Post-truth, pure nonsense

For as long as there have been politicians, they have lied, fabricated and deceived. The manufacture of falsehood has changed over time, as the machinery becomes more sophisticated. Straight lies give way to sinuous spin, and open dishonesty disappears behind Newspeak and Doublethink. However, even if honesty is sometimes the best policy, politics is addressed to people’s opinions, and the manipulation of opinion is what it is all about. Plato held truth to be the goal of philosophy and the ultimate standard that disciplines the soul. But even he acknowledged that people cannot take very much of it, and that peaceful government depends on ‘the noble lie’.

Nevertheless, commentators are beginning to tell us that something has changed in the past few years. It is not that politicians have ceased to tell lies or to pretend that the facts are other than they are; it is rather that they have begun to speak as though there is no such distinction between facts and fabrications.