"Alt-Truth: Can Reality Survive the Era of Trump?"

Document Type

Lecture

Publication Date

9-13-2017

Publisher

Brookings Mountain West

Abstract

The ability of our citizens, media representatives, and public officials to distinguish objective truth from opinion depends on social conventions that accept a claim as knowledge only if it is tested by critical third parties. President Trump and other social-media devotees are only the latest of many challenges to maintaining the distinction between established fact and personal opinion, but they apply modern technology and modern cynicism in ways that are proving hard to counter in real time. What are these new challenges, and how can we preserve the concept of objective knowledge?

Keywords

Free speech; Alt-Truth; Social Psychology and Philosophy; Liberal Science; media; social conventions; social-media

Disciplines

American Politics | Comparative Politics | Political Science | Political Theory | Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration | Social Psychology

Streaming Media

Language

English

Comments

Jonathan Rauch is a Brookings Fellow in Governance Studies.

This public lecture was delivered on September 13, 2017, in Greenspun Hall, on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).

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