By Tanisha Tyagi
Post-Truth (adj.) has been named 2016 word of the year by Oxford dictionaries.
This word has had its own Wikipedia since early this year and it has been added to Oxforddictionaries.com this month as its usage increased to 2000% in 2016 alone.
Almost everyone has been following the insolent US presidential election, after of course Brexit. There has been a tumult of lies, there has been chaos, undermining of the impertinence of people, and the results have left a majority of us wrecked, emotionally.
That is what it is- Post-truth, as the website defines it, refers to situations where “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”
Following the US presidential election, the one word which comes to my mind is – fuckwittage. Emotional fuckwittage, as Helen Fielding explains in her book Bridget Jones’s Diary.
As Mr. Trump has “identified” the enemy and hence increased the fear in people. He has vociferously humiliated his opponents, appearing to obliterate them with his supercilious remarks.
He has created a divide between the people of his country. He has generalised everything rather than coming up with a plan.
A plan to placate, to pacify, to lessen the misery, to help find calm in chaos, a plan which doesn’t keep the people in dark, a plan with facts and a plan with the truth- is what the politics/political campaigns seem to lack.
If I talk about India alone, there has been a lot of fake news regarding demonetisation, to bring down the PM, even pulling down the middle-class and saying that they only care about themselves on having supported his actions.
Not just the politicians, but media loves to aggravate our misery too.
Is it just for the sake of politics and PR or do they really care about the common man that they do so much as to tell blatant lies? I can’t even lie to a dog and tell her that she’s a good girl when she isn’t!
And then our lovely Mayawati, she blames the PM for the derailment of Indore-Patna Express near Kanpur, a tragic accident in which nearly 145 people died.
She also said that the PM is only happy as long as the rich are happy, hence creating a divide between people; yet again.
Instead of handling the current situation, these people are still busy playing in their own circus, with the blame games-the mind games, tearing people down emotionally, causing anger.
They say that it’s the age of post-truth politics and it is here to stay for a while. But who’s to blame? Have we become so vulnerable and so desperate for a change that we believe whatever is told to us as long as it is our own personal belief too?
Now this is the current state of things, we’re flailing to find a consummate leader; we’re searching for the immemorial truth, leaning on each others’ shoulder, finding family in one another.
But where the frustration with the lies and other people’s limiting beliefs divides us, some of us come together to undermine the truth, and keep the spirits up of everyone else too.
And lastly, remember: “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” (M.K Gandhi)
Image credits: Google Images.
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