verify to be factual, it disheartens me to see that we're approaching a state where we just don't believe in our ability to recognize fact from fiction and assume that information given to us is truthful and accurate.
What can we do about this?
If we think about it we realize that the Post- truth is not the only source lying in front of us. Also cross- checking with other few sources also might not clear our about or give us the truth. We live in the age of decentralized information. There are millions of different sources which say millions of different things. Content creators and social media users alike should be taking real steps in the effort to verify their sources and ensure that what they say is true. If you can take the time out of your day to post 140 characters about what you had for breakfast, you can take the time out of your day to do some research on whatever political topic you want to rant about. It also becomes difficult to cross check everything we read or listen. Children from the time of their schooling should be taught by the teachers to criticize what they read or cross check the reading at their education level. Which can be helpful for students to question everything that comes in front of them, not to easily believe everyone and start moving to the wrong path. The step we can take is before writing or sharing our own ideas or writing, the creator or writer can take better references or cross check that what they are writing is correct or not. This might help to stop the spreading of false or say post- truth.
Resources:
Here I have presented my understanding of Post- truth. I hope this blog might have given you an easy understanding. If you find any queries or recommendations please post in the comment box. Thanks for visiting.
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