Education in a Post-truth WorldEDUCATION & SOCIETY 101, UNIVERSITY OF WAIKATOMICHAEL A. PETERS

'Post-truth' named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries

BBC Report - http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-37995600

Oxford Dictionaries has declared "post-truth" as its 2016 international word of the year, reflecting what it called a "highly-charged" political 12 months.

It is defined as an adjective relating to circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotional appeals.

Its selection follows June's Brexit vote and the US presidential election. Oxford Dictionaries' Casper Grathwohl said post-truth could become "one

of the defining words of our time". Post-truth, which has become associated with the phrase "post-truth

politics", was chosen ahead of other political terms, including "Brexiteer" and "alt-right" from a shortlist selected to reflect the social, cultural, political, economic and technological trends and events of the year.

A combination of photos taken at the National Mall shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (L) on Jan. 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on Jan. 20, 2009, in Washington. Lucas Jackson (Left) and Stelios Varias (Right)—Reuters

Truth and Image

“When photography was invented,” photo historian Vicki Goldberg once said, “it was thought to be an equivalent to truth. It was truth with a capital T.”

But as viewers quickly learned, seeing isn’t always believing. Even in the early history of photography, hoaxes like the Cottingley fairies taught people to question the validity of the images they saw. Today, we’re well aware that photos can be digitally altered—which means that the public trusts the authority of photos, including journalistic images, a whole lot less

VP Pense’s TweetMaking the historic journey from US Capitol to The @WhiteHouse with Karen & our children at our sides is a memory we will forever cherish.

Contrast that with a photo tweeted by Deborah Berry, USA Today’s Washington correspondent. Berry’s photo, taken from an angle, captures both Pence walking down the street and the mostly-empty grandstand on the side of the road.

 

Behind the fake news crisis lies what's perhaps a larger problem: Many Americans doubt what governments or authorities tell them, and also dismiss real news from traditional sources. But we've got tips to sharpen our skepticism.Turnbull/Getty Images/Ikon Images

Post-truth politics – The EconomistArt of the liePoliticians have always lied. Does it matter if they leave the truth behind entirely?

The Economist

CONSIDER how far Donald Trump is estranged from fact. He inhabits a fantastical realm where Barack Obama’s birth certificate was faked, the president founded Islamic State (IS), the Clintons are killers and the father of a rival was with Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F. Kennedy. 

Mr Trump is the leading exponent of “post-truth” politics—a reliance on assertions that “feel true” but have no basis in fact. His brazenness is not punished, but taken as evidence of his willingness to stand up to elite power. And he is not alone.

‘Education in a Post-Truth World’Educational Philosophy & Theory www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00131857.2016.1264114

The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.’1In their brief history of the concept Oxford Dictionaries notes a spike after a decade of use in relation to Brexit and Trump’s election as US president and the rise of the compound noun post-truth politics as a description for our times. Oxford Dictionaries also notes earlier formations with the Post stem like post-national (1945) and post-racial (1971) and they trace its incidental use in a variety of media before it became a general description and characteristic of our age. It ought not to be a surprise that the 2016 shortlist also included both Alt-right—‘An ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterised by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content’ and Brexiteer—‘A person who is in favour of the UK withdrawing from the European Union.’

Word of the Year 2016 is... After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford

Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.

The concept of post-truth has been in existence for the past decade, but Oxford Dictionaries has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become associated with a particular noun, in the phrase post-truth politics. 

Use of ‘Post-truth’

‘Education in a Post-truth World

The concept has certainly been picked up and anchored quickly in mainstream media. Time magazine deliciously states as a headline ‘It describes a situation in which feelings trump facts.’ Time quotes Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Dictionaries as saying ‘It’s not surprising that our choice reflects a year dominated by highly-charged political and social discourse. Fuelled 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 Economist

The Economist devoted two articles to the issue—‘Post-truth politics: Art of the lie’ ‘The post-truth world: Yes, I’d lie to you’

beginning the latter with the sentence ‘When Donald Trump, the Republican presidential hopeful, claimed recently that President Barack Obama “is the founder” of Islamic State and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, the “co-founder,” even some of his supporters were perplexed.’ Trump repeatedly told and retold ‘big lies’:

The Big Lies

Trump Falsely Claimed That ‘The Birther Movement Was Started By Hillary Clinton In 2008’ when he perpetrated and championed the birther claims

Trump Has Repeatedly Falsely Claimed That He ‘Was Totally Against The War In Iraq.’

Trump Has Repeatedly Falsely Claimed That The ‘Real Unemployment Rate Is 42 Percent.’

Trump Has Falsely Claimed That ‘It Could Be 30 Million’ Undocumented Immigrants Currently Residing In The United States.

Trump Has Lied That, Because His Taxes Are Under Audit, He ‘Can’t’ Make Them Public.

Trump Has Falsely Claimed That Clinton ‘Soundly Slept In Her Bed’ During The 2012 Attack In Benghazi, Libya.

The Big Lies

Trump Claimed That ‘Inner-City Crime Is Reaching Record Levels,’ Which Is False.

Trump Lied That Clinton Wants To ‘Abolish The Second Amendment.’

Trump Claims He’s ‘Really The Friend Of’ The LGBT Community But He Supports Anti-LGBT Legislation

Trump falsely claimed ‘The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.

Trump made multiple false claims concerning immigration and mass deportations

Trump, Offering No Evidence, Says Obama Tapped His Phones

The New York Times (2016) commented on Trump’s technique: … Donald Trump has come up with something new, which we can

call the ‘big liar’ technique. Taken one at a time, his lies are medium-size—not trivial, but mostly not rising to the level of blood libel. But the lies are constant, coming in a steady torrent, and are never acknowledged, simply repeated. He evidently believes that this strategy will keep the news media flummoxed, unable to believe, or at least say openly, that the candidate of a major party lies that much.

Education in a Post-Truth World

Taken together, Trump’s triumph in the US elections and Brexit indicates a decided turn against the global liberal internationalist order. It is fueled by the rise of both extreme right and left fractions—a coincidence of older neo-conservative values, anti-immigration sentiments, and white working-class people, especially men, who populate the deindustrialized areas in the US and got left behind when American manufacturing went East in search of cheap labour. Arguably, this group is less educated, more open to conspiracy theories, and less likely to change their deeply seated beliefs in the face of evidence. The style of Trump campaigning and the turn to anti-globalisation protectionist policies as a rejection of the liberal global order has led to what has been called ‘post-truth politics’ based mainly on appeals to emotion without any detailed policy specifics, delivered through video and social media, especially Twitter, that are not ideal media for argumentation, disputation, reflection and fact-checking. Post-truth politics is a development of an increasingly privatised and fragmented public news that began with the ‘sound bite’ and ‘photo opportunity’ to bypass public discussion in the regime of the 24-h news cycle, where news channels take on the mantle of party ideologies often deliberately distorting the truth.

What is Truth? Main uses of the word

Truth is used to mean in accord with fact or reality Fidelity to an original Authenticity (in relation to the self) Bringing into the open – unconcealment Aletheia Falsehood is opposite to truth

Different kinds of truth

Mathematical truth, eg., 2+2=4 - the model theory of truth and the proof theory of truth

Logical truth, a statement which is true, and remains true under all reinterpretations of its components other than its logical constants. It is a type of analytic statement. Syllogisms and logical inference.

Logic is concerned with the patterns in reason that can help tell us if a proposition is true or not. 

Empirical truth, what is the case Historical truth, what was the case

Theories of truth - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth

The correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world

For coherence theories in general, truth requires a proper fit of elements within a whole system.

Social constructivism holds that truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community.

Consensus theory holds that truth is whatever is agreed upon, or in some versions, might come to be agreed upon, by some specified group. 

The pragmatic theory of truth holds truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one's concepts into practice.

Semantic theory of truth Other theories of truth – minimalist, performative, redundancy, pluralist

Truth is a necessary part of knowledge

The true justified belief account of knowledge:

For A to know that p A must believe that p (the belief condition) P must be true (the truth condition) A must have justification for believing that p (the

justification condition)

What counts as justification?Theory of justification is part of epistemology

Coherentism – Beliefs are justified if they cohere with other beliefs a person holds, each belief is justified if it coheres with the overall system of beliefs.

Externalism – Outside sources of knowledge can be used to justify a belief. Foundationalism – Basic beliefs justify other, non-basic beliefs. Foundherentism – A combination of foundationalism and coherentism, proposed by 

Susan Haack. Infinitism – Beliefs are justified by infinite chains of reasons. Internalism – The believer must be able to justify a belief through internal knowledge. Reformed epistemology – Beliefs are warranted by proper cognitive function, proposed by 

Alvin Plantinga. Skepticism – A variety of viewpoints questioning the possibility of knowledge.

truth skepticism – Questions the possibility of true knowledge, but not of justified knowledge epistemological skepticism – Questions the possibility of justified knowledge, but not true

knowledge Evidentialism – Beliefs depend solely on the evidence for them

Truth is central to our institutions

Science – ‘Explanations and theories that correctly predict new results from new observations or experiments bring us closer to a true understanding of nature and the rules by which it operates.’

Law – ‘A primary function of trial court procedures … and of rules of evidence in cases before courts in which facts are in dispute is to find the truth.’

Religion – historical truth; doctrinal truth; credibility; authenticity; consistency; existential and practical meaningfulness.

Education – education depends on an introduction to the disciplines and their methods of truth and justification

The Press – the centrality of accurate factual reporting to a democracy Everyday life – depends on people telling the truth in most of their

relationships

Education and TruthKnowledge, evidence and reason

What counts as justification of belief? Evidence – what constitutes ‘evidence’? Types of evidence – establishing causal relationships; scientific

evidence (data; information, knowledge; wisdom); testimony; expert witness; probability

Types of reasoning: reason as justification; reason as deduction; reason as induction; reason as probability

‘the context of an inquiry determines important facts about what evidence is, and how much and what kind has to be collected to establish a hypothesis for a given purpose.’

Education in a Post-truth World

Imagine a form of education based on falsehoods or on ideology. “Donald J. Trump is all powerful” ”Donald J. Trump is God” “Donald J. Trump is the President of the United States of America”

Determining which of these statements is true and which false is at the very basis of education.

Education is concerned with the development of a critical attitude to information

Information and the critical Attitude

Knowledge is justified true belief

Information requires no belief, truth or justification condition Information can be disinformation Information can be misinformation

Without a critical attitude to information people can be easily misled and manipulated.

Teachers have an obligation to introduce student to the critical attitude

The Critical Attitude

A critical thinking attitude consists of a habitual willingness or commitment to engage in effortful deliberation. It is the foundation of critical thinking behavior (Halpern, 2003; Nelson, 2005; Paul, 1995).According to Halpern (1998, p.452), this attitude consists of:

a willingness to engage in and persist at a complex task,  the habitual use of plans and the suppression of impulsive activity,  flexibility or open-mindedness, a willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct,

and flexibility an awareness of the social realities that need to be overcome (such as

the need to seek consensus or compromise) so that thoughts can become actions.

Challenging Assumptions - Examining unstated premises upon which a conclusion depends.

Critical Pedagogyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_pedagogy

Advocates of critical pedagogy view teaching as an inherently political act, reject the neutrality of knowledge, and insist that issues of social justice and democracy itself are not distinct from acts of teaching and learning. The goal of critical pedagogy is emancipation from oppression through an awakening of the critical consciousness…. When achieved, critical consciousness encourages individuals to affect change in their world through social critique and political action.

Theorists of critical pedagogy argue that the main aim of education is to teach student how to be critical thinkers – rather than morally perfect human beings (although some would argue that the former leads to the latter).

The critical attitude is fundamental to active citizenship.

What is Critical Thinking?

The aim of Critical Thinking is to promote independent thinking, personal autonomy and reasoned judgment in thought and action. This involves two related dimensions:

the ability to reason well and  the disposition to do so.  Critical thinking involves logic as well as creativity. It may involve

inductive and deductive reasoning, analysis and problem-solving as well as creative, innovative and complex approaches to the resolution of issues and challenges.

Critical Thinking and Educationhttps://sta.uwi.edu/ct/ctande.asp 1. Brains are biological. Minds are created. Curriculum is thus a mind-

altering device. This raises the moral requirement to treat learners as independent centres of consciousness with the fundamental ability to determine the contours of their own minds and lives.

2. Education should seek to prepare learners for self-direction and not pre-conceived roles. It is, therefore, essential that learners be prepared for thinking their way through the maze of challenges that life will present independently.

3. Education systems usually induct the neophyte into the forms-of-representation and realms of meaning which humans have created thus far.

4. Careful analysis, clear thinking, and reasoned deliberation are fundamental to democracy and democratic life.

Critical attitude and skillshttp://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/higher-education/431

reading, writing, speaking, and listening

reasoning within all subject areas

decision-making and problem-solving

analysis and evaluation of one’s emotions and values

intelligent choices in human relationships

civic and personal choices, etc . . .