Post-truth

Oxford Dictionaries has selected “post-truth” as the Word of the Year, a decision made by both the US and UK offices.

It’s an intriguing word, defined as a situation where “objective facts are far less influential than appeals to emotion.” I have never heard it used in the Philippines, but we are certainly in a post-truth era.

The term was first used in 1992 by Steve Tesich in an American magazine, Nation. Tesich was writing about how Americans seemed to have chosen “post-truth” by refusing to believe exposés of the US government’s laundering of money into Iran and Nicaragua to support antigovernment forces there.

Lying seems to be so much a part of humans. Charles Hockett, a linguistic anthropologist, first proposed 16 unique “design features” of human language and one of these features is “prevarication,” the ability to lie or to deceive. (The word itself originally meant “going astray,” covering disobedience, but “lying” and “deception” have taken over as more dominant meanings.)

Hockett’s design features date back to the 1960s and today we know that nonhuman animals, primates in particular, can also “lie,” the most amusing example being Koko, a gorilla who was taught sign language.  Once, caught eating crayons, Koko signed “lip” to say she was using the crayons as lipstick.  Another time, when caught breaking a toy, she signed to blame the dastardly act on another gorilla. After being caught lying several times, Koko feigned repentance by signing “Bad again. Koko bad again.”

Survival

The concern now is whether lying has become more rampant, more devious, more dangerous. In 2004, Ralph Keyes produced an entire book, “Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life,” citing dozens of studies to show how rampant lying is, after which he proposes theories as to why this is happening.

Keyes speculates that humans expanded lying because of its survival advantage. Early humans were hunters, and had to find ways to trick animals to trap them. Early hunters also probably had to lie to rival humans about where animals had been spotted, so they would have an advantage hunting the animals down.

After language developed, words made it easier to lie, and was certainly part of creativity, allowing us to create and tell stories with embellishments, or even stories that were totally “untrue,” also known as fiction.

Lying, the research studies show, seem to be done mainly to impress others, especially people we just got to know and those we want to impress, as in job interviews… or in courtship.

Keyes presents some convincing explanations for his contention that lying has increased in modern societies.  The main reason is that we now live in mass, anonymous societies.  In a small village where everyone knows everyone, lies are easily detected and liars ostracized.

Anonymity increases even more on the internet because you can use screen names, and even if you don’t, virtual reality “protects” you from criticism, leading to more reckless impunity with hit-and-run statements that would, in the real world, bring on libel suits.

I’ve thought, too, about how texting and Twitter might make it easier as well to twist the truth, with words coming out of our feelings, rather than careful thought, much less moral and ethical concerns.

Post-truth, post-Trump?

Keyes wrote the book in 2004 and even then, already identified Donald Trump as an example of someone who lies, and lies with relish, inflating claims about the number of copies of his book that had been sold, as well as the invited interviews for a popular TV show that came after his book was published.

Who would have known Trump would be elected US president 12 years later, and that it was his camp’s campaign style that would be one reason “post-truth” became Word of the Year for 2016?

Oxford points at this last US presidential election and the referendum in the United Kingdom over membership in the European Union, also known as the Brexit (Britain Exit) vote.  In both cases, the victory of Trump and the Brexit vote were attributed to post-truth society, in particular false news being widely distributed, and believed.

Social media has facilitated the spread of false news but underlying this problem is the human predisposition to lie, and almost to want to be lied to.  Psychologists have found that we see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear. A post-truth society builds on this aspect of human psychology.

We’re certainly seeing that today in the Philippines. We want to believe that the current war on drugs, using violent shoot-now-ask-questions-later methods, mass arrests and all, will work, despite evidence from throughout the world that these wars not only fail but also create new serious problems that might hinder a long-term solution of the drug problem.

This year’s annual report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy—produced by a committee that included former UN secretary general Kofi Annan and former presidents of Colombia, Mexico and Brazil—was just released this week, with overwhelming evidence about the failure of “war on drugs” strategies. But do we want to read it and see what it means for the Philippines?  No, it’s easier to leave the problem to the gunmen.

Countering post-truth

We are post-truth, too, when we argue that Ferdinand Marcos may have been a dictator but he did a lot of good for the Philippines.  People want to believe some good came out of martial law.  From there, it doesn’t take too much of a leap of faith to believe that not only was Marcos not that bad a dictator but also that he was a hero.

Driving down Katipunan, I see and am grateful to Ateneo de Manila University for using its electronic billboard to present overwhelming statistics to show Marcos the plunderer, the despot, the human rights violator. But psychologists know that many who want to believe in Marcos the hero will turn away.

It’s still important, though, for those facts to be in the public eye, a counterforce to massaged truths and whatever euphemisms—Keyes was able to inventory dozens, even back in 2004—we might want to use for post-truth stories.

It’s important as well to show that many of us do not want a post-truth society, especially for our young, who are so much more vulnerable to accepting Truth Lite. Point out how mass lying happens in a mass society, and that we can do something about it. Now, more than ever, we need to speak up and protest against not just the lie that is a dictator in a heroes’ cemetery, but the threat of the Philippines becoming a post-truth nation.

mtan@inquirer.com.ph