Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Post-Truth

As I promised yesterday, here's the word of the year for 2016, according to Oxford Dictionaries.  Do facts still matter?  I saw a cartoon showing two panels.  In the first, labeled Truth, was a drawing of René Descartes (1596-1650), who said,
TRUTH  =  "I think, therefore I am."
Actually, he said it in Latin:  "Cogito, ergo sum."  (Yes, I studied Latin back in high school.)  The second panel, labeled Post-Truth, showed a drawing of a man wearing a tee-shirt, who said,

POST-TRUTH  =  "I believe, therefore I'm right."
This does seem to me to be where we are today, or at least where many people seem to be.  Let's define "post-truth":

And here we are, alternative facts and all.  "Just remember, what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."  And that's a fact, post-truth.

Update 11-28-18:
It took me two weeks to notice the wrong word in this bottom image (that I found online).  The word "donating" should be "denoting" in that sentence.  Post-truth denotes or indicates circumstances in which objective facts don't mean as much as appeals to emotion and belief.

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