How we arrived in a post-truth era when alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings
have more weight than evidence. Are we living in a post-truth world where alternative facts”
replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this
volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series Lee McIntyre traces the development of the
post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of fake news ” from our
psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into information silos.” What exactly is
post-truth? Is it wishful thinking political spin mass delusion bold-faced lying? McIntyre
analyzes recent examples—claims about inauguration crowd size crime statistics and the
popular vote—and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its
practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet
post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election the denial of scientific facts about smoking
evolution vaccines and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add
to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good
reasoning even when they are not the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media
and the emergence of fake news as a political tool and we have the ideal conditions for
post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from
postmodernism—specifically the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth—in its
attacks on science and facts. McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth and that the first
step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.
