The search for truth in a post-truth society [ Repost ]

https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/j5gyp5/the_search_for_truth_in_a_posttruth_society/

As political scientist Francis Fukuyama stated in a small video interview in 2016, post-truth society is marked by the decline of authority of social institutions like family, churches and political parties... The causes of this are complicated, but Fukuyama thinks technology plays a role in it because it enables a higher transparency of these institutions. Paradoxically, knowing exactly how these institutions work may erode public trust in them. In this essay, I try to think about how the post-truth society (and technology) changed the way we understand truth.

Change my mind

In the urban environment we are constantly exposed to various sensory stimuli. The lights, sounds, smells, colors and the fast pace of the city collaborate to create a numbing sensation. It is increasingly difficult to find a moment of peace and quiet in the city to delve deeply into a complex question. That is why we often leave the city to relax and think and create, or at least we try to isolate ourselves from the distractions of the city. Maybe our primate brains are not used to so much information, so in a large city we live in a constant state of altered consciousness.

The same can be said about the number of statements we hear. Especially statements that contradict our beliefs and opinions. Just as we react to excess sensory stimuli by shutting ourselves down, we often react to new and unpleasant information with cynicism, shutting ourselves off from them.

With so much different information circulating, the chances are that if you spend enough time researching you will discover something amazing that most people don't know. And it is likely that you will want to tell that to other people. Sometimes you will come across an idea so important that you will feel the need to spread the word to as many people as possible. The problem is, you are a nobody, how will people hear you? Too many people are competing for attention. And even if they hear you, how will they trust you?

You can invest in building an image that allows you to have a wider reach. Or you can talk to individuals and small groups, hoping to reach a critical mass. Critical mass theory argues that a series of personal changes can bring about social changes when a number of individuals are reached. Qualitative change arises from quantitative change. If you change enough minds, a substantial change in social structure will occur.

But what happens when an idea goes viral for a moment, and then in the next day another idea goes viral? When we are taken by wave after wave of new information, the tendency is to become desensitized. No matter what is the new idea today, tomorrow it will be another. Everything is the same. You take the red pill every day, and pill after pill, you realize that there is no way out. No final truth that can set us free.

There are stages of hallucination in which the subjects are fully aware that they are hallucinating and still they are not able to stop hallucinating. There is a gap between perception and transformation of reality that cannot be filled by any amount of information. It depends on an internal arrangement that precedes and allows any change in mentality. In other words, this understanding is not achieved by mere exposure to the facts.

Enough knowledge, but no hope

People usually do not get depressed by lack of awareness, but because they become aware of a condition considered insurmountable. Having social acceptance is not enough to prevent depression. When the desire for happiness becomes more important than the desire to live in the real world, escape routes and imaginary worlds begin to be constructed. Helplessness usually stems from the fact that this desire cannot be achieved.

Sharing experiences of helplessness with groups that sympathize with your suffering may also makes things worse. People can cooperate in collective self-deception, and the Internet has been a very useful tool for that. Thus, we find support to feed our illusion, finding someone who accepts our lie, because they believe in the same thing. This creates a kind of relief, and the desire to share a lie can replace the desire to know the truth when there is little chance or little hope of being happy if you have to accept that the statement you cherish is in fact false.

The awareness of the human condition, with no hope of overcoming it, can be the definitive proof that life is not worth living. For many, the rational conclusion is that there is no reason to postpone the inevitable, better to give up and immediately surrender to the abyss.

Hope is something invisible that opposes the fear of the visible. Where there is fear of the truth it is very difficult to stay sober. The last sentence of Thomas Gray's well-known poem is: "Where ignorance is bliss, it is foolish to be wise." If you prioritize happiness, it is better to give up wisdom, because it will not make you happy. The search for truth is incompatible with the search for happiness.

Knowing yourself versus knowing the truth

To know yourself, for the ancient Greeks, does not mean to understand what is inside you, but to understand your destiny, which is revealed in the form of puzzles by oracles. Modernity transformed the meaning of the word "destiny" so that human emancipation meant not knowledge, but the control of its own destiny. With man as the master of his own destiny, the oracles became liars. Myth has become synonymous with lies and tradition has become synonymous with attachment to the past. Before, truth linked each person to a common history, now there are many possibilities and everything depends on individual choices.

The existential meaning cannot be found simply by looking inward. The “one” needs the “other” to understand itself. Modernity has rejected the value of shared existential meaning by declaring that every meaning we create is individual. There is no meaning in historical, social meaning.

The existential rupture between the "one" and the "other" is more profound than the separation between people. Therefore, it cannot be undone with the simple union between peoples. It is the separation between humanity and what makes us human. We could only resolve the existential rupture for ourselves if it was created by us. There is a distinction between creating a rupture and choosing the path that leads to the rupture. We chose the path that led to the rupture, but we did not create it. Modernity has claimed that we are authors of our own existence, which means that we can undo the break. For the second modernity, the truth is not out there and, even if it were, it would not be more important than our happiness, so we are free to seek happiness and escape pain.

The fear of knowing the truth

Life without objective truth protects us from one type of suffering: the difficult condition of not being in control when things seem to be in urgent need of control.

Our society has changed the value of recognizing duty to recognizing choice. As long as individuals are aware of the choice they are making, they are justified. The fear of truth is caused by the following dilemma: either you choose for yourself or someone else will choose for you. Because of this fear, choosing correctly becomes less important than choosing freely. The choice is justified by the idea of inner truth, in which the role of subjective experiences can outweigh the role of objective experiences.

A choice is not justified just because it is a choice. But without an objective criterion of correction, every choice is irrelevant, because the subjective criterion is also a choice. It can be changed to justify each of the choices, however inconsistent and contradictory they may be. To say that everything is valid is to say that fact checking is a farce. The loss of discernment is an unexpected result of the emancipation of reason.

How am I not being myself?

Speaking of authentic desires implies a criterion for distinguishing between authenticity and inauthenticity. Every desire needs its means to be fulfilled. Consider that authentic desires have not changed substantially since the beginning of human history, what has changed are the means by which we fulfill those desires. Technology has provided the means to satisfy certain desires much more easily and quickly. Consider that this produced an incompatibility in the mechanisms of production, maintenance and inhibition of desires. We can exchange the real for the virtual because it simulates a stimulating environment for our innate patterns of pleasure, and that pleasure is experienced as real. The stray dog ​​is no less domesticated than the pet dog, they both have similar desires, but have learned to fulfill them by different means. Thus, inauthentic desires are produced by authentic desires being carried out by improper means, which produce the mismatch of the mechanisms of desire, specifically tuned to a very different environment.

A society of repression prevents us from fulfilling our desires and leads us to pursue extrinsic goals. But post-truth has allowed for a society to reverse these values in the name of efficiency. The post-modern dictators may state they are against repression, they are not moralist hypocrites, they do terrible shit too. Rebel experiences are now openly for sale. The theme of Brave New World is: Don't deny yourself anything. Allow yourself. Allow yourself to be happy, buy without feeling guilty, allow yourself to ignore logical coherence. Allow yourself to live your own life as you wish.

Each one has its own truth. So the pursuit of individual interests IS the pursuit of truth, and the persecution of those who are against it, however factually correct they may be, becomes the same as defending the truth.

Destiny and choice

The most complicated part of having free will is to distinguish my choice from things about which I have no choice. We take the weight of doubt and inconsistency as the weight of free will. As long as we have doubts, it means we are free. An objective truth would only limit my freedom. If I am to act according to what society has defined as true, I lose a part of my freedom.

The consequences of a choice may never be fully known. Between the choice to leave and the act of leaving there is a lot of difference. We reached the current state because we made certain choices, but we did not choose to reach that state of affairs, because we could not predict all the consequences of our choices. Many may prefer not to question the choices and just accept the consequences at all costs, reproducing the culture that consists of - and at the same time makes - those choices. In particular, the most privileged do not want to face the ugly truth about what choices have made them privileged.

We cannot fix our destiny, but we can fix our choices, which does not mean rewriting the destiny with our own hands, but not being carried away by wrong choices. Expecting something good from an unknown future is reasonable, but expecting something good from pleasant lies is like expecting to pass a test by choosing random answers.

Finding a group that accepts what you want to be true as truth is not freedom. Freedom of expression and opposition to established authorities do not bring us closer to the truth. The only thing that can oppose the post-truth society is the courage to accept facts that are personally undesirable, difficult to obtain and more difficult to chew, because modernity has created inauthentic ways to search for authentic desires, addicting us to sweet and easy-to-obtain statements, but as dubious as highly processed foods.

We also need to take responsibility, not only individually, but socially, for the choices made in the past by the groups to which we belong and for the privileges and inequalities resulting from those choices, as heirs of this legacy.