What is Post Truth age? And why is it dominating the truth?

Origin of Post Truth

Post truth is a term that came up in 1992 but look at it's wonder or politics that Oxford University has declared it "the most popular word of the year 2016". 

Word of the year 2016

Such incidents have happened not only in India but all over the world that this word has been brought into the discussion recently. When objective facts become less influential than emotional appeals and personal beliefs in generating public opinion, the situation is considered to be 'post truth'.

Use of Post Truth in Politics

After Donald Trump's victory in the US, the term is being much discussed among political analysts. Donald Trump's victory was not anticipated by any national or international analysts. But it's done. Many right-wing parties come to power in the world, including India, from the same perspective. It is believed that such points are thrown up, which make people drift in their spirit.

Image of Donald Trump

      
Whereas the words or sentences they say lack a lot of facts. During the 2014 elections, the fact that black money and Pakistan were talked about in our country, but the fact that where and how black money will be brought is not discovered in them. 

But in the heart of the people, it was definitely said that when the black money comes, India's economic condition will improve. Now after about 6 years, it has been cleared to a great extent, neither Pakistan will improve nor black money is going to come back.

Likewise, even during the US election in 2017, Donald Trump had given the slogan of ending terrorism to the world, and even then the American people did not ask the question what are the measures to eliminate terrorism and how Trump will use it. But people felt that terrorism would end after at least from America, and its truth is now well known.

Difference between Truth and Post Truth

Such statements and such belief can only be called 'post truth'. It can also be called ‘Beyond Truth’ or ‘Satyottara’. Actually, such an atmosphere has been created or has been made that we believe in things beyond the truth immediately. 

Faith can be exercised on a subject of which we are not aware. But what we are aware of, yet we are forced to deny the truth and believe it only on emotional grounds, then surely either we are moving away from reality or believing the myth to be believable. 

But in an hour-long event of selling thousands of kgs of salt across the country or in a shock, the propagation of the illusion of drinking milk by Ganesha idols, the debate on baseless issues in rational society and emotional propaganda beyond realities leads us to disorientation only.

Take another example of Post truth is demonetization in 2016. When demonetization took place, it was followed by some such absurd and baseless arguments to try to convince people that demonetization of big notes is associated with stopping national interest and black money. After months of passing, people were not able to get their own money easily. 

Queue at Bank during demonetization

In banks and count ATM machines where there was money, the queue was not short but increasing vigorously. On the other hand, new notes of crores of rupees were constantly being recovered. 

The government was earlier justifying demonetization in the name of curbing black money and since then is now sharing the knowledge of cashless or cashless system and 'plastic money'. 

Who will benefit in this system is worth considering. The question is also that when the purpose was a cashless system, why the demonetization of one thousand and five hundred notes made a noise to curb black money and end terrorism!

History of Post Truth

It is not that by making words like 'Post Truth' or beyond truth, political benefits are being taken from them for the first time. Such efforts have been continuous even before. But today the time has changed.

Earlier, there were not such strong columns to communicate with people, so that most people could not talk. Today, people have all kinds of resources from social media.

In this matter, it can be communicated to a large part of the population in minutes. In such an era beyond the truth, there is always a possibility of holocaust in the moment! 

Post-Truth the Biggest Weapon of Politics in Modern Era

Talking about today's modern era, if anyone has used post-truth as the biggest weapon in this era, then it is the politicians. Whether it is from any party or any other country. Post truth may be a new word for us, but it has been used for almost hundreds of years to nurture politics or take politics to shine.

               Image of Adolf Hitler

Take a simple example of this: Hitler became the dictator of Germany by using Post Truth itself. And what was the biggest weapon of Hitler's post truth? That was the newspaper. 

At that time, the best and popular form of news was the newspaper, with the help of which Hitler became a dictator using Post Truth. Now imagine how social media can be and is becoming a big weapon to use post truth in today's era.

Believe that any news you see or hear on TV channels or on social media is not necessarily 100 percent true. You can guess from the same point that Indian media has got 142 in the World Press Freedom Index 2020 ranking. If used social media properly, it proves to be a boon, but if it is used in a wrong way, it can also prove to be a curse.

And the same is happening today, trying to prove the truth to be false and false to the truth by using unscrupulous social media to shine politics.

But in the end Truth always wins

one of the characteristics of truth is that it does not stay hidden for long, it appears before everyone else today or tomorrow. And remember one thing, do not immediately trust WhatsApp group or any other social media.

First test its truth then trust and do not ever post the post truth on share or social networking sites. Remember that any attempt to save the truth is not trivial.

            
In closing, nothing resonates better than citing Hannah Arendt’s statement:

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lies will now be accepted as truth, and the truth be defamed as lies, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world – and the category of “truth vs. falsehood” is among the mental means to this end – is being destroyed.