"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" Those were John Lydon's (aka "Johnny Rotten", his stage name at the time) infamous words during Punk Rock icons The Sex Pistols' last gig in San Francisco before an outraged, booing audience (They had just played a shambolic rendition of the Stooges' "No Fun" for around 15 minutes and left the stage with no further explanations, so, yes the attendants did have a good reason to be outraged!). Maybe John wanted to make some sort of artistic statement with such a confrontational attitude, maybe they just couldn't stand each other anymore on the stage and thought "ahh...fuck it" and called it to quits.
Anyway, it's not The Sex Pistols we're discussing here (though I wouldn't mind doing so, as I love them and cannot get enough of their 1977 epochal "Never Mind the Bollocks, here's the Sex Pistols"), but the concept of the Post-Truth, the era of the fake news and, more importantly (in this very article of mine), people's willingness to swallow whatever they want to believe, no matter the facts blatantly proving otherwise. And this is especially true as a consequence of the "democratization of the information on the Net", which is, of course, a euphemism for "thanks to the social media, just about any ignorant, pathetic, misinformed yokel, reveling in their own ignorance, patheticism and misinformation, thinks they are entitled to teach a lesson to the rest of the world and shut everybody else up". And that, as you may infer from the harsh nature of the words two lines above, pisses me off a little bit.
Ok, let's have some historical background here: the today's ubiquitous "Post-truth" (chosen "word of the year" in 2016) term was allegedly coined (or at least popularized) in Ralph Keyes' book (incidentally) titled "The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in contemporary life"), centered on the institutionalized expressions of the post-truth phenomenon (how modern politics, finances and the media intersect as means of indoctrination and manipulation). Another notable work is James Ball's "The Post Truth: how bullshit conquered the world" (one of whose most striking introductory lines is "Bullshit gets you noticed. Bullshit makes you rich. Bullshit can even pave your way to the oval office"). Both pretty solid reads, from what I've heard.
Early examples of the post-truth phenomenon include the 1985 political scandal "Irangate" (to cut a long story short, the US government and different senior officials of the Army, including lieutenant Oliver North, were accused of selling arms to Iran so as to fund the rebel guerrillas in Nicaragua -"Contras"-fighting to overthrow the Sandinista regime). Against all odds (well, not really), president Reagan got reelected and lieutenant North was hailed as a national hero. Hypocrisy? Nope: patriotism. The "Brexit" referendum outcome and the election of Donald Trump as the US president are also notable cases of totally deceitful and misguided information being ingrained in people's minds and leading to, well, pretty questionable consequences. An even more recent and closer example of this openly accepted and welcome misinformation is, of course, the pro-independence campaign promoted by nationalist and separatist political parties and championed by a great deal of the people of Catalonia, dubbed "procès". Good God, does that whole "procès" have the word "BULLSHIT" written all over it. It never, in my opinion, fails to shock, amaze and daze with its never-ending array of too-phony-to-be-funny and stomach-turning news and initiatives, but I think the extent of its all-out demagogy was exposed in this video, were a pouting young woman (speaking impeccable English, I must say) tried to warn the entire world about the unbearable, sadistic and paramilitary-like repression a nation of peaceful, democracy-laden and good-willed citizens were suffering at the hands of a murderous, oppressive state. You bet many believed it, for it was, no qualms about it, a fine production; the problem is, it could never stand up to a minimally serious analysis and scrutiny. It was so obviously full of shit that this young American pal was able to debunk each of the lies therein included (the moment when he calls the lady in the video "you lying piece of shit" is gold haha). The video and the completely-devoid-of-any-critical-thinking adherence of those many who were besotted by the song of the Siren and wanted to rise in arms before such an injustice is a great example of the components of the post-truth mindset: ALWAYS appeal to emotion, NEVER to reason. FACTS cease to matter and the TRUTH is always arguable and relative. EVERYBODY can be a journalist. YOU can be a journalist. The MAINSTREAM MEDIA is manipulated, unless they second your views, in which case, you should NEVER cast doubt on their information. By no means will you EVER leave room for concession and acknowledgment of dissenting arguments, for those supporting them are wrong and are probably evil. They want to hurt you and all you and your people stand for, so go ahead and strike first. You get it right?
Post-truth also, in my view, engages in the most convoluted and warped processes of language alteration and bastardization. Words and concepts change their meaning at the stroke of a pen, no need to remain coherent with one's words and true to the most basic principles of humanity. "Freedom", "peace", "democracy" are just concepts flawed by, oh, a nature of transience. Ok, enough about being ironic: listen, whenever someone refers to the systematic ethnic cleansing on the grounds of racial and cultural supremacy (i.e.: nationalism) perpetrated for decades by those E.T.A. mass murdering bitches as a "conflict" (between two equally legit sides), I just wish they would have a heart attack. Conflict, my ass. This also reveals the post-truth bearer's bent to ONLY feel sensitive, compassionate and sympathetic for the like-minded ones. Think like me, be like me or screw yourself.
I don't think that the social media are to blame for the suffocating spread of the post-truth mentality. I just think we're not ready for them yet, but we can surely find a lot of illustrative examples of it: apparently, rebutting someone's arguments on Twitter making some believe you ridiculed and showed your dialectical opponent up ("zasca" in Spanish) is like the greatest personal and intellectual accomplishment some dream of (Do these cats have all the time of the world on their hands? huh?) .
Groups on Facebook are kind of funny too: an eye-opening sign of how individual consciousness is completely insignificant and defenseless against the unstoppable force and pressure of that juggernaut that is the collective mindset, our inalienable desire to belong, the group pressure. Meat-eaters vs. vegans, keto vs. paleo vs. flexible dieting zealots, tearing each other apart (and that's just about dieting and nutrition, but examples exist aplenty in just any field), never ever wanting to take scientific evidence and decades of conclusive empirical research (thermodynamics? seriously?) into account. Because, why would they? What is "the truth" if not a malleable, ever-changing construct which adopts its meaning depending on who speaks it? I will tell you, folks: they don't want the truth, they can't handle the truth.
I'm pretty sure there's a Chinese proverb or something which goes along the lines of "if your words are not more beautiful than silence, refrain yourself from uttering them" and sure mom would scold me for using such negative, bitter and misanthropic language in this post.
Well, sorry mommy. I'm not an angry man, but this was an angry rant.
PS: You may not agree completely with the information stated here or may even think that my examples of the post-truth phenomenon are sort of biased and deliberately selective. Well, I understand your feeling but, hey, this is my blog and, of course, I welcome and would appreciate any sort of (approving and disapproving) comments in the comments section!
It seems that social media rendered relativism (philosophical way to deny there is one only truth in favor of many contexts to explain the existance of several coexistent but respectable truths) into not relativism at all, which could be another way to explain what post-truth is; in other words, a new kind of fascism where only one direction way of mindset is allowed, that is, MINE. Post-truth is about not thinking on your own but feeling as you're supposed to feel according to others (normally cooler than you are) . And if you feel different is because you're simply wrong. An story as old as history mankind. Fortunately such a new kind of bigotry has found in social media his own weakness. No matter how many fakes a lot of people can make up every day that one single person linking a reflexive post as you've done is able enough to show up the lies and sprawl all over the world. That's why I wouldn't blame on the internet because it's actually saving us of ourselves. So keep calm, don't make your mom be worry about your angerness and remember Kipling wise poem IF when you read about Puigdemontʼs creative thoughts next time; "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,or being hated, don’t give way to hating...then you'll be a Man"
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