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For the love of God, stop talking about "post-truth"

There was never a golden age of objectivity, and today’s epistemological problems result from competing visions of reality, not a conflict over the value of truth.

In this post-truth era, populist demagogues spread blatant lies, voters prioritise emotion over reason, fake news runs rampant, and nefarious algorithms suck citizens down rabbit holes, trapping them in echo chambers where comforting delusions are repeated, reflected, and reinforced. When Oxford Dictionaries declared “post-truth” its term of the year in 2016 after two surprising populist revolts, it defined it as “circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” To stick with American examples, the same is true of Kamala Harris’s—and before her Joe Biden’s, and before him almost the entire liberal establishment’s—claim that Trump once referred to white supremacists and neo-Nazis as “fine people”, which is a misrepresentation of what he said.

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