Post-Truth Culture
A recent article suggests the term, “post truth”, as a description of today’s culture. Its point is not that truth no longer exists, but that it has grown irrelevant. There is a general apathy about truth. It has succumbed to a constant wash of opinion. By the 19 th century the Enlightenment had authenticated scientific inquiry. Some authorities in the church saw science as a threat to their power, which they sustained in large measure by keeping the common people illiterate and pliable. Free thinking might lead to questions of their authority, so a vigorous science-versus-the-Bible dogma emerged. Part of the backlash against enlightenment thinking was manifest in the Second Great Awakening, a neo-Calvin/neo-Puritan movement. Unlike the First Great Awakening's focus on predestination, the Second Great Awakening was a quasi-enlightenment movement that emphasized free will and individual responsibility for salvation; nevertheless, the dichotomy was reinforced and science ...