The Self-Truth Age
Minimum State or welfare State? Socialism, social democracy, or liberalism? High-interest rates to benefit the financial sector or low-interest rates to boost productive investment, industrialization, employment, and the internal market? Encourage the wage increase to favor the internal market and improve the workers’ lives or stimulate the wage freeze and decrease in social security coverage to increase the country’s competitiveness concerning international competition? Legalize or criminalize abortion, drugs, and guns?
There are no single, consensual answers to any of these questions. What exists are narratives. Each of us has the free will to follow any of these narratives. But, can we call it “free will”?
Our life trajectory has made us consolidate a worldview and opinions about the most varied things. Throughout our lives, we have decided to follow certain narratives. Once we have consolidated our position on a particular subject, we hardly change our minds. We tend to follow the narrative initially chosen (like any “trend”, there are exceptions to this rule). When someone, or some computer system, presents us with an alternative narrative, we tend to ignore it. We don’t even make the effort to read the text, listen to the audio, watch the video, etc. This is a psychological characteristic common to all of us. It’s called confirmation bias. In another story, I demonstrated how the internet and social networks catalyze this cognitive bias.
In 2016, Oxford Dictionaries elected the word “post-truth” as the word of the year in the English language. Post-truth is a neologism that describes the phenomenon through which objective facts have less influence than appeals to personal emotions and beliefs. The prefix “post” conveys the idea that the truth has been left behind. On social networks, the debate is driven by emotional appeals, by the repeated affirmation of points of view, often disconnected from factual truth. Post-truth is the information acceptance by an individual or group of individuals who assume its legitimacy for personal reasons, be it political preferences, religious beliefs, cultural background, etc. It boils down to the idea that, if something appears to be true, then it probably is. In other words, the narrative is more important than the truth itself.
Psychologically, the post-truth is catalyzed by confirmation bias and fear of the unknown. Philosophically, the post-truth concept relates to Nietzsche’s hermeneutic dimension, which admits that “there are no facts, only versions”.
The concept of post-truth is more comprehensive and is not confused with that of fake news, despite having similar effects. Fake news, regardless of its motivations, is objective lies, that is, illegitimate information, fraud, or falsehood formulated generally to cause a stir on a given subject. Post-truth, in turn, does not necessarily imply a lie (given that unverified information may be true), but it always implies a neglect of the truth. Even so, fake news is an intrinsic phenomenon of post-truth.
Having an opinion on a subject is ok. The problem is when opinion concerns facts. It is said that against facts there are no arguments. Nonsense! Incredibly, many people argue against facts! The denialism of science is a reality, as well as other easily provable objective facts, such as historical, sociological, political, economic, ecological facts, etc. There is a lot of academic research aimed at subsidizing public policies. However, such research is often overlooked by governing forces around the world, often for purely ideological reasons. It is unfortunately common that ideological narratives enjoy more credibility than systematic academic studies.
The advent of social networks brought with it a phenomenon that has not yet been well studied. Ideas that were asleep came back to the fore. I’m talking about ideas like Flat Earth, creationism, white supremacy, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, some concepts linked to fascism, the feathers to name a few examples. One of the characteristics of social networks is to put users into bubbles. In these bubbles, people think very evenly. So, ideas once considered old-fashioned, out, had the opportunity to return. Before social networks, people were afraid to speak out about these ideas because they feared being ridiculed by the social groups they interacted with (relatives, friends, etc.) since they knew that their ideas were not socially well accepted. With social networks, people have come to find identity groups, people who agree with their ideas. It caused them a sense of belonging. So, they lost the inhibition of expressing their ideas and opinions without being ridiculed. Or, even if they are ridiculed, they are among equals who defend them, because they think like them.
Social networks then became a myriad of narratives, a true Tower of Babel in which each speaks his particular language, and no one understands the other. One of the consequences of the bubble effect is that the person happens to have a false feeling that everyone, or at least most, is thinking like him. Then, he becomes so convinced about his ideas and opinions (grotesque as they may be) that he manifests them without shame, defends them with tooth and nail, often referring to his ideological opponents aggressively. Before social media, people were embarrassed at bar tables, family barbecues, and work parties. Today, they are embarrassed on the world wide web.
So, what we’re living is beyond the post-truth. It is more about self-truth, that is, a self-constructed truth, a very personal truth. Each individual creates his own reality, his own particular world, his own truth. The truth has become what I believe in, and nothing more. It’s a personal choice. If something (fact, theory, or belief) hits me head-on with my belief system, then it can only be a lie. In the war of narratives, those who corroborate and feed my personal belief system win. All the others are summarily discarded. We’re not just in the Post-Truth Age. It’s worse! We are in the Self-Truth Age! In which everyone has his own personal truth.
On occasions when bubbles come into contact, when members of a bubble encounter members of another bubble in the same cybernetic environment, it is common to see comments saying that the other lives in a parallel universe. Actually, that’s about it. He lives in a parallel bubble, an alternate reality, a collective illusion, shared with the members of the same bubble. But this alternative reality does not necessarily correspond to the factual, tangible reality.
A phrase attributed to Joseph Goebbels (of unproven authorship), Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany, says that: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes accepted as truth”. That’s what the war of narratives is about. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the narrative. As long as the narrative is successful, if you have to repeat a lie a thousand times, so be it! In the end, the narrative will become truth, it will be the truth itself.
And it’s no use thinking, dear reader, that you’re immune to it. None of us are! We are all bombarded by narratives every day, even if we don’t use (or use little) social networks. Even conventional channels of information dissemination (the great written, radio, and television media) follow narratives. Or do you think not? If you think, I recommend you read Noam Chomsky. In addition, we are all subjected to confirmation bias. Or do you often read the articles submitted by that your friend who differs politically radically from you?
You may be wondering now: is it possible to escape this trap? I would respond by saying that it is impossible to eliminate this risk. However, it’s possible to mitigate it using some simple techniques. First, we need to exercise our skepticism. It is imperative to distrust everything and everyone, to be suspicious of the information that arrive at us by any means, even the most traditional. It is mandatory to check the reliability of the source, the internal coherence of the narrative, and its coherence, also, with other narratives that have already passed through the same filter. Does the narrative make sense? Is it consistent with other narratives seen as true and reliable? Does it go through the fact-checking filter? Is it compatible with academic studies published in peer-reviewed journals? Are there intellectual authorities corroborating the narrative? These are questions that need to be asked by those who have skeptical thinking and critical spirit.
I usually find out about what happens in the world through Google News. This tool has an interesting look: when you scroll the news feed vertically, it shows you different news. If a piece of particular news or article interests me, then I roll horizontally. The tool then starts to show me the same news reported by different vehicles. This allows me to analyze the news from different points of view. I have already spoken here (and I will repeat now to fix) that there is no neutral press. Every press, whether traditional or peripheral, has, in its bulge, an ideology. That’s why it’s important to analyze the facts reported from different angles. Only in this way is it possible to form a conviction in an exempt, dispassionate and rational way. Of course, our cultural background and our pre-existing personal convictions will fatally influence that news’ reading. But, by acting this way, we minimize the effects of the confirmation bias (note that I used the verb “minimize” and not “eliminate”).
You’re free to think as you please. Freedom of thought and expression is a human right, it is one of humanity’s great achievements. In this sense, social networks have a redemptive role. They allow people to express themselves freely, openly, frankly, honestly. Stan Lee managed to immortalize a phrase from his character Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility”. This phrase is known as Peter Parker Principle. Social networks have given people great power: to expose their ideas, to create and share their narratives, and to speak openly to those who are willing to listen. However, with great power comes great responsibilities. You are free to think, but you are not free to express yourself unlimitedly. Freedom of expression is limited. You can’t say what you want without suffering consequences. And I’m not just talking about being reprimanded by your colleagues or your community. No, no, no, it could be a lot worse than that! In many countries, racism, fascism, misogyny, xenophobia, among other ideas and opinions, are considered a crime. Which means you can be arrested! So, you are free to have your own thoughts, your own worldview, your own “self-truth”. But be careful when expressing them out there!