“Alternative facts” famously entered the cultural lexicon in early 2017 when Kellyanne Conway told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press (in reference to the disputed crowd size at Trump’s inauguration), “You’re saying it’s a falsehood, and [we are] giving alternative facts to that.” To which Todd went on to reply: “Alternative facts are not facts—they’re falsehoods.”
In today’s post-truth world, “facts” are seen as fluid, bias-laden things to dispute or ignore when they threaten us. Political debates are largely unproductive in part because both sides marshal their own sets of “facts” and simply dismiss the other side’s arguments as invalid. Feelings now overrule facts. We assert as facts what we feel to be true, and when someone challenges us, we turn it back on them, because how dare they question the validity of our feelings?
In today’s post-truth world, “facts” are seen as fluid, bias-laden things to dispute or ignore when they threaten us. Political debates are largely unproductive in part because both sides marshal their own sets of “facts” and simply dismiss the other side’s arguments as invalid. Feelings now overrule facts. We assert as facts what we feel to be true, and when someone challenges us, we turn it back on them, because how dare they question the validity of our feelings?
To have one’s felt truth invalidated is to have one’s very identity dismissed. It is to be offended, triggered, and “disrespected”—which is seen as more egregious than simply being proven wrong. However logical an argument might be, however indisputable the facts, it can all be dismissed as the “blindness” of privilege, the manipulation of the hegemony, or the weapon of the oppressor. Facts and rationality simply become inflictors of “trauma” (an increasingly weaponized word); not objective evidence in any agreed upon sense. “In a post-truth age,” writes Abdu Murray, “if the evidence fits our preferences and opinions, then all is well and good. If it doesn’t, then the evidence is deemed inadmissible or offensive, with offense being a kind of solvent against otherwise sound arguments.”
The same cavalier attitude toward facts also goes for our personal belief systems. In part because of the chaotic, incoherent flow of information that constantly fills our minds and also because our capacity for self-awareness and critical thinking is decreasing, we increasingly curate hodgepodge worldviews full of inherent contradictions. A person might adopt some aspects of Christianity but also some of Buddhism or Wicca, ignoring the fact that Christ claimed religious exclusivity (see John 14:6). Some might passionately support the protection of iguana eggs while advocating the legal killing of unborn human babies. Others might enthusiastically argue for the importance of organic crops and against the dangers of genetically modified tomatoes, even as they cheer the sex change operations and hormone modification of transgender persons. We increasingly fail to consider our own logical inconsistencies.
But because it’s easy to just turn the channel or unfollow someone when our incoherent positions are challenged, we find it easy to keep holding contradictory views without feeling cognitive dissonance. “When confronted with a deficiency in our ethical code, it takes no real effort to ignore it,” Alan Noble observes. In a world of constant mental stimulation, “our default response to cognitive dissonance is to simply do something else.”
All of this might sound crazy, and indeed it is. But it’s how we live now. “Reality” isn’t a force to reckon with as it once was. Established knowledge, provable facts, even the reality of one’s own body—all of it can now be dismissed if it subverts the authority that matters most: the “self.”
The same cavalier attitude toward facts also goes for our personal belief systems. In part because of the chaotic, incoherent flow of information that constantly fills our minds and also because our capacity for self-awareness and critical thinking is decreasing, we increasingly curate hodgepodge worldviews full of inherent contradictions. A person might adopt some aspects of Christianity but also some of Buddhism or Wicca, ignoring the fact that Christ claimed religious exclusivity (see John 14:6). Some might passionately support the protection of iguana eggs while advocating the legal killing of unborn human babies. Others might enthusiastically argue for the importance of organic crops and against the dangers of genetically modified tomatoes, even as they cheer the sex change operations and hormone modification of transgender persons. We increasingly fail to consider our own logical inconsistencies.
But because it’s easy to just turn the channel or unfollow someone when our incoherent positions are challenged, we find it easy to keep holding contradictory views without feeling cognitive dissonance. “When confronted with a deficiency in our ethical code, it takes no real effort to ignore it,” Alan Noble observes. In a world of constant mental stimulation, “our default response to cognitive dissonance is to simply do something else.”
All of this might sound crazy, and indeed it is. But it’s how we live now. “Reality” isn’t a force to reckon with as it once was. Established knowledge, provable facts, even the reality of one’s own body—all of it can now be dismissed if it subverts the authority that matters most: the “self.”
- Brett McCracken, The Wisdom Pyramid:
Feeding Your Soul in a Post-Truth World, 2021
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