Are we living in a post truth world?
Tom Nichol’s wrote a book entitled, The Death of Expertise, in which he describes the waning respect that Americans have for experts and the institutions they work in and represent.
Ken Wilber has a different take on the subject. Wilber writes in his book, Trump and the Post-Truth World, that we are living in the age of postmodernism whose main idea is that there is no truth. Truth is merely a social construction and one person's truth is as good as anybody else's. Postmodernism has brought us the world of "alternative facts" and what Wilber calls nihilistic narcissism and aperspectival madness.
If we believe that there is no truth, then how can there be experts based on knowledge which is true?
How can we know what is true personally and collectively? The scientific method is one such approach to measurable phenomena, but when it comes to aesthetic judgments and value judgements what are we to do?
The moral compasses of old are badly broken when a man who brags about grabbing pussy when you're a celebrity is okay because "they let you do it," and "I could shoot someone on fifth avenue and they still would vote for me." And they did and made him their president. Moral accountability has been dispensed with because God is dead, or perhaps better stated, the belief in God (the good, the true, the beautiful) is dead.
With God dead, that leaves us with the law, legislated in a democracy supposedly by consent of the governed, but then Citizens United led to the decision by the Supreme Court which, deciding the supreme law of the land, opined that corporations are the same as people and money is free speech. Legislators can now be bought by those with the funds to buy them to make the laws the corporate interests prefer and the welfare of the people be damned. And so in this moral environment, money is power wielded to enable the incentives of those who pay for it. Accountability and justice can be thwarted by legal maneuvers and justice delayed is justice denied as we are now observing in the machinations of Donald Trump and his minions.
Truth is to be found eventually in results, consequences, and outcomes. The ability to see the truth requires the ability to observe systems, patterns, and longer term outcomes, to connect the dots, which is a competence few humans have achieved. The truth, it is said, will set us free, but most of us are so immersed in our own narcissistic thought system that we cannot find a place to stand to observe things in perspective. It is not expertise that allows a person to see the truth but objectivity and perspective giving one understanding of system dynamics and functioning.
Like the person who turns from Plato's cave wall and looks outside into the light, those of us who have seen the truth find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate it to those who still are enthralled with the dancing shadows. Wilber states that only 5% of the population is at this level of consciousness. The rest are at a lower level of consciousness and like children at concrete levels of cognitive development still function with beliefs about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.
How do Tom Nichols experts explain to a four year old that there is no Santa but actually it is the parent or other caring adult who brings the presents? The challenge in our modern society is to facilitate the further growth in consciousness and awareness in the bulk of the population. This facilitation is the work of the media and art. The media is failing and art has devolved to entertainment for “likes” rather than goodness, truth, and beauty. What is badly needed is for the 5% to continue to encourage, communicate, and create incentives for growth to increase its population share.