Post-truth

by McIntyre, Lee C.

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Title Statements

Full title :Post-truth / Lee McIntyre.

Summary

"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"--

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2018

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):The MIT Press
Place of Publication:Cambridge, Massachusetts
Language:eng
Publication Date:2018

The Physical Object

Description:xvi, 216 pages ; : 19 cm

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9780262535045, 0262535041
oclc:on1002297524
LC Classification:BD171
Dewey Decimal:121

Subjects

08.25 contemporary western philosophy (… Faktizität Massenmedien Mensonge Neue Medien Politik Truth Truthfulness and falsehood Unwahrheit Vérité Wahrheit