True Enough: Learning To Live In A Post-Fact Society (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
How did we get to this state of society where 'truthiness' has meaning? Mr. Manjoo surveys the causes with many examples and studies. How we seek out the news has changed. How journalism is done has changed. How we establish the 'facts', if we do, has changed. How we determine what is real has changed mightily. Much of what we either take for fact, or argue over, is generated by shadow organizations that feed into our "news" stream. Sometimes directly, but without 'credit', and just as often indirectly, like the Swift Boat campaign of 2004. I have seen no better analysis of our culture's fragmentation and loss of trust. If you want to understand how people on the other side of politics can believe the absurd things they do, you will find this book a fast track to that end. Recommended. We are, however, left with the question of what to do about it. I think this is an important book, but I think it is out of date. I think that in especially the last year we have seen that personal bias isn't limited to the "left vs. right" view of the world. Many news programs you see today might have a left or a right bias while simultaneously having a pro-corporate bias. This book was written before anyone but people like me were thinking like that. Much of television news and, as we've seen with CEOs, simply assumes that it's correct to view the world through a corporate lens. Finally we are seeing people write about this. If you skip the potholes and some of Manjoo's own bias this book is pretty good. The scientific matters are important.
What do You think about True Enough: Learning To Live In A Post-Fact Society (2008)?
explains how the swift boat campaign against Kerry worked, fox news.
—PatrickM
