An ancient question shapes this moment in time.
We are living through what has been called a “post-truth” era.
It was in the fall of 2016, the year Donald Trump was elected, that the Oxford Dictionary declared “post-truth” the word of the year, and offered an official definition: “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
This idea of post-truth definitely did not begin with the election of Trump, and it won’t end with the wild finale of this election or even after all of the criminal and civil cases against him are resolved in the courts. We have seen the denial of facts around tobacco, climate change, vaccines, and evolution going back generations. When you add in the very human phenomenon of cognitive biases and how those biases are exploited through the algorithms of social media and then combine that with a decline in traditional journalism and the rise of ‘fake news’ and you find yourself in a perfect storm of modern history where truth is indeed battered by what feels like a Category 5 hurricane.
The post-truth era plays out in news headlines every day from as far away as Ukraine, where Putin’s lies fuel the war, and in Washington, where Trump’s spewing of falsehoods goes without fact-checking or even questioning by the CNN moderators in the June 27 debate. Biden seems fatigued by this modern existential battle for truth, and was capable of mustering only an anemic response.
These days people throw their hands up in frustration and ask if truth even exists, or if truth is simply a matter of one’s opinion. So this summer and into the fall, as we watch the political battle lines take shape for a fateful presidential election in November, it is worth taking a long walk along the shoreline to reflect on this timeless fact: The history of trying to define ‘what is truth’ is as ancient as the Greek philosopher Aristotle and it is as enduring as the Bible. It has defined chapters of our history from the Enlightenment through to modern metaphysics.
Amid all the noise in our digital world, people seem as confused as ever about where to go to find trusted information in the form of discernible facts which provide the atomic structure of what we call truth. Too often, we resort to retreating to our own echo chambers, where we can read opinions that confirm our own biases. In the process, it feels like truth is undermined and then doubt is weaponized.
This systematic erosion of truth coincides with a crisis in journalism. Mainstream media is witnessing a deep erosion of trust and the decline in local news has accelerated to a point where an estimated 2.5 local newspapers are shutting down every week in America. What fills the void in the collapse of real journalism seems toxic and dangerous. In communities where local news vanishes, known as news deserts, there is mounting data that establishes two consequences: voter apathy and increased polarization.
It seems the crisis in local journalism has much to do with the national crisis in our democracy. So the task of local journalism, to help us find common ground around accepted facts, is an enterprise that matters now more than ever.
In this issue of Arts & Ideas, we have gathered up some engaging local takes on how to understand truth. We hope you will enjoy them and that they may enlighten and inform:
Is there no higher level of truth than how artist Tiffany Vanderhoop of Aquinnah brings the history of Native American tradition to her craft?
There’s truth in the beauty of Gretchen Baer’s personal essay about the last days of her mother Jackie’s life and how she inspired Gretchen to look closer and pay attention to every small thing.
Valerie Francis and Ralph Groce III tell us their truth in the story of how they founded Oak Bluffs’ Knowhere Art Gallery and the Center of Knowhere, two venues that strive to share not only beauty
but also to challenge conventions by looking at the world in new ways through art.
Documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter of West Tisbury uncovers historical truth in telling the stories of John Lewis, Bobby Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson, and most recently musician Luther Vandross through her films.
And in the dialogue between author and thinker on the digital age John Battelle and the Grammy- nominated recording artist, producer, and filmmaker John Forté of Chilmark you can hear high-level thinking on the great possibilities of AI in the art of songwriting as an expression of truth.
So world-class truth tellers are all around us here on this Island, and we have an extraordinary opportunity to learn from them. The question is: Are we listening?
Charles M. Sennott is the publisher of The MV Times, the founder of The GroundTruth Project and a Visiting Scholar at Boston College’s Institute for Liberal Arts where for the last three years he has taught a course titled “Truth: A Short History.” At the opening panel for the MV Times’ “Islanders Write” on August 18 at 7:30 pm, Sennott will speak with documentary filmmaker Dawn Porter, founder of the Black Doctors Consortium, memoirist Dr. Ala Stanford, and tech media entrepreneur and author John Battelle on what it means to live in a ‘post-truth’ era.