Post-Truth: The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back

This is a book that in the guise of exposing relative truths or what the author names Post Truth, the author actually proposes corporations and governments to determine the real truth. The following analysis demonstrates how the author proceeded.On p. 7, the author wrote: "We have entered a new phase of political and intellectual combat, in which democratic orthodoxies and institutions are being shaken to their foundations by a wave of ugly populism." With this introductory statement, the author lays the ground for his worldview, namely the presumed existence of established (and trustful) democratic institutions on one side and an "ugly wave" of populist movements who challenge these institutions on the other side. In order to sustain such a view, the author needed to suppress fundamental facts on these two unequal contenders. As for the nature of "democratic" institutions, the author might have helpfully mentioned their role in launching wars of aggression (against Vietnam, Laos, Cambodgia, Panama, Cuba, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan) in order to serve an imperial purpose, their endorsement of torture and extra-judicial assassinations and the establishment worldwide of a comprehensive surveillance infrastructure that dwarfs those by former communist regimes. All of that as representing "democratic" orthodoxy, as it were, a term he uses. Whatever the merit of populist movements, they are not known for such crimes. In order to sustain the false impression of two formidable sides, the author fails to mention the huge discrepancy of power between the established "democratic" institutions and the populist movements. While states and established institutions wield political, economic, military power and compliant media, populist movement lack almost completely these tools of power. Even their attempts to use the Internet are being fought by large corporations. These facts do not necessarily represent an endorsement of any such populist movement, but they must be taken into consideration when discussing the contending sides.Having presented the reader with a totally skewed image of reality, the author proceeds to demonstrate that corporations and governments are committed to the truth while the "other side" engages in conspiracy theories and fake news.On p. 40, the author provides a fairly convincing summary about the role of journalism: "The task of journalism is to reveal the complexity, nuance and paradox of public life, as well as to ferret out wrongdoing and, most important of all, to water the roots of democracy with a steady supply of reliable news." The author could have also alluded to the ethical codes of good journalism published by the profession in many countries, but doing so might have helped expose the duplicity and mendacity of the press. Thus, in the German code of good journalism, journalists are held to a commitment to the truth. The performance of the press in recent years demonstrates again and again that truth does not matter for contemporary media.In order to underpin his views, the author uses throughout the book an ill-defined term, namely that of conspiracy theories or one of its variants. The author does not define these terms, for such a definition would have obligated him to acknowledge that most mainstream media and governments regularly engage in conspiracies. Leaving the terms undefined allows the author to play on readers' induced beliefs. The author, a professional journalist, having summed up the rules of good journalism, violates virtually every such rule, such as the need of buttressing allegations with verifiable and credible sources, avoiding cherry-picking facts to make a point and naming people, institutions, dates and locations. Thus, while repeatedly deriding or combatting "conspiracy" websites or movements and presumed producers of fake news, the author does not provide names, dates, let alone facts, for making such accusations. Such prose may well please the believers, but displays the lack of scholarly integrity.As a further example of deficient journalism, the author writes on p. 42: "Quite separate, however, is the systematic spread of falsehood by front organisations acting on behalf of vested interests that wish to suppress accurate information or to prevent others acting upon it." But who are these mysterious "front organisations" whom he on p. 46 designates as a "treacherous industry"? And what are the unnamed "vested interests" they allegedly represent? What "accurate information" do these unnamed actors wish to suppress? A professional journalist would have mentioned at least some representative names, dates and fact to buttress such assertions.At some points, the author attributes human agency even to abstract concepts. Thus, on p. 37 he writes: "[T]hat is precisely the trajectory upon which the world has been embarked in recent decades, as an unrelenting series of storms have conspired to deplete what reserves of truth remain." How can a world be "embarked upon" and "storms" engage in conspiracies? And what are the mysterious "reserves of truth" the author alludes to?Twice in the book the author claims – without providing any source – that Western P/R was pioneered in Russia. Did the author never hear of Edward Bernays?The author devotes an entire chapter to "Conspiracy and Denial", concepts he fails to define. Yet, one of the most common definitions for conspiracy is that of a "secret plan made by two or more people to do something bad, illegal, or against someone’s wishes." (American Dictionary). Conspiracies thus take place even in the kindergarten where two children conspire to do something nasty to a third child. Whenever two or more gentlemen meet behind closed to discuss business plans or a political move, they evidently conspire, for otherwise they would not need secrecy. Criminal conspiracies are not limited to the preparation of war, but extend to the most varied activities, including fraud and extortion. Criminal investigators work daily in solving such conspiracies. No one calls them "conspiracists" nor accuse them of peddling "conspiracy theories", although they sometimes are forced to admit that they cannot prove their probable hypothesis beyond reasonable belief. Whether a certain decision or event was preceded by a conspiracy can only be determined empirically, i.e. on the base of a specific forensic analysis. To exclude a conspiracy because one believes in a person's or institution's inherent honesty, is certainly not how investigators proceed.These simple verities do not concern the author for his mind is visibly set to deride the very concept of conspiracy, as if this phenomenon does not exist except in some sick minds. Thus, the author teaches his readers to be wary of "conspiracy theories" by equating them with viruses: "Like an infection resisting antibiotics, a virulent conspiracy theory can fend off even incontestable facts. Its popular strength depends not on evidence, but upon feeling – the essence of Post-Truth culture." (p. 68).In order to explain the emergence of Post Truth, the author brings from the cold old and discredited antisemitic legends, such as the Protocols. Having derided this false conspiracy theory, he then proceeds to claim that in "one sense, modern anti-semitism is the template for what has become Post-Truth." (p. 77) In order to flesh out this view he claims that there has been a "shocking increase in anti-semitic incidents around the world." He provides no sources and does not explain what is included in the term "incidents". As a matter of fact, Jews worldwide, including in the Islamic Republic of Iran, live today with greater physical security and well-being than in any past century. Jews, who were discriminated until the 19th century in Christian countries, enjoy full human rights in virtually every jurisdiction. As the author is unable to cite any dramatic threat to Jews, he spends page after page focussing on a small cabal of so-called Holocaust deniers, whose sole crime is to promote questionable narratives about the genocide of Europe's Jews. The author appears to have forgotten that stupidity is a human right. Everyone is entitled to claim that the moon is composed of cheese or that Napoleon was a crocodile. This applies equally to those who make unfounded claims about one of the greatest crimes in history.On p. 67 the author quotes Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College, to the effect that "presenting someone who believes in a conspiracy theory with evidence that it is unfounded can often reinforce his or her belief." This statement has some merit except that one person's conspiracy theory may be considered by another person as established facts and vice-versa. Ultimately, only an objective, impartial evaluation of the facts can determine what is true and what is false. But there are sadly no credible institutions who are capable, willing and sufficiently impartial to make such determinations. Historical facts are often written by the winners. Only persistent and courageous individuals are sometimes able to repeal officially imposed truth.On p. 112 the author writes: "Our own Post-Truth era is a taste of what happens when a society relaxes its defence of the values that underpin its cohesion, oder and progress; the values of veracity, honesty and accountability." Well said. Except that these words should not have been addressed to readers, but to the author's journalist colleagues.If doubts remain about the spirit in which the author wrote this book, they dissipate when reading what the author endorses. On p. 114 he approvingly presents the "open source investigations of citizen-journalist groups such as Bellingcat", who is expected also to contribute to a "new system of checks and balances", the nature of which remains murky. On p. 117, the author gives good marks to the BBC for having established a team "to identify and debunk fake news in all its forms." The BBC will not, evidently, blame itself for its regular dissemination of fake news and propaganda. The author reveals that the BBC is "working with Facebook", a corporation that brags about its censorship. The author feels even confident in claiming that the BBC "is in a unique position to offer a powerful fact-checking service" (p. 117). Anyone who has studied BBC's relation to truth would certainly gasp.On p. 118 the author again approvingly reports that Facebook launched in 2016 "a new system that would enable a fake news story to be flagged up, triggering a verification and labelling process that would warn users to treat it with caution. To this end, the network is already working with five independent (sic) fact-checkers: ABC News, AP, Factcheck.org, PolitiFact and Snopes...In March 2017, the corporation launched a pilot scheme that alerted users attempting to share 'disputed content' and directed those seeking further information to the code of principles adopted by the International Fact-Checking Network." And so it goes, with the author giving approving marks to other corporations, such as Snapchat and Apple, described as committed to truth (p. 119).In fighting the dark forces of untruth that the author sees lurking in mysterious webpages and blogs, the author proposes with all seriousness the deployment of "scientifically credible charismatic leaders", leaders who are able to play on the public's emotions. The reason, he explains, is that Post-Truth is, first and foremost, an emotional phenomenon. He then cites approvingly Sara and Jack Gorman who write: "We propose that scientists not only become fluent in the kind of information we confront on the Internet but also that they join the conversation in a much more active way... A small amount of training in cognitive psychology and behavioral economics should make scientists more aware of the biases and heuristics people use to interpret scientific information and teach them how to communicate around these psychological processes." What differentiates these proposals from old-fashioned directives for propaganda? Going beyond encouraging propaganda, the author also encourages the creation of new myths, citing approvingly The Myth Gap by Alex Evans who writes: "we need new myths that speak about who we are and the world we inhabit." (p. 129) Indeed, he adds, the "very idea that truth has to be defended has a mythic dimension....It is not absurd to imagine a modern, mythic appeal to mankind's collective yearning for certitude and honesty – not in the crass, conspirational language of the so-called 'Truthers', but in an open, collaborative rebellion against the cognitive sickness of our times." (p. 130) I wonder how long it took the author to put together this elaborate and highly deceptive sentence. Nearly every term of this sentence appeals to readers' prejudices rather than to their logical mind. The undefined expression "conspirational language" is preceded by the adjective "crass", indicating to readers that they need not bother to reflect upon the meaning of the expression "conspirational language". It is sufficient to know that it is "crass". The expression "collaborative rebellion" is meant to convey the unexpressed view that leading corporations who engage in fact-checking pursue a "collaborative rebellion" (against whom?). Since when did rulers engage in "rebellion"? Or did the author simply meant to write that they engage in "collaborative collusion"?On p. 142, we discover the author describing approvingly the so-called Nudge school of behavioral economics, which enables governments to "steer citizens away from misinformation towards fact-based decisions - about health, personal finance, the environment and nutrition – through encouragement rather than the blunt instrument of legislation and regulation." The author gives hereby credence to the theory that governments, presumed to act for the good of their citizens, must sometimes use stealth, rather than force, to achieve their noble purposes.The author nevertheless wavers between approving the official state and corporate agenda between calling on the people to end the Post-Truth era (p. 144). "The only reliable engines of change are citizens themselves", he writes on p. 145. In the following page he posits that defying and defeating Post-Truth "must be collective, sustained and stubborn". I do approve. But is it realistic to expect populations bamboozled by governments and compliant media to do so? Did the American public rise up against the deadly lies of their rulers. the lies that preceded the wars against Iraq and cost the lives of over a million human beings?I have a slight difficulty to sum up this book. It is not difficult to list the numerous deficiencies of this book, and the numerous violations of professional standards by the author. Are the numerous omissions by the author simply the result of a flawed perspective or of ignorance? Or was there an agenda lurking behind the publication of such a glaring advocacy work? I consider this book of limited value. Its sensible and reasonable paragraphs are drowned by a deluge of private opinions, unsubstantiated assertions and contradictions. It needs a charitable attitude to acknowledge the positive contributions found in the book.

In November 2012, Mark Thompson, the former Director General of the BBC, delivered, as part of his Humanitas Visiting Professorship in Rhetoric and the Art of Public Persuasion at Oxford University, a series of three lectures there entitled ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’.The theme of Thompson’s lectures was the degeneration of public discourse and particularly of political language in contemporary democratic politics, with the latter becoming more effective as an instrument of political persuasion but less effective as a medium of explanation and deliberation. To illustrate the way in which public language is increasingly prone to exaggeration and paranoia, Thompson examined in some detail Sarah Palin’s reference to Obamacare’s alleged ‘death panels’ (which d’Ancona also references). Thompson’s insights (later worked up into his 2016 book ‘Enough Said. What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics’) were extremely prescient.Since 2012, the phenomenon of post-truth expression, and particularly Fake News, has become a mainstream concern given the misrepresentations of the EU referendum campaign and, above all, the election of Trump as 45th President of the United States. There has accordingly been a flurry of books on the subject.Matthew d’Ancona’s ‘Post-Truth’ is part of that trend but he, like Thompson, views the perversion of public discourse in its fullest context considering, like Thompson in his original lectures, topics such as the disavowal of climate change science, and he is also, like Thompson, not content merely to analyze what has happened but goes on to suggest ways in which the situation might be retrieved, d’Ancona’s book being subtitled ‘The New War on Truth and How to Fight Back’. Incidentally, whilst d’Ancona’s fairly brief book is amply footnoted it does not contain a bibliography, and there is no reference anywhere in the text to Mark Thompson’s pioneering work.D’Ancona’s mission is threefold: to expose the roots of our Post-Truth era; to diagnose its symptoms; and to offer a cure.When tracing the origins of the Post-Truth era d’Ancona ranges broadly, examining the post-modernists’ corrosion of the notion of objective reality, the role of the internet and the erosion of trust in a variety of institutions as a result of events including the 2008 banking crisis, the 2009 parliamentary expenses scandal, the revelations regarding Jimmy Savile, and the hacking controversy. A more comprehensive account could also have included references to the findings of the Saville, Chilcot and Hillsborough inquiries, or at least to the doubts which were ultimately vindicated by their reports.These are not d’Ancona’s only omissions. The EU referendum and Trump’s election but not Corbyn’s election as Labour leader are presented as marking “an uprising against the established order and a demand for ill-defined change” which “overturned the blithe predictions of pundits, pollsters and bookies”, and we’re told that the Leave campaign “triumphed with slogans that were demonstrably untrue or misleading” whilst no mention is made of George Osborne’s “punishment Budget” or “DIY recession”. In addition, if d’Ancona wanted to trace popular disenchantment with the predictive power of experts he should have mentioned their dire but unfulfilled prognostications regarding the Y2K or Millennium bug.D’Ancona realizes that Trump is a symptom rather the cause of Post-Truth but still manages to skewer his serial mendacity with all the delight of a lepidopterist pinning some particularly prized possession. Thus Trump is “a soiled Gatsby” with a talent for emotional narrative, who is essentially an entertainer, who has successfully “recast the presidency as the most desirable role in show business.”Rather than making Donald Trump or Alexander Dugin or Nigel Farage his chief villain, d’Ancona somewhat surprisingly casts Sigmund Freud in that role, on the grounds that the paradigm of therapy, which prizes emotional sincerity above forensically established objective fact, “has spread far beyond” its original “clinical setting, to assume a dominant role in contemporary culture and mores.”I seriously doubt whether Freudianism has percolated through society as fully as d’Ancona imagines. I would suggest, for example, that however much many of those who supported Brexit or voted for Trump may be willing to blame immigrants for society’s ills they will always hold an individual to blame if faced with a choice between doing that or blaming that individual’s parents or society at large.D’Ancona suggestions for defending respect for the truth against the “plutocratic, political and algorithmic firepower” of the Post-Truth stakeholders are varied and plausible and his call to the barricades genuinely rousing, although his faith in satirists to “act as picadors in the fight against Post-Truth” is almost certainly over optimistic. As Peter Cook was fond of pointing out, Weimar Berlin had the world’s most sophisticated political cabaret but that did nothing to stem the rising tide of fascism.In the final analysis, setting aside all the shortcomings outlined above, this is a well-written, wide-ranging, informative and thought-provoking book which will be very appealing to those who share its author’s wish “to defend Enlightenment values.” I just wonder if, considering the persistence of religious values, the advent of ersatz religions such as Marxism and fascism and of pseudo-sciences like Freudianism, or even the enormous popularity of activities like gambling, rationalism has ever been quite as firmly entrenched as he assumes.

Short and to the point! Very Insightful!

Another of those books written in the wake of Brexit and Trump’s election looking at what happened. At times, these books seem like a goalkeeper looking behind him only to see the ball in the back of his net. It was a development the goalie did not see happening…In his introduction, D’Ancona writes: “There is a voice within each of us that resists lies, even if that voice has (for reasons we shall see) been muted. The challenge is to turn that voice from a whisper to a roar. The truth is out there, if only we demand it.”A good summary of how we have got to this point, with some advice on how to get out of it.He writes about “post-truth politics at its purest” being the triumph of the visceral over the rational, the deceptively simple over the honestly complex.On trust, D’Ancona writes: “The collapse of trust is the social basis of the Post-Truth era: all else flows from this single, poisonous source.” Without trust, societies falter and fail. Just when, for example, a strong and trusted media is required, it has – according to global opinion polls – fallen to an all-time low.There is some optimism in D'Ancona's view of the future. He sees power in fact-checking, in ridicule, in helping people to find truth online.But I wonder if more might be made of the power of increased citizenship - power being devolved to as local a level of government as possible so that people can feel really involved in decisions that affect them, and can see improvements (or not) being made. Also local organisations and charities should be much more encouraged, as a foil to larger impersonal, remote, organisations.

This is a really short treatise which is fascinating. It seems that more than ever, nothing is what it seems, from deep-fake videos, the selfie self-important vanity of millenials, the incredulity of how someone like Trump could be the 'leader of the free world', to the serious public health risks around MMR because of flawed and unsubstantiated science and the haunting of lies and broken promises in our own political sphere around Brexit, the economy, public services etc. It could be somewhat depressing but this book lays down the challenge to us all to preserve facts. The truth will out. This is a book to make you question what you are told and what you see, and to be bold in holding those who create so called 'alternative facts' to account.

A book which society unfortunately needs. Excellent. However, am not hopeful of the ending. Rather worrying as doesn't feel as though things will improve

A fascinating and revealing insight looking at the origin and effect of this poisonous state of affairs and what we can do about it.

This book is very worthwhile reading. I agree wholeheartedly with the central thesis of this book. However, I am reluctant to put most of the blame on Trump. Having grown up during the Vietnam War, I was keenly aware of the credibility issues on the Democratic side of the house. Plus there were very many real issues with the Clintons. Still d'Anconna is completely justified in raising alarm bells. Democracy can only function properly when people put a high value on telling the truth and that winning elections at all cost is for "Losers" not "Winners". Unfortunately, we are living at a time when winning elections seems to justify all sorts of behaviour.