13 August 2017

The "Post-Truth Era": Prelude to Mashiach

21 Menachem Av 5777

I only heard this phrase for the first time today. Since we know well that truth is the only basis for reality and that every lie must be wrapped around a bit of truth in order to exist due to this fact, it stands to reason that a complete detachment from truth will cause this entire "post-truth" world to collapse and disappear from reality. This is the necessary prelude to the revelation of Mashiach and a world of total truth. 

The stage is set.
Are we living in a post-truth era?
"Post-truth" was the Oxford Dictionaries’ international word of 2016.... It describes a situation “in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief”.
...The Guardian's head of media Jane Martinson will be discussing the new era of post-truth and alternative facts with economist and BBC presenter Evan Davis and journalist and former Spectator editor Matthew d'Ancona, both of whom have recently published their accounts of the post-truth age. (Source)

The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life

At one time we had truth and lies. Now we have truth, lies, and statements that may not be true but we consider too benign to call false. Euphemisms abound. We’re “economical with the truth,” we “sweeten it,” or tell “the truth improved.” The term deceive gives way to spin. At worst we admit to “misspeaking,” or “exercising poor judgment.” Nor do we want to accuse others of lying. We say they’re in denial. A liar is “ethically challenged,” someone for whom “the truth is temporarily unavailable.”

This is post-truth. In the post-truth era, borders blur between truth and lies, honesty and dishonesty, fiction and nonfiction. Deceiving others becomes a challenge, a game, and ultimately a habit. Research suggests that the average American tells lies on a daily basis. These fibs run the gamut from “I like sushi,” to “I love you.”

As the volume of strangers and acquaintances in our lives rises, so do opportunities to improve on the truth. The result is a widespread sense that much of what we’re told can’t be trusted. From potential mates to prospective employees, we’re no longer sure whom exactly we’re dealing with. Deception has become a routine part of the mating dance. Personnel officers take for granted that the resumes they read are padded. No wonder private investigation is a growth sector of the economy.

What motivates the casual dishonesty that’s become pandemic? Why do so many, even those with no apparent need to do so, feel a need to embellish their personal history? This question arises every time prominent figures are unmasked as fabulists: businesspeople, politicians, journalists, judges, military officers, police chiefs, beauty queens, newspaper reporters, South Carolina’s governor, the head of the United States Olympic Committee, and the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. Branches are grafted onto their family trees. Unearned degrees show up on their resumes. Purchased medals appear in their display cases. Thousands of non-veterans say they fought in Vietnam. Scores more passed themselves off as Ground Zero rescue workers.

We can only understand the motives of such dissemblers by examining the sea in which they swim. Trends ranging from the postmodern disdain for “truth” to therapeutic non-judgment encourage deception. There is much incentive and little penalty for improving the “narrative” of one’s life. The increasing influence of therapists, entertainers, politicians, academics, and lawyers, with their flexible code of ethics, contribute to the post-truth era. So do ethical relativism, Boomer narcissism, the decline of community, and rise of the Internet.

Post-truthfulness builds a fragile social edifice based on wariness. It erodes the foundation of trust that underlies any healthy civilization. When enough of us peddle fantasy as fact, society loses its grounding in reality. Society would crumble altogether if we assumed others were as likely to dissemble as tell the truth. We are perilously close to that point. (Source)

4 comments:

  1. This is the result of left-liberal-media shaped politics. The left-liberals are the biggest extremists if it comes to accepting any opinion outside their own. So if reality didn't fit to their opinion, they developed a huge industry of media institutions and other agency to spread their distorted version of reality, which is lying. With the libral-left there is no democracy/equality or human rights or right on own opinion, if it goes against what they want for all to be the truth. One can basically say that all what the say about others (racist, extremist, not tolerant, supremacist...) is what they are themselves. Rav Simon Schwab said, that in the end of days evil will disappear like smoke, why... if in a piece of wood the substabce (which represents the truth) is burned up, the smoke (which can be a huge cloud) disappears by itself, bc it has nothing more to hold on to blow itself up and to generate its smoke from. Exactly the same will it be before Mashiach arrives.. if truth is no more, evil will have no base anymore to generate from, so everyone will suddenly realize the lie and the liars, bc no one buys an outright lie free from any truth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is not a left-right, liberal-conservative issue. This is everything and everyone apart from the Torah and disconnected from HKB"H.

      Delete
  2. Liked Inon's comment and also Devash is correct. Left-right, etc. are just made up titles; this has been the agenda of the sitra acra from the start. You tell enough lies and boggle the minds of the masses, truth and just plain old facts become the lies. This is the way it, most likely, plays itself out at the end until, like the above commenter wrote, the smoke of all the lies disappear for good and only Truth remains forever. In the meantime, the inmates are running the asylum. nili

    ReplyDelete
  3. Zechariah 8:13-17

    יג וְהָיָה כַּאֲשֶׁר הֱיִיתֶם קְלָלָה בַּגּוֹיִם, בֵּית יְהוּדָה וּבֵית יִשְׂרָאֵל--כֵּן אוֹשִׁיעַ אֶתְכֶם, וִהְיִיתֶם בְּרָכָה: אַל-תִּירָאוּ, תֶּחֱזַקְנָה יְדֵיכֶם. {ס} 13 And it shall come to pass that, as ye were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing; fear not, but let your hands be strong.

    יד כִּי כֹה אָמַר, יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת, כַּאֲשֶׁר זָמַמְתִּי לְהָרַע לָכֶם בְּהַקְצִיף אֲבֹתֵיכֶם אֹתִי, אָמַר יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת; וְלֹא, נִחָמְתִּי. 14 For thus saith the LORD of host: As I purposed to do evil unto you, when your fathers provoked Me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I repented not;

    טו כֵּן שַׁבְתִּי זָמַמְתִּי בַּיָּמִים הָאֵלֶּה, לְהֵיטִיב אֶת-יְרוּשָׁלִַם וְאֶת-בֵּית יְהוּדָה: אַל-תִּירָאוּ. 15 so again do I purpose in these days to do good unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah; fear ye not.

    טז אֵלֶּה הַדְּבָרִים, אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשׂוּ: דַּבְּרוּ אֱמֶת, אִישׁ אֶת-רֵעֵהוּ--אֱמֶת וּמִשְׁפַּט שָׁלוֹם, שִׁפְטוּ בְּשַׁעֲרֵיכֶם. 16 These are the things that ye shall do: SPEAK YE EVERY MAN THE TRUTH WITH HIS NEIGHBOUR; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates;

    יז וְאִישׁ אֶת-רָעַת רֵעֵהוּ, אַל-תַּחְשְׁבוּ בִּלְבַבְכֶם, וּשְׁבֻעַת שֶׁקֶר, אַל-תֶּאֱהָבוּ: כִּי אֶת-כָּל-אֵלֶּה אֲשֶׁר שָׂנֵאתִי, נְאֻם-יְהוָה. {ס} 17 and let none of you devise evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath; for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.'

    ReplyDelete