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Thursday, January 19, 2017

Post-Truth is the Neoliberal Infection of Reality

There is no post-truth, just the neoliberalization of fact into a false equivalence with opinion. The selfish, individualism and isolation of neoliberal ideology infected economics then spread to politics and now realty itself. Creating a respect for disinformation, lies, and propaganda, it is the ultimate threat to democracy disguised as democracy and freedom.

Neoliberalism is corrosive to equality, progress, citizenship, democracy and now fact. Instead of nations held together by common beliefs in civic autonomy, respect, and responsibility we are becoming neoliberal corporations run with the brutal efficiency of dictatorships for the profit of a few controlling shareholders. The deadly "bootstrap" lie and delusion of the self-made success are poison to a civic union.Advantage is what matters in business and monopoly is the ultimate goal. That's how monarchies work. The delusion that there are self-made individuals with self-made freedom, self-made value and worth, and self-made truth,denies biology, society,history, and reality and dooms us to egotism, isolation and ultimately narcissism.

We aren't post-truth, but far too many people are post-thought. As long as one of their opinions are supported, they don't care to consider how many lies are woven around it. They don't care enough to care.

This program is so bang-on:

Thursday January 19, 2017

The Truth about "Post-Truth"

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The Truth about Post-Truth 1:35
Listen to Full Episode 54:00

The election of Donald Trump has ignited talk that we're now living in a "post-truth" era. But are we? Where does the idea that the truth no longer exists come from? Or the notion that the truth doesn't matter anymore?  Host Paul Kennedy talks to thinkers who argue that the story began years earlier, with a kind of collective identity crisis: authoritarianism can become attractive when you no longer remember who you are.

"'Post-truth' is often understood as involving people's emotions rather than their critical abilities to make distinctions. And I think that might be true but i think it's important to keep in mind that emotion and truth are not two different things. Emotion has to do with what we care about and truths have to do with things that are the case. The two have to work together." -- Kathleen Higgins

People from all over are asking the question: how did we get here? In a world where technological advances spread to the masses at astonishing speed; in a time when we can be instantly connected to one another; in an era when information can travel around the globe in a flash, have we become less concerned with the verifiability of what we believe as long as it conforms to our point of view?
And if the truth is atomized to the point where I can have my truth and you can have yours, then how can any of us actually have a conversation? Without a basic set of assumptions about what's true, we have no starting point for the debates we engage in. But maybe this is simply, as they say, the "new normal" -- that when it comes to the truth, where you stand depends on where you sit.

CAN YOU SPOT THE FAKE NEWS HEADLINE? 
CBC News collected a group of actual and fake headlines. Can you tell the difference?

Guests in this episode:
  • Henry Giroux is a professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University.
  • Jason Stanley is a professor of philosophy at Yale University.
     
  • Kathleen Higgins is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
Further reading: 

**This episode was produced by Naheed Mustafa

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