Post Truth in a Covid-19 Era

Introduction

“Post truth” was a popular term people used in the past. However, in the Covid-19 era the use of this concept seems to have fallen away. Nevertheless, I think it is still an important concept which needs to be re-evaluated to understand it considering what happened in the last year of Covid-19. It is of utmost importance that we do this because of the rapid transformation of our society and how we understand the concept “truth”. Our understanding of the concept “truth” will influence the way we view the world. In this short essay, I attempt to reconceptualize the concept “post truth” in light of the recent developments in society and a novel understanding of the concept “truth”. The implication is twofold; firstly, what is considered as truth is vastly different from the usual scope of what is usually considered as truth, and, secondly, how we come to the conclusion that something is considered truth, is, as well, reconceptualized. This will, in a certain instance, ensure psychological health and a feeling of at-home-ness which the previous concept of “post truth” did not allow.

Truth as a Self-contained Concept

Usually, truth is seen as corresponding to reality, in some way or another. For a moment, think about how the world should be for this to be the case. The world, consisting of neatly packaged self-contained “things” that waits for our concepts to somehow correspond to it. Then only will something be considered as the “truth”. In other words, how this works is that our utterances are self-contained units; the world “out there” are self-contained units. When the former “meets up” with the latter, there is a correspondence and we can with some certainty declare that there is “truth” because out utterance corresponds with reality. An example might help. Joe declares to Sam that it is cold. If the world “out there” is 30 degrees Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit, we will state that Joe is not telling the truth. Two things to note here is that, firstly, the utterance might convey to us a subjective feeling which Joe has, and, secondly, we need some form of test to declare that correspondence between the world and the utterance has been met. This essay will not deal with the former, only with the latter.

It appears that one way to see if there is a correspondence between the utterance “it is cold” and the world out there being 30 degrees Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit is to take a thermostat and see if it is in fact 30 degrees Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit. If it is, then we might state that Joe is not telling the truth if he meant his statement to be taken more objectively describing the world out there (and not a subjective claim). The problem is that we rely on the thermostat to “tell” us the answer. We might state we need another thermostat-type-device to tell us if the thermostat is indeed corresponding to the world. In other words, we can take a step backwards and ask if the neatly contained package of the thermostat corresponds to the world. Can this thermostat in fact give us the truthful answer? As stated, we might need a second device, which I called a second thermostat-type-device, to verify our first thermostat’s answer. The same might be asked about the thermostat-type-device, we might need a third device. Ad infinitum, we need infinite devices to constantly check our device in the first example to see if 30 degrees Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit corresponds to the world. This opens the door for the Skeptic to waltz and declare that it seems hard to ever get to that point of correspondence. But the Skeptic relies on our insistence on the correspondence theory of truth. Let us go beyond the concept of truth being a self-contained concept.

Truth as a Negotiation

Imagine the baker selling a loaf of bread. The price of his loaf of bread is not inherent. There is no correspondence between the inherent “stuff” of the bread (water, salt, flour, etc.) and the eventual price he or she sells that loaf of bread for. There are merely negotiations. Let me explain. For the baker to determine the price of the bread, there are a couple of factors which influence the price. The rent of the baker, the power cost to run the oven, the ingredients which goes into the bread, the socio-economic environment in which he or she tries to sell the bread, etc. The price of the loaf of bread, in other words, are not determined by seeking some correspondence with the world out there. On the contrary, there is constant negotiation between these different factors. The price of the flour is slightly higher than normal, but you as baker cannot increase the price of your bread because then it will be more expensive than the shop next doors, etc. A negotiation needs to be met with the world out there and the price of the bread.

Now take the concept of truth. Truth is seen as something out there, as mentioned in the previous section, a self-contained concept. However, this relies on world to be constant. There is truth, yes or no, binary, only two answers. The world, in contrast, is not binary but rather messy and uncertain. As I showed, one would need an infinite number of devises to see if the world corresponds to an utterance. Now take image of the bread baker and how he or she determines what the price might be of said loaf. The baker is obviously Joe or Sam making the utterance, and the bread is the utterance. How do we, in this new example, negotiate with the world out there if our utterance is considered truth or not? We do not seek any correspondence because, as the Skeptic correctly notes, we cannot even think of how to conceptualise this without getting stuck at the problem of infinite regression. However, before trying to match our utterance on the world (i.e. the correspondence theory) we need to negotiate with the world out there. What should I believe about the world for my utterance to be truth? Will this benefit me or others? How should my utterance change to fit into the scheme of things? Is there any use of my claim when it is not truthful (i.e. is a lie of more use)?

Conclusion: Post Truth in a Covid-19 Era

Post truth means that we do not consider the truth to have value anymore. In other words, we disregard this objective value. In our Covid-19 era, we seem to fall into this category again. One might even read that post truth era is synonymous to Covid-19 era. One needs to merely look at the news and social media to see that this is the case: the value of objective justifications of beliefs which then turns into truths are useless. It is psychologically better to believe a lie than believe in the truth. It is easier to think that Covid-19 is cause by some government experiment linked to 5G towers, or that vaccines are dangerous to our health than believe the “truth” that it more complicated than what it seems. The claim here can be read otherwise: it is psychologically better to believe something which is not complicated. In other words, it is easier to believe that Covid-19 was created in a lab, than believe that we have no idea what is going on. On a spectrum of false and truth, we might be in the middle. But this is too hard for some to understand. Consequently, objective truth’s value disappears, exactly the same as in the case of post-truth.

This is because we cannot achieve the elusive correspondence which our concept of truth in post-truth needs. However, we reconceptualized the concept truth. Rather than corresponding with the world out there, we need to negotiate with the world out there, in the same way as the baker negotiates his or her price of a loaf of bread. The concept of post-truth falls away, consequently, the idea of a Covid-19 era as well. In other words, because our concept of truth is different, we cannot live in a post truth Covid-19 era. Truth is not something out there in the world to which our utterances need to correspond to be objectively true; truth is, on the contrary, a constant negotiation with the world out there how we want to see the world and how our utterances influence the world.