ONLINE Philosophy Colloquium: Andrew Garnar

Post-truth Politics and Technology

When

3 to 5 p.m., April 24, 2020

The Spring 2020 Philosophy Colloquium Series presents Andrew Garnar (University of Arizona).

Abstract:
The term “post-truth” became part of the English lexicon in 2016 and continues to capture something distinctive about contemporary politics. It describes a situation in which seemingly objective facts are disregarded in favor of personal beliefs and emotional appeals.  Especially for those on the American left, what post-truth has done to politics is taken to be a disaster because anyone can believe whatever they would like. In response, the usual solutions to post-truth politics tend to largely involve reentrenching concepts like objective facts.
This paper argues that such answers to post-truth politics are inadequate because they fail to fully appreciate and respond to the technological dimensions of the problem.  I make this case by demonstrating how different technologies sustain post-truth politics. While many who write about post-truth acknowledge the role of social media in the problem, this is only one technological dimension.  By connecting social media to other information and communication technologies, I will show how the challenges posed by post-truth politics go further than commonly discussed.  Rather than being the result of things like bad actors misusing technologies, post-truth politics follows rather directly from the dominant trends of the implementation of information and communication technologies over the last 40 years.  For this reason, it is necessary to examine the distinctive traits of these technologies in order to better understand the challenges they pose with respect to post-truth.  This examination will show why the problem of post-truth is more difficult than usually assumed, but also opens up new avenues to address to it.  Alongside standard recommendations for renewing objectivity, both technologies and the relationships individuals have to them become important sites of intervention.

This colloquium talk will be hosted virtually on Zoom. If you would like to participate, please contact Jonathan Weinberg.

 

Contacts

Jonathan Weinberg