Monday, January 2, 2017

Post-truth!

Now, it seems that's the Oxford Word of 2016!

I opened 'The Hindu' after a long time*. Specifically 'Sunday Magazine' was my favourite during my Engineering days. So, I opened that. But, my head and stomach went dizzy when I saw the content all bombarding one thing - "The post-truth"! Like there were so many titles on 'truth' itself! The first article in the front page gave a lead to other articles in the inner pages! (There was a reference to 'post-truth era' in the first article!)

  • 'The year we reinvented the truth'
  • 'Truth through many tasks'
  • 'Truth in the selfie era'
  • 'You need politics to discover truth' 

Now, what on earth does that mean? Have we all realized the Truth already, at least most of us? And are we grappling with the aftermath of Truth? (Now, I don't mean there's just one big Truth out there...like TRUTH...used it that way just for the ease of it!) I, on the other hand feel most of us haven't realised the essential truths of these times and are hence leading distorted lives. So, I got curious and went ahead to know what it was all about. Just started going through the first article and the content felt really heavy. The article felt more like a show-case of author's vocabulary and his grip on big concepts. Was it because I lost touch with the paper that I started to feel that way or was the article really written in a deviant way...I don't know, but I had no mood whatsoever to go through other articles. So, I stopped with the first one abruptly! (Infact, the titles themselves were so repelling. When I saw the fourth title, I asked myself, "Really? Did I read it right? Was it 'distort' or 'discover'? Or was that sarcasm?)

If you too feel the same way going through the first write-up, don't trouble yourselves much. This sentence will more or less explain what the author means by 'post-truth' - "If Brexit signalled the post-truth era, Donald Trump’s victory was its definitive arrival."

Whatever that 'post-truth' was supposed to mean, for now, like many others before me, I'm disillusioned with the word 'truth', so I will stop here and allow you to explore further as per your interest and energy. But, if you haven't already come across this word, I'd like to take credit for introducing that to you! That was all today's post meant to do! :-)

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*I stopped reading 'The Hindu' or for that matter any sort of news since last August. Information was not interesting any more to me. It was all the same...knowing it or not knowing it didn't matter. My Dad started complaining, "Nobody reads the paper these days. It goes into the racks just the way it arrives! And nobody even cares to keep the paper in the racks at the end of the day. It just keeps piling on sofa, if I stop caring about it! I will stop the paper!" He says he is addressing that to everybody (including himself), but those statements only hit me (my brothers just ignore it as usual) and I respond - "Now Dad, for God's sake, please don't start complaining as if a kid has stopped doing her homework! I'm older than that and I will read it if I really want to read it anyway! And you are not going to stop paper even if nobody is reading it. How many times should I explain my logic? We spend a thousand easily when we go out for lunch, so why not some 250/- on newspaper for a month! Even if I gain one important piece of information a month, the cost that goes into it is justified. For instance that piece of info the other day on Nagarjunsagar being part of....."

Infact, once before that my Dad even stopped the paper. I was like how can anybody in the home be so indifferent to my words and needs. I blackmailed them - "Whichever home I reside at, will get 'The Hindu'. I'm not gonna stay here if you stop the paper. Tell me, should I leave this house so that I can realize my basic freedom to newspaper?" I then got the paper reinstated!




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