Post-Truth
Post-Truth, Post-Politics?
Dr. Naveh Frumer
The term “post-truth” gained currency in the past decade among certain political commentators, to indicate alarming features of the contemporary political discourse. Increasing disregard to facts and specialist opinion; emotional appeal to stereotypes and fears; displacing policy debate with unabashed propaganda. This, coupled with the claim that it is the very nature and pace of television and internet coverage that heightens such development.
Whether one shares these concerns; and whether one thinks they are unique to the present or rather that they have long-accompanied politics, they nonetheless appear to touch on fundamental questions of politics, and the fundamental concerns (even fears) of democracy. The relation or tension between conviction versus coercion; public discourse versus propaganda; truth versus belief; matters of fact versus matters of choice, will, or value. Alarming as it might sound, the age of post-truth does raise worrying challenges. Is there really a clear difference between opinion-shaping and manipulation? Can we really speak of truth or facts in politics as we do in the “hard” sciences, for example? Is not all politics a play of images? Are not all political visions a matter of promising what is “beyond” mere facts?
In this course we shall explore these questions through various political philosophers, past and present, while paying special attention to their potential relevance to the contemporary landscape of political debate, electoral dynamics, and media representations.
Among the authors we shall discuss are Plato, Nietzsche, Rousseau, Chomsky, and Baudrillard.
Course Requirements
2 mid-term papers of 2-5 pages (each comprising 30% of the final grade); and a final paper of 6-10 pages (40%).
For each paper you will be given a choice of questions from which you need to choose one to write about. Alternatively, you can suggest your own topic pending approval by the lecturer.
All papers should be submitted online via the Moodle system.
