It is being said that we are in an age of “post-truth”, where the far right can not only claim that there is no human-caused climate change happening, but can also claim that their saying this is equally as valid as those saying there is human-caused climate change happening. All sides can claim that their views on climate change are just as valid or true as the others. Etc.
But this is not “post-truth”; not even close.
Everyone is claiming that their opinions and views are just as true as the other opinions, so truth has not disappeared at all. But we cannot claim one view is (really) true just by calling it “true” (even if very loudly). It depends upon who else is calling it as true (your groups typically). And any reported evidence, whether scientific or not, is also treated as just more opinions so those who are against the evidence can claim that they are entitled to believe the opposite of science.
So, notice that “telling truths” is still very much a part of all this. All sides want their statements to be considered true or at least not be written off as “untrue”. Whatever “truth” is, everyone still wants their opinions and views to have that magic property.
We are not “post-truth” at all.
Words and truth
Contextually, words are never true or false. They are just behaviours we have learned which can do things to other people if conditions are right. And words can only do things to people, depending on the social relationship exchanges of those involved. Words themselves do nothing otherwise. They are just hot air or pen marks.
What this means is that the study of language and what it can do is really the study of social, cultural and societal relationships and their exchanges—these are what give any “power” to words, so they can get people to do things—not the words themselves which are arbitrary and differ between languages. The study of language is not about the words but about the social relationships of those talking so the words do something.
[So it is the exchanges with groups that allow people to call their language uses “truth”, as their groups agree.]
Just the words “Stand on your head” have no effect when said to someone. To get them to actually stand on their head requires a history of social exchanges, be it money, punishment, group pressure, or other forms of reciprocity.
If I say to you, “My cat is red”, doing that has all sorts of effects on you. But it does not affect my cat.
Why did we ever think that some words could be “true”
So, the real question is: why did we ever think that some words were true, and that others were false? How did this mysterious property ever come about?
What we were trying to gain by calling words “true” was an apparent certainty that my words will always make something happen, that my words will always and reliably do something. But this is a social/political ploy to have you follow my words, to control you. Calling something “true” was, and is, a strategic social act. But that was never going to be the case.
So the twist is that having you believe that my words are certain or true gives me some power, so if I can get you to believe my words, I have gained some social relationship power. It follows that calling what we say “true” is really a political or social relationship event, not some property sticking to the words.
What we also meant formerly by “true” was to do with observations: that you can come and see my Red Birman and play games with it, and therefore give my earlier words some “truth”. But that does not give some special property to my saying, “My cat is red”. The observations occur but words do not become “truer”. That is still just a bit of hot air coming out of my mouth but which you and I have been trained to react to in varied ways. Saying “My cat is red” gets you to attend to my cat but the words said suddenly do not gain a magic property of “truth”.
What would “post-truth” look like?
We have always been post-truth in reality because my words affect you whether or not you play with my Red Birman. You can also play with my Red Birman and deny that “My cat is red” (“It’s not red, its russet!”). The stuff currently being called “post-truth” was never that. The relationship was still kept between words and some objects or events. That is what needs to change.
Real “post-truth” is that words are just a complex way to do things to people, and get them to do things, but are not directly related to the objects or events they are talking about. Observations are the nearest thing to being true (although we can misperceive sometimes), but that does not then make my reporting of any observations true or false. The words of reporting our observations are still only there to get people to do things if conditions are right. Observations cannot make reporting truer or falser…
Saying the words “There is human-caused climate change happening” does not give us any sort of certainty, assurance or truth about events occurring in the environment. But neither does saying the words “There no is human-caused climate change happening” give us any sort of certainty, assurance or truth about events not occurring in the environment. They are equally just words we are using to do things to people.
So, the current argument given earlier that my words and opinions need to be taken just as seriously as your opposite words and opinions, fails.
Post-truth means that we do not pay any attention to any words in deciding certainty or assurance, since they are being guided by social relationship exchanges and politics. Instead, we need to recapture observation and doing things other than talking, to gauge certainty or assurance. Even the words which are ‘produced’ when observing (“Ah, I can now see that your cat is red”) do not become true or false, since they are there to do things to listeners, not to change the observation or affect the cat.
Only observations and interacting with the world can do something we might call “true”, but what is then said is still neither true nor false. So, this does not lead us to another naïve form of empiricism, either, because empiricism was always about how observations could make statements true—and that is off the agenda now.
The real problem
The real problem, perhaps, is how much we are now almost completely relying on words to run our lives, rather than engaging in observation and interaction with our environments. Most of our ‘activity’ is reading and talking… That is the problem. We only have words to guide us so some are trying to bully their ways into getting acceptance of their words. But life does not work like that. And they are damaging people in the meanwhile with their verbal bullying.
So the real problem is that we do not do enough in life of observation and interacting with the environment anymore; we base our lives and our plans on words and talking. That means that we can be taken advantage of by anyone persuading us that their words are truer than someone else’s words… or bullying us…
[Thanks to Filipe Lazzeri and Diego Zilio for triggering these thoughts, and Marcela for comments.]
holisticelephants 