Word of the Year: “Post-Truth.” So That's a Thing Now?
by Kathy Schiffer
Although the term “post-truth” first came into use back in 1992, Oxford Dictionaries calculated a 2000% uptick in the number of usages of “post-truth” in 2016.
The Oxford Dictionary, after a tumultous year of political exaggeration and media distortion, has chosen “Post-Truth” as its Word of the Year.
In making the announcement, Casper Grathwohl, President of the Global Business Development & Dictionaries Division at Oxford University Press, predicted that “post-truth” could become “one of the defining words of our time.” Grathwohl added,
“Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.”
The dictionary defines “post-truth” as
I've got to say that the Oxford Dictionary has hit the nail on the head. This is a definition which affirms the feelings of transgender individuals over the scientific reality of “x” and “y” chromosomes, and ranks “feelings” over objective truth when college students retreat to their “safe spaces” complaining of racism and inequality and gender discrimination.
Although the term “post-truth” first came into use back in 1992, Oxford Dictionaries calculated a 2,000% uptick in the number of usages of “post-truth” in 2016. The concept gained momentum after the Brexit vote in June, surged again when Donald J. Trump was nominated to the Republican ticket, and continued throughout the campaign season. The prevalence of inaccurate allegations based on “feelings” and biased media reports required a vigorous response from Fact-Checker websites, which attempted (often unsuccessfully) to restore a modicum of accuracy to public discourse.
“Post-truth” beat out other contenders this year including:
While “post-truth” is an unfortunate bellwether, spotlighting the decline in accurate, unbiased reporting by major American news outlets, that “fear of clowns” thing is a real issue, too—not only in the forests of Greenville, South Carolina, where the clown phenomenon had its start, and around the country, but also among low-information voters and those who derive their “news” from Oprah and The View and various Hollywood starlets. It's a problem among the “wounded” student activists and others who feel the need to shield their ears from words or ideas they don't want to hear. The remedy might be accelerated political science courses for all, an uptick of serious political discourse in the public square—or simply turning off the TV and opening a good book.
As further evidence that the level of intellectual discourse has devolved, in 2015 for the first time the “Word of the Year” was not a word at all, but rather, a pictograph. The “face with tears of joy emoji” nudged out competitors to become the most popular “word” of the year.
And what do I think about this weakening and simplification of the popular vocabulary?
John 18:37-38: “So Pilate said to him, ‘Then you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’” (Antonio Ciseri, “Ecce Homo” (1871))
The Oxford Dictionary, after a tumultous year of political exaggeration and media distortion, has chosen “Post-Truth” as its Word of the Year.
In making the announcement, Casper Grathwohl, President of the Global Business Development & Dictionaries Division at Oxford University Press, predicted that “post-truth” could become “one of the defining words of our time.” Grathwohl added,
“Fueled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time.”
The dictionary defines “post-truth” as
“Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
I've got to say that the Oxford Dictionary has hit the nail on the head. This is a definition which affirms the feelings of transgender individuals over the scientific reality of “x” and “y” chromosomes, and ranks “feelings” over objective truth when college students retreat to their “safe spaces” complaining of racism and inequality and gender discrimination.
Although the term “post-truth” first came into use back in 1992, Oxford Dictionaries calculated a 2,000% uptick in the number of usages of “post-truth” in 2016. The concept gained momentum after the Brexit vote in June, surged again when Donald J. Trump was nominated to the Republican ticket, and continued throughout the campaign season. The prevalence of inaccurate allegations based on “feelings” and biased media reports required a vigorous response from Fact-Checker websites, which attempted (often unsuccessfully) to restore a modicum of accuracy to public discourse.
“Post-truth” beat out other contenders this year including:
- Adulting – The practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks
- Alt-right – An ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content
- Brexiteer – A person who is in favor of the UK withdrawing from the European Union
- Coulrophobia – Extreme or irrational fear of clowns
While “post-truth” is an unfortunate bellwether, spotlighting the decline in accurate, unbiased reporting by major American news outlets, that “fear of clowns” thing is a real issue, too—not only in the forests of Greenville, South Carolina, where the clown phenomenon had its start, and around the country, but also among low-information voters and those who derive their “news” from Oprah and The View and various Hollywood starlets. It's a problem among the “wounded” student activists and others who feel the need to shield their ears from words or ideas they don't want to hear. The remedy might be accelerated political science courses for all, an uptick of serious political discourse in the public square—or simply turning off the TV and opening a good book.
As further evidence that the level of intellectual discourse has devolved, in 2015 for the first time the “Word of the Year” was not a word at all, but rather, a pictograph. The “face with tears of joy emoji” nudged out competitors to become the most popular “word” of the year.
And what do I think about this weakening and simplification of the popular vocabulary?
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Post-truth politics
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics) is a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy, and by the repeated assertion of talking points to which factual rebuttals are ignored. Post-truth differs from traditional contesting and falsifying of truth by rendering it of "secondary" importance. According to Oxford Dictionaries, the term post-truth was first used in a 1992 essay by the late Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich in The Nation. Tesich, writing about the Iran–Contra scandal and the Persian Gulf War, said that "we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world."[1]
The contemporary origin of the term is attributed to blogger David Roberts who used the term in 2010 in a column forGrist.[2][3][4] Political commentators have identified post-truth politics as ascendant in American, Australian, British, Indian and Turkish politics, as well as in other areas of debate, driven by a combination of the 24-hour news cycle, false balancein news reporting, and the increasing ubiquity of social media.[5][6][7][8][9][4]
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