Future Hindsight – 12 Jul 202029:40
Summary
Este guión presenta una discusión sobre la era de la ‘post verdad’ y su impacto en la democracia y el periodismo, con la participación de expertos como Lee McIntyre y George Lakoff. Se exploran temas como la negación científica, la manipulación de la información y el fenómeno de las ‘fake news’, y cómo estos factores han contribuido a un entorno donde la verdad es subordinada a la política. Además, se ofrece una perspectiva sobre la importancia de la verdad y la confianza en el discurso público, y se sugieren acciones individuales para promover la verdad y el entendimiento mutuo en la sociedad.
Takeaways
- 👂 The podcast discusses the concept of post-truth and its implications for democracy
- 😮💨 Decades of science denial paved the way for the post-truth era
- 🤥 The tobacco industry used propaganda tactics that are now common in post-truth politics
- 😠 False equivalence in media coverage confuses people about factual debates
- 😈 Authoritarians use fake news and propaganda as weapons for social control
- 😔 People are so overwhelmed by lies they stop believing there is such a thing as truth
- ⏳ The coronavirus crisis may be a reckoning where lies meet reality
- 👥 We need to start listening and talking to people with different views again
- 💰 Supporting investigative journalism helps reinforce that truth matters
- 🙌 Repeating the truth can be as powerful as repeating lies
Q & A
- ¿Quién es el autor invitado en este episodio?–El autor invitado en este episodio es Lee McIntyre, autor de Post-Truth y también investigador en la Universidad de Boston.
- ¿Cómo define Lee McIntyre el concepto de posverdad?–La define como la subordinación política de la realidad. Es una táctica que usan los autoritarios para corromper nuestra creencia en la verdad.
- ¿Cómo contribuyó la negación de la ciencia al surgimiento de la posverdad?–La negación de la ciencia en temas como el cambio climático creó un plano para lo que sería la posverdad, al mostrar que se podía negar la verdad sobre casi cualquier cosa.
- ¿Qué es la equivalencia falsa y cómo se relaciona con los medios?–La equivalencia falsa es cuando los medios presentan ambos lados de un debate como igualmente creíbles, incluso cuando no lo son, en nombre de la imparcialidad.
- ¿Cómo define Lee McIntyre las noticias falsas?–Las define como noticias que son intencionalmente falsas. Pueden tener varias motivaciones, como propaganda o ganancia financiera con clics.
- ¿Cómo se relaciona la posverdad con el fascismo?–Se ha dicho que la posverdad es pre-fascismo, porque controlar la información te permite controlar a la población, un elemento clave del fascismo.
- ¿Cómo podemos apoyar la verdad en nuestra sociedad?–Hablando entre nosotros, construyendo relaciones de confianza, apoyando económicamente al periodismo investigativo de calidad, y repitiendo la verdad.
- ¿Por qué el coronavirus podría ser un momento decisivo contra la posverdad?–Porque es una crisis donde la verdad importa, las mentiras tienen consecuencias reales, y la realidad no se puede negar tan fácilmente.
- ¿Qué signos deberíamos buscar de que las cosas están mejorando?–Cosas como que la gente no tolere los intentos de politizar la crisis o despedir a los expertos que contradicen al poder.
- ¿Qué da esperanzas al autor de cara al futuro?–Cosas como la comunicación y repetición de la verdad por parte de ciudadanos comunes, gobernantes locales, y la comprensión de que estamos todos juntos en esto.
Outlines
00:00 😃 Presentación del podcast Democracy Works
La presentadora Jenna Spinelli se presenta y presenta su podcast Democracy Works, que examina diferentes aspectos de lo que significa vivir en una democracia. Hablan de temas como la demagogia, el neoliberalismo y cosas más tangibles como el voto por correo. Invita a los oyentes de Future Hindsight a escuchar Democracy Works.
05:02 😮 Ejemplo de cómo las tabacaleras crearon dudas sobre los vínculos entre fumar y el cáncer
Lee explica cómo en la década de 1950, cuando surgieron estudios que vinculaban el tabaco con el cáncer de pulmón, las tabacaleras contrataron a relacionistas públicos para crear dudas sobre la ciencia. Esto sentó un precedente para negar verdades inconveniente sobre el cambio climático y otros temas.
10:02 🤔 El problema de presentar los dos lados de un tema como si fueran igualmente válidos
Mila y Lee discuten el concepto de “equivalencia falsa” en los medios, donde se presentan dos lados de un debate científico como si fueran igualmente creíbles, cuando en realidad uno tiene mucho más respaldo. Esto confunde al público en temas como el cambio climático.
15:02 😡 Explicación de por qué la posverdad es pre-fascista
Lee explica la cita “la posverdad es pre-fascista”. Básicamente, contaminar la esfera pública de información y alienar a las personas de la verdad facilita que los autoritarios controlen y manipulen a la población. Una población escéptica sobre los hechos es más fácil de gobernar.
20:04 💪️ Por qué el coronavirus podría ser un momento decisivo contra la posverdad
Lee plantea que el coronavirus podría ser el momento de ajuste de cuentas contra la posverdad, porque la pandemia es una dura corrección de la realidad que ni siquiera Trump puede negar o distorsionar totalmente. Las vidas están en juego, por lo que la gente anhelará la verdad.
25:06 😌 Consejos para individuos sobre cómo apoyar la verdad en la sociedad
Lee da dos consejos: 1) Hablar más con personas que no están de acuerdo para construir relaciones de confianza, 2) Apoyar económicamente el periodismo investigativo de calidad y las instituciones que defienden la verdad.
Keywords
💡post-verdad
El término ‘post-verdad’ se refiere a una era o situación en la que los hechos objetivos tienen menos influencia en la opinión pública que las emociones o creencias personales. En el video, se utiliza para describir cómo los políticos autoritarios pueden manipular la realidad y minar la confianza del público en la posibilidad de conocer la verdad.
💡negar
En el contexto del video, ‘negar’ se refiere a la estrategia de ciertos grupos (como las compañías tabacaleras) para sembrar dudas sobre hechos científicos incómodos como el cambio climático o los peligros del tabaco.
💡repetición
Según el video, repetir la verdad es una estrategia importante para contrarrestar la post-verdad y la desinformación. Cuanto más se repite la verdad, más probabilidades hay de que el público la acepte.
Highlights
Post-truth is defined as the political subordination of reality used by authoritarians to corrupt belief in truth.
Science denial over decades created a blueprint for post-truth by showing you could deny facts and manufacture doubt.
The rise of social media and decline of traditional media accelerated the spread of post-truth tactics.
False equivalence in media gives undeserved attention to fringe views, confusing the public on factual debates.
Transcripts
00:00
hey future hindsight listeners my name
00:03
is jenna spinelli and i am one of the
00:05
hosts of the democracy works podcast
00:08
every week we examine a different aspect
00:11
of what it means
00:12
to live in a democracy sometimes it’s
00:15
big topics like demagoguery or
00:18
neoliberalism
00:19
and other times it’s more tangible
00:22
topical things like voting by mail and
00:25
how
00:26
covid19 is impacting campaigning
00:29
and organizing if you enjoy future
00:32
hindsight i think you’ll enjoy
00:34
democracy works too you can check it out
00:37
at democracyworkspodcast.com
00:40
or by searching democracyworks in your
00:42
favorite podcast
00:44
app you can find new episodes of
00:46
democracy works every monday
00:48
again at democracyworkspodcast.com or by
00:51
searching
00:52
democracyworks in your podcast app
01:00
welcome to future hindsight i’m your
01:01
host mila atmos
01:04
each week i speak with citizen change
01:06
makers who spark civic engagement in our
01:08
society
01:09
our guest today is lee mcintyre he’s the
01:12
author of post-truth
01:14
and he’s also a research fellow at the
01:16
center for philosophy and history of
01:17
science
01:18
at boston university and an instructor
01:21
in ethics
01:21
at harvard extension school i’ve been
01:24
thinking about
01:25
how we have come to arrive at our
01:27
current post-truth era and what it might
01:30
take to get out of it
01:31
so we’re doing a whole season on how
01:33
news and information is presented
01:36
and manipulated in the media and our
01:38
larger public discourse
01:40
to get us started and frame our thinking
01:43
we spoke to lee
01:44
if you’ve ever been confused about the
01:46
difference between fake news and
01:48
propaganda
01:49
or you’re really not sure what
01:51
post-truth really means
01:52
and what its purpose is this is a
01:55
perfect
01:56
episode i define post-truth as the
01:58
political subordination of reality
02:01
i think that it’s a tactic that
02:03
authoritarians and their wannabes
02:05
use to corrupt our belief not just in
02:08
specific truths but in the idea that we
02:10
have a way to pursue truth outside of
02:12
political context
02:13
so i don’t think it’s really a failing
02:16
of
02:17
knowledge so much as one of politics
02:20
we discussed the role of decades of
02:22
signs denial and the rise of fake news
02:24
in ushering in this post-truth era
02:27
and what we can do to support the idea
02:29
that truth matters
02:31
and rebuild trust let’s listen in thank
02:36
you for joining us
02:37
thank you so much for having me so you
02:40
wrote this beautiful book post truth and
02:42
i like that your title gets straight to
02:44
the point
02:45
without a subtitle let’s go right to the
02:48
meat of the matter how do you define
02:51
post-truth there’s a lot of confusion
02:54
these days over what
02:55
post-truth means post-truth doesn’t mean
02:58
that
02:59
we don’t care about truth anymore it
03:01
means that we live in an era when truth
03:03
is
03:04
at risk i define post-truth as the
03:06
political subordination of reality
03:09
i think that it’s a tactic that
03:11
authoritarians and their wannabes
03:13
use to corrupt our belief not just in
03:16
specific truths but in the idea that we
03:18
have a way to pursue truth outside of
03:20
political context
03:21
so i don’t think it’s really a failing
03:24
of
03:25
knowledge so much as one of politics
03:29
how are we susceptible to this kind of
03:33
political manipulation of what we accept
03:36
as truth
03:38
post-truth didn’t come out of nowhere
03:40
there are several roots
03:42
the first one is science denial i talk
03:44
about how
03:45
the fact that we’ve had science denial
03:47
for the past 60 or 70 years
03:49
created a blueprint for what post-truth
03:52
was going to look like because
03:54
if you could deny the truth about
03:56
climate change or evolution
03:58
you could deny the truth about just
03:59
about anything like how many people were
04:01
at an inauguration or the path of a
04:03
hurricane
04:04
some other routes are cognitive bias
04:07
that’s built into
04:08
all of us through evolution and then
04:12
these days the decline of traditional
04:13
media and the rise of social media
04:16
really the internet has been the gas on
04:18
the fire
04:19
so it’s not that people have never lied
04:22
before or people have never tried to
04:24
manipulate reality for their own benefit
04:27
it’s that these days
04:28
it can happen much faster than it used
04:31
to be able to happen
04:32
more widespread can you give an example
04:36
for how we have
04:39
accepted some climate denial because
04:42
that’s the easiest one or even maybe
04:44
with tobacco and how
04:46
that has worked in creating
04:49
in our brains an idea that things are
04:52
not settled and therefore there is doubt
04:54
yeah the blueprint for post-truth was
04:58
60 or 70 years of science denial the
05:01
best example is maybe the one that you
05:03
bring up
05:04
where the tobacco companies
05:07
freaked out in the 1950s because there
05:09
was a scientific study that was going to
05:11
show
05:12
an all but causal link between cigarette
05:14
smoking and lung cancer
05:16
they hired a public relations specialist
05:19
who advised them that what they needed
05:21
to do was fight the science
05:23
and so they needed to manufacture doubt
05:25
where there was none
05:26
and what happened with this is that it
05:30
created the idea that you could
05:32
manipulate public opinion
05:34
simply by raising doubts they didn’t
05:36
have to be scientific
05:38
doubts what they did was they exploited
05:40
the idea
05:41
that lay people have about science which
05:44
is that science is about certainty and
05:46
proof that you need a hundred percent
05:48
certainty before you’re justified in
05:50
believing something and that’s not
05:52
actually the way that science works at
05:53
all so
05:54
and you see this ripple through climate
05:56
change you hear people say well
05:58
have you proven that climate change is
06:01
caused by greenhouse gases
06:03
you know are your models a hundred
06:04
percent can you tell me what the
06:06
temperature will be you know in five
06:07
years
06:08
aha if you can’t then they think that
06:10
they’ve got enough room for doubt
06:12
but that’s just the way that science
06:13
works science is about
06:15
warrant not about proof when we get
06:17
enough evidence
06:18
that it makes it reasonable to believe
06:21
something that’s when science moves
06:23
forward
06:23
people who are motivated not to believe
06:26
something
06:27
call themselves skeptics wait for 100
06:29
proof
06:30
and then they never end up believing
06:31
anything that they don’t want to believe
06:34
yeah it’s very convenient to do it that
06:36
way and
06:37
we’re seeing that we’re really seeing
06:39
that right now
06:41
in real life before we get there i
06:43
wanted to talk about
06:45
what you said on the demise of
06:48
traditional media
06:49
and the fragmentation of the news
06:51
industry
06:53
together with the rise of social media
06:55
but
06:56
let’s start with the idea
07:00
or the reality i should say that we now
07:03
have
07:03
partisan media outlets
07:06
and they pursue essentially
07:10
profit whereas in the old days it was
07:13
that the news was only half an hour of
07:16
a network’s time and they had
07:19
investigative reporting and they
07:21
basically told you
07:22
what’s right and what’s wrong and what’s
07:24
true and what’s not and once you had
07:27
cnn and fox news and msnbc
07:30
they have morphed into purveyors of
07:33
opinion as opposed to
07:35
facts and one of the things that they do
07:38
is they present
07:40
both sides of an issue and give false
07:43
equivalence can you explain what false
07:46
equivalence is because i think that’s
07:47
very ill understood
07:49
sure i think you’re absolutely right
07:52
about the the history of the way that
07:53
things have gone the news media
07:55
used to be that news was a loss leader
07:58
for the stations
07:59
they had news divisions because their
08:02
broadcast license said that they needed
08:03
to do
08:04
work in the public interest and the
08:06
entertainment is where they made their
08:08
money
08:09
after cnn they discovered well you can
08:12
make money on news and
08:13
let’s try 24 7 news well then all of a
08:16
sudden you’ve got to make money on it
08:17
it’s much more expensive to do actual
08:20
news
08:21
investigative reporting than opinion and
08:23
so the opinion
08:24
sort of took over and the false
08:27
equivalence that you talk about
08:28
is important especially for science
08:31
debates
08:32
if you look at the way that the news
08:33
media used to present
08:35
science topics and they still do to some
08:38
extent
08:38
you would find a split screen debate
08:41
where they would have
08:42
somebody from the national academy of
08:44
science talking about
08:45
the importance of climate change and
08:47
then you’d have some climate denier who
08:49
had a website and a following
08:51
and they would give them both equal time
08:52
to talk and then
08:54
at the end make it sound like it was a
08:56
debate and look at the audience and say
08:58
you decide
08:59
that’s maybe the worst possible way to
09:01
present it because they’re
09:03
making it seem as if there’s doubt where
09:06
amongst the scientists there really
09:08
isn’t any
09:09
one reason that this happens is because
09:11
the news media have always been
09:13
allergic to the idea that they would be
09:15
accused of bias and the
09:17
simplest way to show that you’re not
09:19
biased is to let both sides talk
09:22
but here’s the problem the halfway point
09:25
between the truth and the lie is still a
09:27
lie
09:28
yet objectivity in journalism doesn’t
09:30
mean that you’re indifferent between
09:32
truth and a lie it means that
09:35
you don’t want to leave your audience
09:37
less well informed after they finish
09:39
watching your program than they were in
09:41
the beginning
09:41
the media has changed a little bit the
09:44
way that they do science reporting now
09:46
but they still with factual matters
09:50
are bending over backward too far to
09:52
show that they’re
09:53
not politically biased and in some cases
09:56
not reporting the truth
09:58
yeah yeah so the media right now instead
10:01
of
10:02
facilitating the truth by
10:05
really doing objective reporting they
10:07
instead do
10:08
this both sizes in a reduced manner of
10:11
course but still when you do that you
10:13
confuse the public
10:14
so what would it actually look like what
10:16
would be good truthful
10:18
reporting let’s say on the signs of
10:21
climate change
10:23
okay there’s a brilliant psychologist
10:26
named george lakoff
10:27
who has a model called the truth
10:30
sandwich
10:31
where he said that when you are
10:33
reporting on a
10:34
factual matter that’s in dispute
10:37
what you should do as a journalist is
10:40
present the truth
10:42
then present what the person said that
10:45
was a lie
10:46
and then fact check the lie there’s a
10:49
way to
10:50
make it clear that you don’t present it
10:52
as if both sides are
10:54
equally credible writers had a story a
10:56
few months ago in which they found
10:59
that climate change was now at the five
11:01
sigma level which means that there’s
11:03
only a one out of a million
11:04
chance that the climate change deniers
11:07
are correct
11:08
so why would anybody give equal time to
11:11
that
11:12
if you think about it they don’t give
11:13
equal time to flat earthers
11:15
they don’t give equal time to people who
11:18
claim that we never went to the moon
11:20
there are other sides of all sorts of
11:22
debates where the
11:23
facts have been settled a long time ago
11:26
but the
11:27
other side if it’s not based on any sort
11:29
of warrant any sort of evidence
11:31
any sort of reason it doesn’t deserve to
11:34
be on the news
11:35
yeah well said i think this leads me
11:38
perfectly to my next question
11:40
about fake news what is fake news and
11:42
how does it fit in
11:44
with post truth these days some people
11:47
have said that we should stop using the
11:49
term fake news
11:50
and i push back against that some people
11:53
think that we shouldn’t use the term
11:54
because trump has made it a term of
11:57
derision that he uses against the
11:59
mainstream media
12:00
which is a tactic of post-truth i think
12:03
that we need to keep the term
12:05
but realize what it really is fake news
12:08
is news that is intentionally false
12:11
there are
12:11
several different motivations for this
12:13
and in the 2016 election we saw this
12:16
we saw propaganda out of russia we saw
12:19
fake stories created in the united
12:21
states about hillary
12:22
was dying or just things that people
12:25
make up out of whole cloth
12:27
and put it out there because they know
12:28
that a certain number of people are
12:29
going to click on it
12:31
you can never correct it fully once the
12:33
the misinformation has
12:35
gotten out into the mainstream and
12:36
that’s why fake news is so powerful
12:39
there’s a hidden danger to fake news
12:42
fake news is not just when you report
12:46
something that’s false and hope that
12:48
somebody will take it
12:49
as true just the very existence of fake
12:52
news can have an effect
12:53
where when the information stream is so
12:56
polluted with false stories
12:58
people can become cynical and just stop
13:00
believing that there’s any such thing as
13:03
truth at all outside of political
13:04
context and remember that’s the goal of
13:07
post-truth
13:08
the goal of post-truth is to make people
13:11
so cynical
13:12
and just so uncertain and used to the
13:15
chaos
13:16
that they begin to believe that they
13:19
really can’t find
13:20
the truth one of my favorite quotations
13:22
on this is by the
13:23
holocaust historian hannah aaron
13:26
who said in an ever-changing
13:28
incomprehensible world the masses had
13:30
reached the point where they would at
13:32
the same time believe everything and
13:33
nothing
13:34
think that everything was possible and
13:36
nothing was true
13:38
that’s the problem right fake news is a
13:41
tactic
13:41
of authoritarians you know within the
13:44
context of post-truth
13:46
to try to get people to give up on the
13:48
idea that they can know the truth
13:50
because then the population’s easier to
13:52
rule
13:53
it creates an environment that is not
13:56
conducive to democracy
13:58
that’s absolutely right if you’ll
14:00
indulge me i’ve got another quotation
14:02
from hannah aaron
14:04
she says the ideal subject of
14:06
totalitarian rule is not the convinced
14:08
nazi or the convinced communist
14:10
but people for whom the distinction
14:11
between fact and fiction true and false
14:14
no longer exists that’s a great quote
14:18
and i think people don’t realize that
14:21
most people are not
14:25
partisan and aren’t following politics
14:28
closely
14:29
or following civil discourse very
14:32
closely they’re just bombarded every day
14:35
with information that is both factual
14:38
and false and like you said when you are
14:41
in this onslaught of information you can
14:43
no longer discern what’s true and what’s
14:46
not it’s
14:47
really hard to say yes this is
14:50
definitely true
14:51
or this thing is definitely not true and
14:53
i cannot believe that
14:54
and i have to act accordingly and i have
14:57
friends who are
14:58
really well educated they’re just so
15:02
exhausted
15:03
to tell the difference that they give up
15:06
if you look at an authoritarian society
15:08
maybe they only have one media outlet
15:10
and so people become cynical that way
15:13
because
15:14
what they’re hearing on the radio or on
15:16
tv they know is a lie but they don’t
15:18
know what the truth is
15:19
but there’s another way to do that
15:22
suppose you live in a free society
15:24
where you have an independent media
15:26
remember back to those tobacco
15:28
executives
15:29
fight the science right the free media
15:31
is going to exist and they’re going to
15:33
be
15:33
doing their investigative journalism and
15:35
promoting truth
15:36
but if you create a counter narrative of
15:40
lies and propaganda then all of a sudden
15:43
the people
15:44
are not quite so sure which one is the
15:47
truth and which one is not
15:49
you can hide something by hiding it so
15:52
people can’t see it
15:53
but you can also hide it in plain sight
15:55
if you surround it with enough
15:57
disinformation and misinformation
15:59
i don’t know if you know the movie it’s
16:01
indiana jones and the holy grail
16:03
remember when he’s trying to find the
16:05
holy grail it’s not that
16:07
the holy grail is not sitting right in
16:09
front of him it’s surrounded by
16:11
a thousand other cups which also might
16:13
be the holy grail
16:14
one of the things that you say in the
16:16
book is that post-truth is pre-fascism
16:19
can you explain what that means yes i’m
16:22
not the one who said that
16:23
that was tim snyder in his book on
16:25
tyranny
16:26
so the idea that he comes up with the
16:29
post-truth is pre-fascism
16:31
is simply this idea that when you have
16:34
control over the information stream you
16:38
begin to have control over the populace
16:40
over the people another uh favorite
16:43
author of mine is jason stanley who’s
16:45
philosopher at yale
16:47
he has a book called how propaganda
16:49
works
16:50
in which he makes the following claim he
16:53
claims that propaganda
16:54
isn’t simply there to fool you
16:58
propaganda exists because it’s trying to
17:01
rule you it’s trying to show i’m so
17:04
powerful that i can say a false thing
17:06
and there’s nothing that you can do
17:07
about it
17:08
so that’s the sense in which i think
17:10
that snyder makes the claim that
17:12
post-truth is pre-fascism
17:15
because if you pollute the information
17:17
stream if you overwhelm the truth
17:19
you make people cynical about it and you
17:20
get them to believe that they
17:22
can’t know it the truth is unobtainable
17:25
then you’ve got an
17:26
enormously powerful weapon in
17:29
social control all of a sudden you can
17:32
tell lies even if you don’t make them
17:34
believe that the lie is true
17:36
you’ve overwhelmed their defenses and
17:39
like i said they’re easier to rule at
17:41
that point
17:41
that’s what i’m really afraid of
17:43
post-truth is pre-fascism that’s why i’m
17:46
so worried about it yeah we’re there now
17:48
i think
17:49
if i’m not mistaken i think people
17:52
no longer care so much about the truth
17:56
you know people can sometimes even
17:59
acknowledge
18:00
that the president lies and then they
18:02
shrug their shoulders
18:03
and say so what he’s getting away with
18:05
it is getting away with everything and
18:07
it doesn’t matter
18:09
this particular moment is quite an
18:10
interesting one because
18:12
to the person who wants to use
18:14
post-truth as a form of political
18:16
control
18:18
the one key is that they get away with
18:22
the lie
18:23
so when trump lied about how many people
18:25
were at his inauguration or
18:28
whether there was voter fraud so that
18:30
he’d actually had more votes than
18:32
hillary clinton
18:33
even when he lied about the path of
18:36
hurricane dorian
18:38
all of these lies you might say well
18:41
he wasn’t accountable for them you know
18:44
yes a lot of people knew that they were
18:45
lies
18:46
a lot of people believed it but there
18:48
wasn’t a moment of reckoning
18:49
there wasn’t any hard correction from
18:52
reality
18:53
that made him have to take account of
18:56
the fact that he lied
18:58
we’re also on the cusp of a hard
19:00
correction from reality through
19:02
coronavirus
19:04
this is a moment when this can’t be spun
19:08
this can be lied about but as you know
19:10
we saw from
19:11
what happened with the stock market what
19:13
happened with people
19:14
panicking even the people who are in the
19:18
grip
19:18
of believing a lie they will eventually
19:22
thirst for the truth and in this case
19:25
the truth can save our lives and i think
19:27
that this is
19:28
the moment of reckoning how to fight
19:31
post-truth
19:32
unfortunately this is one way i
19:35
prefer other ways through awareness and
19:38
the truth sandwich and other things that
19:40
i talked about but sometimes reality
19:42
provides its own antidote to post truth
19:45
the best example i can think of here
19:47
is back in the 1980s when the space
19:51
shuttle challenger blew up
19:53
there was political manipulation that
19:55
led them to launch the challenger on a
19:57
day
19:58
when they shouldn’t have launched it and
20:00
it blew up
20:01
there was an investigation afterward and
20:04
richard feynman said for a successful
20:06
technology
20:07
reality must take precedence over public
20:09
relations
20:10
for nature cannot be fooled and we
20:13
learned that when the space shuttle
20:14
challenger blew up
20:16
nature can’t be fooled now when trump is
20:18
saying
20:19
well the coronavirus will disappear like
20:21
a miracle
20:22
or we don’t have that many cases or the
20:25
test kits will be available next week
20:28
these are all things that are easily
20:30
fact checked
20:31
but they’re also things that affect
20:32
people’s lives so we’re awake
20:34
we’re watching this and i think that
20:36
unfortunately
20:38
this is the hard correction from reality
20:41
that trump has been
20:42
stalking for the past three years 14 15
20:46
000 lies
20:47
and he finally comes to a set of lies
20:49
where he’s going to be held accountable
20:51
he’s going to be held responsible
20:53
even by the people who have previously
20:55
been on his side
20:56
because suddenly their lives are at risk
20:59
yeah
21:00
it’s so true i think the challenger
21:03
example
21:04
is really perfect for our current crisis
21:08
with coronavirus because
21:11
also lives are at risk and it is
21:14
a hard truth of nature and physics and
21:17
science
21:18
that we cannot deny we cannot lie about
21:21
it
21:21
or he cannot lie about it i should say
21:25
i do hope that this will be
21:29
like you said a moment of reckoning for
21:32
all of us
21:32
to really embrace truth and go back to
21:37
objectivity so
21:40
for us as individuals what are
21:43
two things that i could be doing to
21:46
support truth in our society how can i
21:49
be one of the people to push back when
21:51
somebody
21:51
tells a naked lie a falsehood
21:56
i think there are two important things
21:58
that i could say
21:59
one is that we have to begin to talk to
22:02
one another again
22:03
we have to not just accept the fact that
22:07
our society is polarized and fragmented
22:09
and that we have competing news outlets
22:13
i think that if you look at how people
22:15
change minds
22:16
it’s through engagement it’s through
22:18
trusting relationships personal
22:20
relationships
22:21
and you know if you watch speeches in
22:24
congress these days
22:27
you see one person standing in a
22:28
microphone and all the chairs behind are
22:30
empty
22:31
i mean people in congress aren’t even
22:33
talking to one another anymore
22:35
and i think that as individuals we can
22:38
start to listen to one another again
22:40
to build those relationships to not shy
22:42
away from the hard conversations
22:44
a second thing that we can do is
22:46
individuals to support
22:47
the idea that truth matters is to
22:50
support the truth-tellers
22:52
i tell people that they need to buy the
22:54
subscription
22:55
if they are interested in supporting
22:57
good investigative journalism where
23:00
people disclose conflicts of interest
23:02
where people double source things where
23:04
there are standards
23:06
they need to actually buy the
23:07
subscription to make it clear
23:09
that we’re supporting truth tellers i
23:12
think that’s one of the most important
23:13
things
23:14
that we can do as you watch institutions
23:16
crumble
23:17
make donations to the ones that you
23:19
believe in help out the people
23:21
who are trying to get the word out i
23:23
think that’s very important
23:24
and those are things that i’ve done
23:26
myself i’ve engaged in conversations
23:28
with people who disagree with me
23:30
and i’ve started to not only buy
23:32
newspaper subscriptions but
23:34
to support organizations that i believe
23:37
in that i think are important in this
23:38
era
23:39
one of the things that you mentioned in
23:41
the book is
23:42
that repetition works repeating the
23:44
truth works and i think it’s really
23:46
important to say that just
23:48
like repeating fake news works
23:51
repeating the truth works also so we
23:53
really need to flood
23:55
the information sphere also with truth
23:58
and it will be easier
24:00
to find so let’s say the corona
24:04
virus is truly a moment of reckoning
24:07
what would be
24:07
a sign for you what should we be looking
24:10
out for
24:11
that things are really turning for the
24:13
better
24:14
i just heard a conversation where they
24:17
were talking about
24:18
that the people would rise up if trump
24:21
tried to
24:22
fire dr anthony fauci for
24:25
contradicting him i mean he’s certainly
24:27
done that in the past he’s
24:29
had people who he’s taken it out on when
24:31
they’ve told
24:32
things that he didn’t like in this
24:35
moment
24:36
i don’t think he could get away with it
24:38
i’m pleased to see
24:39
that people are not uh quite so tolerant
24:43
of the fact that there’s political spin
24:46
on this
24:47
my suspicion is that you know we’re now
24:50
at a moment where the stakes are so high
24:53
i think people are going to begin to
24:54
realize that
24:56
their future is really at stake here
24:58
again i think it’s absolutely
25:00
horribly unfortunate that it’s come to
25:02
this the one
25:04
good thing that will come out of it is
25:05
that people will have new respect for
25:08
the importance of truth
25:10
yes i hope you’re right looking into the
25:13
future
25:14
what makes you hopeful
25:17
we’re realizing that we’re in this
25:18
together i think that people
25:20
are talking people are listening people
25:23
are
25:24
communicating with one another about
25:26
what their fears are about what the
25:27
information that they have that is
25:29
truthful i’ve seen a lot of people
25:31
making a grassroots
25:33
effort state and local government but
25:35
also just individual citizens
25:38
to put the truth out there to gather the
25:41
facts and
25:42
as you said we’ve known for a long time
25:44
repeating a lie is a very effective way
25:46
to get people to believe the lie
25:48
but repeating the truth works as well so
25:51
the more people that we have in the
25:52
corner of truth the more people that we
25:54
have repeating the truth
25:56
reinforcing it getting that information
25:58
out there not just in the news media but
26:00
on facebook on twitter
26:01
the other things that people look at and
26:04
talking to family
26:05
who disagree with this making clear what
26:08
the facts actually are i think that’s
26:10
just very important
26:11
and i think that that’s something that
26:13
that does give me hope
26:15
and i think that’s the right track
26:17
that’s perfect
26:18
thank you very much thank you for being
26:20
on future hindsight
26:21
thank you so much it’s really hard to
26:24
swallow that despite
26:26
the realities of mounting covet deaths
26:28
and lack of testing
26:29
the absence of a vaccine or effective
26:32
cure
26:33
the administration continues unabated on
26:35
a campaign of obfuscation and lies
26:39
what’s more their bungling of the
26:41
federal response
26:42
has come to the point of looking like
26:44
it’s committing self-sabotage
26:46
on purpose with dr fauti testifying this
26:50
week
26:50
that reopening too soon may cause an
26:52
outbreak and some states
26:55
already reopening anyway it appears that
26:58
our public health is losing
27:00
and magical thinking is winning i’m not
27:04
confident
27:05
that the time of coronavirus will be the
27:07
reckoning moment of our post-truth era
27:10
although of course it should be
27:13
we can all make a difference here in
27:16
being the people in our network of
27:17
friends and family to respectfully speak
27:19
the
27:20
truth whenever we have the chance
27:23
it doesn’t sound like much and we know
27:26
it can be uncomfortable
27:28
and awkward but rebuilding trust in
27:30
public discourse
27:32
one conversation at a time is
27:35
essential we owe it to each other
27:39
as citizens in this society
27:42
together stand up for truth it matters
27:47
next week
27:48
our guest is george lakoff he’s an
27:51
emeritus professor of cognitive science
27:53
and linguistics
27:54
at uc berkeley who has been researching
27:57
the language of politics in which we
27:58
reside
28:00
his books include the all-new don’t
28:02
think of an elephant
28:04
who’s freedom and moral politics
28:07
if you negate a lie what you’re doing is
28:10
highlighting the lie
28:11
so if trump tells a lie and you simply
28:14
negate it
28:15
all you do is say no it’s not true that
28:18
blah blah blah what you’re doing
28:20
is you’re saying ah think of the blah
28:22
blah blah
28:24
you know you’re helping him whether
28:25
you’re for him or against him
28:28
if you just negate so what choice do you
28:30
have
28:31
the choice that you have is what i call
28:33
a truth sandwich
28:34
we talk about how the truth matters to
28:36
our democracy
28:38
why we must frame first and frame with
28:40
the truth
28:41
and how important repetition is for our
28:43
brains
28:44
to accept and believe the framing of any
28:47
issue
28:48
regardless of whether it’s true or false
28:51
until next time stay engaged i’m mila
28:55
atmos
28:57
thank you for listening to future
28:58
hindsight the executive producer
29:01
and host of this program is mila atmos
29:04
the audio producer and music composer is
29:07
peter fedec
29:08
the associate producer is miriam
29:12
additional production by brooke scion
29:15
listen to us online at
29:19
futurehindsight.com
29:21
or your favorite streaming service
29:29
[Music]
29:34
this podcast is part of the democracy
29:38
group
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