Post-Truth
About this book
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 examplesâclaims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular voteâand 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 postmodernismâspecifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truthâin 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.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Table of Contents
- Series Foreword
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1âWhat Is Post-Truth?
- 2âScience Denial as a Road Map for Understanding Post-Truth
- 3âThe Roots of Cognitive Bias
- 4âThe Decline of Traditional Media
- 5âThe Rise of Social Media and the Problem of Fake News
- 6âDid Postmodernism Lead to Post-Truth?
- 7âFighting Post-Truth
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Further Readings
- Index
- About the Author