I see you’re still grieving over Donald Trump’s victory.
Yes, I am, but that’s not what this is primarily about. I’m just exploring the over-the-top rhetorical possibilities of our post-truth world.
You lost me at ‘post-truth’.
Oxford Dictionaries, that barometer of how the English language evolves over time, has declared ‘post-truth’ to be its international ‘word of the year’. Evidently, the use of this term increased by around 2,000 per cent in 2016, as against last year.
But what does it mean?
It’s an adjective that means: “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
That’s quite a mouthful, but again, what does it mean?
It means that in the way people engage with the world today, facts no longer seem to matter. People increasingly believe whatever appeals to and reinforces their own opinions — facts be damned.
Really? And why was there a spike in 2016 in the use of ‘post-truth’?
The editors at Oxford believe the spike occurred in the context of the Brexit referendum and the US Presidential election. In both cases, voters appear to have been swayed by emotion into opting for an insular, regressive agenda, which was sold to them by political charlatans as the best thing since sliced bread. In both cases, populist politicians riled up voters, whipped up anger on hot-button issues that appealed to their emotion, played fast and loose with facts — and won against more reasoned arguments.
TV comedian Stephen Colbert coined the word ‘truthiness’ in 2006. So what’s new about ‘post-truth’?
‘Truthiness’, defined as “the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true”, was Merriam-Webster’s word of the year in 2006. But in the age of social media, post-truth politics has far more dangerous consequences.
But in our information age, isn’t it possible to call out political bluffs?
You’d think so, but as we saw with Brexit and Trump, not all the fact-checkers in the world have been able to form a bulwark against the avalanche of ‘fake news’. There is even a thriving online industry that profits from publishing fake news and spinning news to pander to consumers’ emotional touch-points and shape political views.
But surely the mighty mainstream media can win the narrative against a fake news cottage industry?
Some of this can be traced to the diminishing credibility of many mainstream media outlets and personalities. Around the world, and even in India, access to power and to business houses is seen to have corrupted media stars.
Is India susceptible to ‘post-truth politics’?
Aren’t we seeing it already? Take the debate over the demonetisation of high-value currency notes. Each side sees and believes only what it wants to see and believe. In insisting on a rollback of the move, those who oppose it refuse to acknowledge any merit in the operation, and summon up ludicrous arguments, and peddle mistruths, in their defence. On the other side, diehard BJP partisans are in wholesale denial about the inconveniences the move has wrought. On this and on other issues, the political middle ground has eroded considerably.
So, um, is the world going to hell in a handbasket?
That was just a demonstration of how the fake news industry grabs attention with ‘clickbait’ headlines. But then again, the world of post-truth politics doesn’t inspire confidence, does it?