It has been announced that “post-truth” is the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year. The adjective is defined as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Clearly the importance of the term arises out of the US General Election campaign.
A taste of post-truthfulness was given to us just three weeks ago when on 31st October Mr Trump announced that 650 million immigrants would come to the USA in the first week of a Clinton Presidency. 650 million. 9% of the population of the entire world. In a week. If every single human being in Latin America wandered across the Rio Grande that would be only 626 million. In seven days. The biggest demographic movement in human history was when Pakistan separated from India in August 1947 and that involved around 10 million people fleeing genocide on either side of the new border (see photo).
Under any normal circumstances a candidate who shows so little understanding of big numbers would be considered unfit to run a country (government is all about big numbers, after all). This is where the appeal3 to emotion and personal belief come in, I suppose. The Oxford Dictionary is, of course, over a decade out-of-date. US comedian Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” in 2005 for things that “feel” true without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts. Trump is just a symptom of post-truth.
The root cause of our epistemological decadence is the internet. Truthiness can masquerade as facts on a level playing field in which the conclusions of an international panel of scientists have no more prominence than the idle musings of a 14-year-old.
Given this social environment schools and universities have to prioritize one thing: teaching “information literacy”. Studies show that only 44% of Generation Z in the USA evaluate the quality and reliability of the information they receive. Without information literacy, people are totally vulnerable to whoever can shout their truthiness loudest. In the post-truth scenario democracy cannot function and we will sink into a Twitterian Fourth Reich.
 to denote – indicate
 to shape – mould, form, determine
 appeal – exhortation, plea
 to arise out of (arise-arose-arisen) – come from, emerge from
 taste – sample, example
 to wander across – cross
 involved – (in this case) was a situation of
 around – about, approximately
 to flee (flee-fled-fled) – escape from
 border – frontier
 unfit – unsuitable, inappropriate
 to run (run-ran-run) – govern, manage
 over – (in this case) more than
 to coin – invent (a term)
 regard to – reference to
 root cause – origin
 to masquerade as – pretend to be, simulate that it is, be passed off as
 level playing field – situation in which people compete on equal terms
 idle musings – frivolous thoughts
 environment – (in this case) context, setting, situation
 information literacy – the ability to evaluate the quality of information effectively
 Generation Z – people born after 1998
 reliability – validity, objectivity
 can shout their truthiness loudest – can propagate their subjective worldview most effectively
 to sink (sink-sank-sunk) – descend