ERIC Number: EJ1200316
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018
Pages: 6
Abstractor: As Provided
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ISSN: ISSN-1191-162X
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Truths, Wounded Innocence, and the Post-Truth Syndrome
den Heyer, Kent
Canadian Social Studies, v50 n2 p33-38 2018
[W]hen I hear people denounce our political scene as "post-truth," I have to wonder when exactly they think it was that politics was determined by the truth? The same goes for those who decry today's "fake news." […]To claim that with Trump's election we've entered a post-truth era of fake news is to claim that the U.S. was built on truthful politics and media. Political struggle isn't really about an existing truth but rather concerns the formulation of new truths and, more importantly, the materialization of those truths […] The political project involves the power relations that compose truths, and the pedagogical project involves how we engage ourselves, each other, and the world in transformative processes. (Ford, 2018, paras. 1-4) This quotation captures my concern with an emergent liberal nostalgia narrative, a type of wounded innocence, fashionable in response to what many see as a contemporary affliction affecting democratic institutions. According to this story, Trump and his administration have moved us into post-truth times. As definitive nostalgia, this post-truth narrative constructs a never existing political consensus that has now been lost, from the functioning of formal politics to truth claims found in the academe.
Descriptors: Ethics, Politics, Anti Intellectualism, Scholarship, Democracy, Social Studies, Power Structure, Deception, Education
University of Alberta. 347 Education South, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2G5, Canada. Web site: http://www2.education.ualberta.ca/css/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
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