Is the word 'post-truth' really brand-new?
What we call "truth" doesn't depend on what people feel about it. It doesn't change when you look from different aspects.
When Donald Trump won, many people; not only residents of the United States, but also millions in the world asked, "How can people elect someone as the president of the United States when most of the words coming out of his mouth are based on lies?
Everyone's talking about the word "post-truth." This is the new "It word" for 2016, as announced by Oxford.
The truth is, for a very, very long time, we've been living in a world in which what people feel - not know - matters.
When governments are determined to change "others" by force, the best option is conflict, if not war. Strong feelings of patriotism, misread rules of religions and the greedy needs of the leaders - that is how all civilizations in the world were shaped, even in the early ages.
If we've been living in "post-truth" societies since the beginning of civilization, what makes today different? What makes this word new, or "The word of 2016?" What is the difference now?
It is vast, for sure. With the speed of fast-growing technology and social media's ability to change social patterns, politicians discovered that rage can be provoked as an organic bond that connects people and can therefore be used as immense power.
Rage is a powerful emotion and with the presence of suppression and social inequalities, people can easily be led by what they think, feel or imagine instead of what the truth implies.
Maybe we ignored too much that we were already living in a post-truth society before "post truth" was the "cool word" to say. We were already making important decisions based on what we felt in a particular situation.
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