Why in the post-truth age, the bullshitters are winning

[Soph0571]

This article was written over 2 years ago but remains as true, if not more so, today:

The bullshit artist doesn’t care about truth at all — they have renounced citizenship of what the Bush administration infamously called “the reality-based community.” The liar wishes to conceal the truth. The bullshit artist, by contrast, wants to destroy the entire concept of truth, not to deceive but to confuse, confound and control.

This is what people mean when they refer to our political moment as a “post truth” age. It is not quite the same as lies, though lying may well be involved. “Post-truth” is closer to bullshit. It’s the “Hall of Mirrors” strategy perfected in Putin’s Russia, where an explosion of fake news and cultured online trolling bolsters the regime not simply by pumping out pro-Kremlin propaganda, but by making it impossible for citizens to entirely trust anything they read or hear. This leaves them vulnerable to latching on to the ideas that simply feel as if they ought to be true, with no regard for objective fact, which has been devalued, along with the very concept of expertise and learning, across the world.
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Bullshit artists are far more threatening than true believers, because they are more adaptable. They will say whatever is necessary to win whatever it is they want, be it power, cash, attention or all three. They also have far less to lose. A high-stakes liar might risk everything if he or she is found out, but the bullshit artist simply moves on to the next sticky idea that floats through the howling moral vacuum behind their eyes.
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The thing about bullshit, as the term itself suggests, is that it’s grotesque, and a little embarrassing. There’s a certain hygiene to lies, in part because they’re far harder to get away with. Bullshit, however, is a contaminant. It sticks to everything, suffusing culture with a paranoid miasma of ill health. There is less shame in being taken in by an outright lie.

[link:https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/01/why-post-truth-age-bullshitters-are-winning|

All of this. As the bull shit artists try to gas light our nations on a daily basis... worth repeating on a regular basis

[uponit7771]

1. K&R, Journalist need to address the BSr's with tactics that work. Macro Gish Gallops need to be

... addressed quickly with discipline

[PJMcK]

2. I remember reading this when it was first published

It's a good reminder.

Thanks, Soph.

[Azathoth]

3. Undermining the very notion of truth and objective reporting has been the goal of the right

for decades. They've long realized that propaganda is most effective when the people no longer regard anything they hear from actual news sources as credible.