Any amateur politician can engage in lying. President Donald Trump is going further than that. He’s engaging in ‘post-truth’.
In Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle, inhabits his own crazy paradigm, yet ultimately events frame him as a hero in the eyes of others too.
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As Orwell knew only too well, if the concept of objective truth is moved into the dustbin of history there can be no lies. And if there are no lies there can be no justice, no rights and no wrongs.
People reject science such as that about climate change and vaccines, but readily believe scientists about solar eclipses, like this one reflected on the sunglasses of a man dangerously watching in Nicosia, Cyprus, in a 2015 file photo.
(AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
People universally believe scientists’ solar eclipse calendars, but vaccine warnings or climate predictions are forms of science that strangely do not enjoy equivalent acceptance.
The message might not come through if you put all your communication eggs in one theoretical basket.
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Reports of facts’ death have been greatly exaggerated. Effective communication jettisons the false dilemma in favor of a more holistic view of how people take in new information on contentious topics.
Critics fear the merger of agricultural giants Bayer and Monsanto will drive an increase in use of pesticides.
AgriLife Today/flickr
Pundits have been keen to link post-truth to post-modernists, post-positivists or any other ‘postie’. They should turn their energy to forming a real popular front against Trump’s faux populism.