The danger of post-truth in the post-covid era.
Foundations for a current ethical reflection on the value of truth.
Author: Jorge Martín Montoya Camacho
Published in: Ethics and the right to information: new active audiences in the post-Covid era, 2023, Fondo publishing house USIL, pp. 15-29.
Publication date: 2023
summary
Post-truth is a media phenomenon referred to the misrepresentation of truth in the media, especially through the proliferation of fake news. In this article I will define the main elements of this phenomenon, the facts that have generated its appearance, and a philosophical framework for its deep ethical analysis. I also explain why the simple association of post-truth with lies is insufficient, and I propose that the extension of the conceptual framework for its analysis, with the introduction of the idea of charlatanism developed by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, together with Alasdair MacIntyre's notion of emotivism, can help us to better understand its harmful effects. I argue that without these concepts it is not possible to understand the intrinsic complexity of post-truth, and its most harmful repercussions on society. Finally, I show the main dangers of post-truth in the post-covid era due, especially, to the distrust generated by the evident manipulation of truth, and the ethical and anthropological fragility in which human beings find themselves today.
1. The emergence of the post-truth phenomenon
2. Elements of post-truth: lies and charlatanism.
3. Post-truth, emotivism and fragility of the individual.
4. Accentuation of the conditions of fragility of the individual in the post-covid era.
5. References
1. The emergence of the post-truth phenomenon
The introduction of the word post-truth in the Oxford dictionary was due to its great public use -especially through social networks- during the democratic processes that led to Brexit, and the presidential elections in the United States (McIntyre, 2018, pp.1-15). Its admission in the aforementioned dictionary triggered hundreds of articles in several languages in the journalistic media, especially on the Internet, causing a new increase in its statistics (Flood, 2016). A part of the analyses conducted in the past years has identified post-truth with lying (Arroyo, 2018). It has been concluded that the phenomenon is not new. Lies have always existed and, therefore, we are faced with a neologism that is the result of caprice. Put in this way, the conclusion would be that post-truth could lack sufficient evidence to be considered a real problem. However, this assessment may be hasty.
The term post-truth was first used in the American press in 1992, in an article by Steve Tesich for The Nation magazine. Tesich, writing about the Watergate scandals and the Iraq War, indicated that already at that time we had accepted living in a post-truth era, in which lies are told without discrimination, and facts are concealed (Kreitner, 2016). However, it was in the book The Post-Truth Era by Ralph Keyes (2011) that the term found a certain conceptual development .
Katharine Viner, at the time, indicated that behind the current phenomenon is the intentional misrepresentation of facts by some digital media that advocate a certain social and political stance. But, along with the above, there are also the efforts of this media subject to attract visitors to their platforms, with no other intention than to maintain a business that sells information to the liking of Username (Viner, 2016), and designing their services to offer the public what the public wants.
Viner also stated that the version of the world that we find every day when we log in through our personal profiles, or in the searches we do on Google, has been invisibly filtered to reinforce our own beliefs (Viner, 2016). It is, therefore, an effort to mold the information media, and the contents, to the taste of the users. Therefore, it seems that the media show us, many times, a truth configured to our tastes, something that we accept as true by the fact that it is pleasant or useful (Keyes, 2011, p. 153). For companies that sell this computer product subject it is nothing more than the loyalty of their customers, to then be able to influence the future consumer public.
This means that, on the part of Internet platforms, it will be less and less likely to find information that expands the worldview of Username, or to learn facts that refute false information. However, it does not seem fair to impute all the responsibility to the media and their strategies for transmitting information under market principles. It is clear that this must be attributed to the people who lie, distorting the truth of the facts. But, it seems also important to examine the attitude of users or consumers, within a community of people, who actively participate in this media phenomenon (Gracia, 2017, p. 43). It is no coincidence that the post-truth phenomenon has emerged at a time of decline of traditional media, which were unable to catch up, in competitive terms, with other media that were more grounded in highlighting the opinion and tastes of information consumers (McIntyre, 2018, p.75).
What has been indicated so far allows us to affirm that one of the important components within the post-truth phenomenon is intimately related to consumers' taste for certain news that satisfy their expectations and, at the same time, establish a reliable reference letter that is used by the suppliers of this subject of information products. The circle is closed in the relationship between consumers and news providers as it could be in any market class . However, it seems clear that the news consumer has a great responsibility for the content that he himself receives through social networks, and which he then transmits to the community in which he lives. The news he chooses not only leads him to have the information he likes, but also, through that choice, reinforces his own personal beliefs, even closing his horizon of reflection to new ideas that confront them, and that are also part of his living environment. Therefore, even when the news offered through social networks could be false, the choice of these by users, and their subsequent dissemination without due verification, plays a very important role in the dynamics that have generated the media phenomenon that we will try to analyze in greater depth.
2. Elements of post-truth: lies and charlatanism.
The description of the facts, and some relevant media analysis of the post-truth phenomenon, lead us to understand the importance of this problem. Moving forward, we will analyze the definitions of the word post-truth. For post-truth, appearing in the Oxford dictionary, the definition refers to an adjective denoting circumstances in which information about objective facts is less influential, in the training of public opinion, than the appeal to personal emotions and beliefs (Oxford English Dictionary, 2019).
The Royal Spanish Academy (2019a) introduced the word post-truth in its dictionary at the end of 2017, indicating that it is defined as "deliberate distortion of a reality, which manipulates beliefs and emotions in order to influence public opinion and social attitudes". These definitions, as a whole, make reference letter to a social status generated by human acts in which three elements can be distinguished:
1. the act of distorting reality;
2. the deliberate intent: to manipulate beliefs and opinions; and
3. the end pursued: to influence public opinion and social attitudes.
The first two components apparently bring post-truth closer to the definition of lying as it appears in the Real Academia Española (2019b): "to say something that is not true with the intention to deceive". From this point of view, it might seem that post-truth is an exclusive product of lying, with an added purpose that specifies it: to influence public opinion and social attitudes. However, this could lead us to overlook certain evidence about the complexity of this phenomenon, and which is directly related to the ease with which fake news has spread: the tastes and interests of social network users.
As we have noted before, the post-truth phenomenon is due to the proliferation of falsehood. This cannot occur without lying, as a deliberate act of misrepresenting reality. Indeed, as Augustine of Hippo points out, in § 3 of his treatise On Lying, he lies
who, having one thing in his mind, expresses a different thing with words or any other sign. Therefore, it is said that the liar has a double heart, that is, he has a double thought: one, the one who knows or thinks that it is true and keeps silent, and the other, the one who says thinking or knowing that it is false (Augustine of Hippo, 1973, p. 472).
In other words, lying requires deliberation, and as such it is a free, conscious act, governed both by the intellect and the will (Enríquez Gómez and Montoya Camacho, 2021). On the part of the liar, there is a certain concern for the truth of the facts. He needs to have this mental implication, since his efforts to maintain the lie should lead him to keep silent about what he believes to be true, and try not to be discovered.
Lying is, therefore, the first identifiable component of the post-truth phenomenon. However, it is not the main one, or at least it is not the most influential, but it is charlatanism, as that term is understood by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt. This indicates that when we lie we concentrate to do so, but charlatanism does not require effort because it is inadvertently spontaneous: the presentation of the facts is simply neglected (Frankfurt, 2013, pp. 23-24). The charlatan keeps the distinction between true and false clear, but, because he is unconcerned about the real value of truth, he can use a fact to defend one position and its opposite (Frankfurt, 2013, p. 34).
Frankfurt contrasts lying and charlatanism on the basis of the deliberation carried out by the subject on the truth of the facts. Following the indications of Augustine of Hippo, Frankfurt states that
Telling a lie is an act with a marked intention. It is designed to introduce a particular falsehood at a precise point in the set or system of beliefs, in order to avoid the consequences of having that point occupied by the truth. The deceiver must inevitably be interested in veritative values. To invent a lie, he must think he knows what is true. And to invent an effective lie, he must conceive its falsity having as guide that truth (Frankfurt, 2013, pp. 43-44).
For Frankfurt, as for Augustine of Hippo, the liar must consciously maintain the division of his mental acts between what he knows to be true, and what he says falsely; moreover, he must prevent the evidence of the facts from becoming apparent to the deceiver, who at the same time reinforces this mental division.
However, not every attempt to distort reality is an act of lying, but that which is done deliberately against what is in one's mind. The falsehood to which charlatanism induces is at a level of subtlety that is close to what Augustine says in § 25 of his treatise On Lying, about the possibility of insulting someone without the use of lying (Augustine of Hippo, 1973, pp. 511-512). That is, of attacking the good reputation of another person without realizing that one is carrying out the act of insulting.
When Frankfurt speaks of charlatanism, he does so precisely in reference letter to fame, that is to say, to the image that others have of the charlatan's intentions, rather than the content of his words. This, and not the truth of his proposals, is what he is interested in transmitting to the other members of the community. Therefore, charlatanism is directly related to the approval of the charlatan's fame in front of other people.
Frankfurt indicates that
a person who decides to make his way through charlatanism enjoys much more freedom [than the liar] (...). The subject of creativity on which it is based is less analytical and less deliberative than that required in the action of lying (...). Charlatanism does not have to be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentative intention. The charlatan may not deceive us, or may not even try to deceive us, about the facts or about what he takes for facts. What he is necessarily interested in deceiving us about is his purpose. His only distinguishing feature is that he somewhat misrepresents his intention (Frankfurt, 2013, pp. 43-45).
The charlatan has no intention of misrepresenting what he may know of reality, but lacks formal intentions with respect to it. His intention is centered on himself, on the transmission of his own image beyond the veracity of the facts, or of reality.
Therefore, the concept of charlatanism provides an extension in the conceptual framework for the analysis of post-truth, highlighting the neglect of a part of society in front of the truth of the facts by appealing to their own tastes and interests. This neglect of the truth of what is communicated seems to have extended to consumers of information when they do not pay attention to the news they receive, which they can spread through social networks. Therefore, they are not exempted from certain responsibility for participating, in some way, in defamatory acts, even when it seems that what each one does is not significant, or considers that what is transmitted is true. However, this is not simply an individual matter. As we shall see below, there are factors that lead one to believe that the neglect of truth has spread to society at large.
3. Post-truth, emotivism and fragility of the individual.
The concept of charlatanism reveals another issue related to the truth value of interpersonal and public discourses. This refers to the fact that, even when there may be an oversight of the contents that are transmitted, they must have a certain value by which such information is accepted by the subject. As we have indicated, such patron saint of assent is not the truth of the message, but the impact it has on the self-image staff, both of the person issuing the information and of the person accepting it. Therefore, the criterion of conformity with what is expressed in a news item, or through a means of communication, becomes merely subjective. The individual evaluation thus becomes the sole criterion of validity of the interpretations that people may have of the world, far above other assessments made by other members of society.
What is at the root of this socially widespread subjectivist phenomenon?
For the British philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, a large part of the problems of subjectivism in the acceptance of truth are to be found in the very disposition of today's culture, which has asserted itself in our modern world. Therefore, it would be a generalized ethical problem, largely habitual, beyond the social awareness of its existence, and which has its starting point in what he calls emotivism. For MacIntyre, in the context of ethics, emotivism can be explained as follows:
By emotivist moral culture I mean a form of culture in which those who make moral claims believe that they are appealing to some subject of rule morality independent of their own preferences and feelings, even though, in fact, the particular subject of rule morality to which they are appealing does not exist and, therefore, they are merely expressing their own experiences and feelings in a masked form (MacIntyre, 1990).
Emotivism seems to imply that all ethical judgments of the subject -such as the truth or falsity, as well as the goodness or badness, of the information received- are simply the expression of personal inclinations. Therefore, it seems to assert that there is no way to obtain assessments of reality that go beyond one's own subjective interpretations. Criteria that are valid for society in general could not be established. It is clear, from what has been explained, that there is a background of deception in the emotivist current, insofar as the human being would be unable to review what he himself believes to be true, in contrast with the facts of reality, or the statements of other subjects that make up society. But it is a deception that is disguised by the way it can be found in modern life, and of which it is very difficult to notice the effects that affect the loss of freedom of the human being.
Indeed, the loss of freedom is closely related to the ethical problems generated by emotivism, and is best understood from the following words of Alasdair MacIntyre:
What is the core topic of the social content of emotivism? In fact, emotivism entails setting aside any genuine distinction between manipulative and non-manipulative social relations [...]. Value judgments can only be taken as expressions of my own feelings and attitudes, tending to transform the feelings and attitudes of others. I cannot really appeal to impersonal criteria, because there are no impersonal criteria. I may believe that I do and others may believe that I do, but such thoughts will always be wrong. The only reality that distinguishes the moral speech is the attempt of a will to put on its side the attitudes, feelings, preferences and choices of another. Others are always means, never ends (MacIntyre, 1987, pp. 40-41).
Everything seems to indicate that emotivism is based on a subjectivist framework , which can leave the human being at the mercy of manipulative social relations, and which is reinforced through a three-stage cycle (Montoya Camacho, 2022). Moreover, in the case of post-truth, it is a process that will be more effective in its manipulative task the more power the sender of information can possess, to the detriment of the capacity of Username, or receiver of information, to consider all this.
In the first stage of the emotivist process, the sociocultural context establishes as a usual rule -and implicitly- that the decisions of the subject must obey his own mental premises, previously chosen by him and that, in addition, that which justifies that his choice can be qualified as correct or, at least, sufficient to carry out something, is his own decision (Bello Rodríguez and Giménez Amaya, p. 29). This is a generalized justification, already explained above, of one's own decision based simply on the individual's own beliefs.
The second stage introduces a communicative factor in the subject's behavior, whereby it is said that to determine the goodness or badness of something, in an ethical sense, is equivalent to expressing one's feelings in favor of, or against, what is being valued. Finally, in the third stage, an imperative factor is added, in which saying that what was valued as something good is both praising it and urging others to do it, or to value it in the same way (Bello Rodríguez and Giménez Amaya, p. 43).
Thus, a society founded on emotivism will assume that the subject is free of restrictions to live according to his subjective preferences, trying to get other human beings to have the same evaluation, based on feelings and preferences, always depending on the power that can be obtained to achieve the conviction of others (Bello Rodríguez and Giménez Amaya, pp. 79-88 and 117-126).
How is the latter appreciated in a phenomenon such as post-truth? The first thing is that, in the context of a society governed by emotivism, the manipulative factor is introduced as a form of conviction based on mere affectivity, which subtly shapes the opinions of the subjects that belong to a society. However, the underlying problem is not so much in this subject of communicative practices, many times present and overcome in the history of mankind. Rather, the issue lies in the difficulty that the emotivist subject may have in understanding that a certain piece of information is false, especially when it coincides precisely with what he wishes to be true. Attitude that we consider to be a weakness, or an aspect of the ethical and anthropological fragility of human beings today (Montoya Camacho and Giménez Amaya, 2021) and that, according to MacIntyre, is reinforced by the functional mode of modern society.
In effect, for MacIntyre this is given through what he calls "society of bureaucratic individualism" (Bello Rodríguez and Giménez Amaya, pp. 116-120), that is to say, a society whose constitutive foundations are based on being a set of functions destined to the task of satisfying the vital needs of the individual. For MacIntyre, the structure of such a society is not based on rationally determined ends, that is, it does not explore the communicative nature of the human being that requires the bonds of friendship and justice that go beyond mere subjective preferences, and that could strengthen his confidence in society, starting from that same natural dependence in relation to other individuals (MacIntyre, 1999). On the contrary, the "society of bureaucratic individualism" is established on the basis of the individual desires and feelings of the subjects that make up that community of people, awaiting their satisfaction. In this sense, the chatterbox, or the emotivist subject, would not really be engaged in a search for the truth about what he believes to be true about other individuals, or to go beyond his personal preferences in relation to the life he shares with other members of his community, but would live in the midst of a digital society that offers him what he wants, and only to the extent that it does not provide him with what he expects can he perceive it as problematic.
With the above, we can consider that, at first, society could present itself to Username of social networks as something opposed to its desires, or to the image it wishes to convey of itself through these media. However, the electronic platforms that make up the structure of what we can call a "bureaucratic digital society", engaged in the competitive struggle for resources that are always scarce and put at the service of predetermined ends, will seek to attract the interest of the Username of such media, making them present any information that can be accepted, from agreement with their personal preferences. In this way, what might seem, at first sight, an inclusion of the individual in the dynamics of this kind of digital social life becomes -paradoxically- a reinforcement of his individualism, and a way to isolate him in his own beliefs and preferences, accentuating his weakness, ethical and anthropological fragility, in front of the power of whoever wishes to manipulate him.
4. Accentuation of the conditions of the individual's fragility in the postcovid era
At this point, we have to ask ourselves, what happens to all this status in the post-truth era? To begin with, we should again point out that the post-truth phenomenon emerged, and continues to establish itself significantly, in the digital media, although the trend has been to use this term to designate the lack of truth in other media as well.
For the effects that concern us on individuals in this digital age, we consider that ethical and anthropological fragility occurs especially through internet users, as estimated by some authors, who claim that the lack of attention derived from its intensive use can have a very negative impact on the deterioration of social relationships from an anthropological perspective (Lanier, 2018, pp. 34-36; Carr, 2011). In fact, social encouragement to protect oneself from social networks and the loss of intimacy that their use entails is becoming more and more frequent (Newport, 2021).
To consider the status of users, subjected to the manipulative processes of post-truth in the post-covid era, we can look at some data on the use of the Internet according to the recent Digital Report by Hootsuite and We Are Social (2022). These indicate that the issue of social network users is now equivalent to more than 58% of the world's population. In addition, the report sample that internet usage has reached significant new highs: in January 2022, there were 4.95 billion users worldwide, representing around 62.5% of the world's population. This represents an increase of 4% over the previous year, or 192 million people.
On the other hand, regarding the average daily time spent using the Internet, the Digital Report 2022 figures estimate that it was almost 7 hours on all devices worldwide, which was an increase of 1% (4 minutes) compared to the previous year. Finally, with respect to users' connection time on social networks, they indicated that they spend an average of 2 hours and 27 minutes a day browsing them. Given these figures, we can consider that the conditions under which post-truth proliferated before the pandemic are no better than in this post-pandemic era. Rather, they have been significantly accentuated by the need that confinement imposed on the use of digital media for access to the world, and for the satisfaction of many vital needs.
Therefore, what has been indicated in the previous sections of this paper can be considered as a current explanation of the dangers of post-truth today. This danger presents, for all that has been explained, a complexity, tinged with ambiguity, of contradictions, that especially affects the human being's capacity of decision, causing the subject to possess a evaluation always provisional of the own cognitive, affective and desiderative experiences; and, therefore, an imbalance of his life, and of his capacity to develop stable relationships in society.
For the human being, the manipulative concealment of truth directly affects the ends of his own will. With a subject full of desires to know and dominate reality, dizzy with the power that the Internet can offer him, his possibilities to reflect on the meaning of his own life can be reduced. This would be carried out by the mismatch between his beliefs and reality, which could lead him to fear, or dread, of being constantly deceived, realizing that his capacities, intellectual and volitional, could be diminished, in the midst of a world that contains forces, more powerful as a whole than those of any individual. Forces that want to make him an emotional subject, of sensitive impulses, of measurable and predictable responses, capable only of leaning towards whoever can promise him the satisfaction of his desires.
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