The death of truth: how we gave up on facts and ended up with Trump

[elleng]

'Two of the most monstrous regimes in human history came to power in the 20th century, and both were predicated on the violation and despoiling of truth, on the knowledge that cynicism and weariness and fear can make people susceptible to the lies and false promises of leaders bent on unconditional power. As Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1951 book The Origins of Totalitarianism, “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (ie the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie the standards of thought) no longer exist.”'>>>

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/14/the-death-of-truth-how-we-gave-up-on-facts-and-ended-up-with-trump?CMP=share_btn_tw

[dweller]

1. required reading !

K & R
✌🏼️

[dalton99a]

2. Yep. The Trump cult didn't materialize overnight

[Snellius]

3. The death of truth really started with W

His first tax cut plan was absolute nonsense. Krugman was the first to point it out, at a point when such utter disregard for the facts was still considered shocking. There was another great book, a thin little treatise written during those years, On Bullshit by Harry Frankfort from Princeton, I think. Not political but heavily philosophical and another must read, where he makes the distinction between lying and bullshit.