Are We Living In The Post-Truth Era?

Many books have been written on the topic. The mainstream media seem to constantly promote the idea. Oxford Dictionary declared 'post-truth' the word of the year for 2016 and Time magazine even went as far as asking whether or not the truth is dead, but is it?

From a philosophical perspective, I would firstly postulate this question: How can it possibly be true that the 'truth is dead' if the truth is dead? From long before the days of Socrates the human being has understood the importance of the truth, our early ancestors certainly would have had to construct an entire botanical understanding upon truthful practices in order to survive. Knowing the difference between poisonous plants and berries and those that are edible is a knowledge firmly based in established truths. A tribe would migrate based on the truth of the seasons and the stars. In order to properly cook or preserve food, they would have understood the freezing and boiling parameters of water as irrefutable truths. And, by obtaining agricultural truths our ancestors were eventually able to remain more stationary or localized which led to huge leaps in human evolution. The ability to grow and store large amounts of food in one place allowed the human to stay near food and not have to follow or chase it. We went from hunter gatherers to the masters of our domain in one giant quantum leap, thanks to knowing the truth. To the 'post-truthers' I would ask:

Is it not empirically true that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit?

Is it not undeniably true that spring comes before summer?

Can we not navigate successfully by using the northern star?

Is there no such thing as day or night?

Of course to maintain the theory that we live in a 'post truth era', or that the 'truth is dead' is to propose a preposterously invalid argument. Just the kind of argument that the post-modernists love. The rejection of objective reasoning and in it's place subjectivity. A leading post-modernist thinker, Max Horkheimer stated on pages 24 and 25 of The Eclipse of Reason, that "The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies...Subjective reason conforms to anything." This belief lies in the heart of their very movement. The post-modern belief that truth relies on an individual's opinion is a premeditated attempt at the elimination of the truth. But this belief can only live in the minds of the indoctrinated for the truth itself is immortal. It lives forever. Those that wish to eliminate the truth from public discourse can at best only obscure it with misinformation and ignorance of fact.

Eventually father time will free the naked truth from the chains of uneducated opinion. As Sandro Boticelli so beautifully expressed in The Columny of Apelles, the public, once freed from their own prejudiced thoughts of conspiracy, fraud, slander, envy, ignorance and suspicion will witness the truth, but it won't be easy. As the king sits on his throne entertaining lies, represents our better judgement and Boticelli shows us how we become distracted by our biased emotions, he explains in a majestic representation how we must use rational reasoning to see through these false emotions in order to find the truth. I propose that it is not the truth that is dead but the general public's ability to ascertain the truth that is. I would argue vehemently that before we concede to the demise of the truth, we look within and ask ourselves if we have put forth enough effort to find it.

The truth is, that the vast majority of the population are unaware of the proper process that is needed in order to find the truth. Certainly, one can't possibly believe that they will achieve enlightened viewpoints with any sort of consistency if they only consult the mainstream media or one point of view. If one only gets the the information offered from one side of the story, they are destined to be wrong at least half of the time. Our understanding of the truth is directly proportionate to the amount of dependable, unbiased information that we accept. With twenty five percent of the story, we risk at least a seventy-five percent chance of coming to a inaccurate conclusion, while with knowledge of ninety percent of the facts we risk a ten percent chance of being wrong and so on.

So, if my proposition is true, if it is not the truth that is dead but our ability to find it that is, how do we improve our ability to find the truth?

This, is the question. And, when we consider it from our ancient ancestors perspective, this is perhaps the most important question that there is because, like true love can only come from an open heart, the truth only comes from an open mind, only with the truth are we able to confidently approach the future. With the truth we are fearless and unbeatable, only with lies do we suffer a loss in esteem and a divorce from reality. And this is the reason why we are told that the truth is dead, because it makes us weak, but I digress. How do we formulate a better method of determining what the truth is?

"The more the concept of reason becomes emasculated, the more easily it lends itself to ideological manipulation and to propagation of even the most blatant lies...Subjective reason conforms to anything."

Max Horkheimer

The answer is the trivium method. The ancient education of grammar, logic and rhetoric is the secret for an apathetic public. It is the basis of a liberal arts education that was systematically removed from the public education system long ago. In fact, throughout history it has repeatedly been hidden from the general masses. When one reads Sister Merriam Joseph's very important book, The Trivium, which can be found online for free, we are given the ability to find the truth through the elimination of error that comes in the form of fallacious reasoning or ignorance of fact. With the trivium method we are able to identify lies immediately. In chapter seven we are introduced to the syllogism and in chapter nine, the logical fallacies, both essential in the elimination of contradiction and both are dangerous to an establishment that has built its hegemony upon lies.

So, in response to the question being proposed in the header, of which I believe to have proven definitively invalid, I raise the deeper, more accurate question: Can the public rise above their own apathy and gather the tools needed to realize that the truth not dead, but is alive and thriving?