CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

The Age of Post-Truth

We are living, indubitably, in an age of post-truth — an era in which falsehoods, distortions, and manufactured narratives often prevail over facts and reason. Society appears trapped in a recurring conundrum: are we redefining what constitutes “truth,” or merely redefining “falsehood” itself? At times, we seem endlessly engaged in the futile exercise of reinventing the wheel.

As someone from the baby-boomer generation who spent most of a working life in academia, I have come to appreciate both the privileges and burdens of old age. There are the modest advantages of being a septuagenarian — yet these are accompanied by physical and psychological aches that no concession can alleviate.

The times we inhabit today feel increasingly dystopian and deeply unsettling. The United States, once widely regarded as a bastion of liberty, democratic ideals, and the rule of law, now appears to many observers to be drifting toward a more authoritarian political culture. This reality has kept me awake on countless nights, not out of fear of the unknown, but because it provokes relentless reflection. I often find myself contemplating how profoundly life — and indeed the world itself — has changed, and whether this transformation is destined to endure for generations to come.

Perhaps the greatest casualty of the post-truth era is truth itself. Genuine truth is too often buried beneath layers of misinformation, half-truths, competing narratives, conspiracy theories, and carefully manufactured realities. The proliferation of fake news and “alternative facts” has obscured what once seemed self-evident. Truth has become a fragile and increasingly contested commodity in this age of postmodernism, of which the post-truth condition may well be a natural by-product.

The familiar intellectual currents of moral relativism and historical materialism — the usual suspects, as it were — have contributed to this climate. Postmodernism originally sought to challenge entrenched structures of power, ideology, and authority. Yet its broader cultural legacy may also have contributed to a world in which no idea, institution, historical narrative, or moral principle is considered immune from skepticism, even when the skepticism itself rests on unstable foundations. Everything is questioned, yet very little is affirmed.

Truth, however, has never been easy to accept. It becomes especially unwelcome when it threatens the interests of those who hold power. We lament the erosion of democracy, due process, the rule of law, human rights, and even the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Yet these ideals increasingly seem........

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