Post-truth anthropology

Abstract

Countless commentators have announced the advent of the post‐truth era, but while everyone seems to be talking about it, there is little agreement about what it really means. This article argues that anthropology can make an important and distinctive contribution to understanding post‐truth by treating it ethnographically. Commonly proposed explanations for post‐truth include changes in political culture, in the structure of information in the digital age and universal cognitive weaknesses that limit people's capacity for critical thought. While all these are likely important factors, they do not account for the role of culture in creating and sustaining post‐truth. In fact, it is likely that culture, especially in the form of metacognition, or thought about thought, plays an important role by providing knowledge practices, techniques for allocating attention, and especially competing theories of truth. Ethnographic methods provide anthropologists with a distinctive window on post‐truth cultures of metacognition.

Conspicuous fabrications

“…Ever since it was chosen as the Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year in the autumn of 2016, prompted by its prominence in Anglophone media discussion around the Brexit referendum and the American presidential election that same year, 'post-truth' has become something of a buzzword for contemporary media discourse, along with related concepts 'fake news' and 'alternative facts' (Mair, 2017). Most commonly evoked in the context of political commentary, it is used to conceptualize the trend in populist political rhetoric of appealing to emotional reactions of the public rather than rational, evidence-based argumentation.…”

Los imaginarios de la alteridad y la construcción del chivo expiatorio: Trump y el racismo antinmigrante

“…Las ciencias sociales han buscado explicar por qué la gente está dispuesta a dar crédito a las explicaciones más inverosímiles, a construir enemigos de la noche a la mañana, a apoyar con fervor una causa o a un líder y a generar acciones basadas en el odio y en el miedo a «el otro». En el caso de la posverdad (post-truth), la antropología se pregunta si se trata de un fenómeno mediático que se replica en diferentes contextos, o si se trata de una nueva manera de significar un fenómeno sociocultural que se ha hecho más visible a partir del referéndum por la paz en Colombia, la destitución de Dilma Rousseff en Brasil, la llegada de Macri a la Presidencia de Argentina, la ruptura del Brexit en Reino Unido y la llegada de Trump a la Presidencia de los Estados Unidos (Mair, 2017).…”

Strategi Komunikasi Politik Digital Pasca-Kebenaran

“…Manusia saat ini hidup di politik pasca-kebenaran: budaya politik dalam politik di mana politik (opini publik dan narasi media) telah lepas dari kebijakan. Mair (2017) beragumen bahwa karakteristik pasca kebenaran adalah kebohongan baru kualitatif yang menjadi bagian dari politikus, khususnya untuk mempromosikan agar mereka dianggap lebih "ekonomis" dengan kebenaran. Informasi politik yang mengandung pasca-kebenaran secara langsung berkonflik dengan pembuatan keputusan yang demokratis (Fish, 2016).…”