scholarly journals Jesus, Nietzsche und Trump. Wahrheit, Irrtum und Lüge in Religion, Philosophie und Politik

conexus ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 145-174
Author(s):  
Matthias Neugebauer

Erkenntnisse im Sinne von wahren Erkenntnissen und Irrtümer im Sinne von nachweislich irrtümlichen oder irreführenden Behauptungen gibt und gab es in der Theologie, in der Philosophie und in der Politik. Für die genannten drei Bereiche stehen die Namen Jesu, Nietzsches und Trumps. Donald Trump und die mit seinem Namen verknüpften «alternative facts» beziehungsweise «fake news» stehen für einen Politikstil, bei dem die Grenzen zwischen Wahrheit, Irrtum und Lüge fatal verschwimmen. Dabei erinnert an Trumps Gebaren manches an den von Nietzsche divinierten Übermenschen. Natürlich: Trump ist nicht der «Übermensch». Aber Nietzsche argumentierte leidenschaftlich dafür, das Konzept Wahrheit als Ganzes zu verabschieden. Massgeblich ist nur, was der Übermensch sagt. Nietzsches entschiedene Reserve gegenüber dem Wahrheitsparadigma erreicht einen Höhepunkt in dem berühmten Satz: «Wahrheit ist die Art von Irrtum, ohne welche eine bestimmte Art von lebendigen Wesen nicht leben könnte». Nietzsches Kritik am Wahrheitsparadigma zielte vor allem auch auf das christliche Wahrheitsverständnis. Ein an dieser Stelle einschlägiger Spitzensatz Jesu lautet:  «Ich bin […] die Wahrheit» (Joh 14, 6) - ein Satz, der leider auch zum Ausgangspunkt zum Teil verheerender Irrtümer geworden ist. Jesus, Nietzsche und Trump stehen für ganz unterschiedliche Sortierungen von Wahrheitserkenntnis und Irrtum. Hier tut sich eine reizvolle Konstellation auf, die in einen systematischen Zusammenhang gebracht wird und auf die Frage zielt: Was bedeutet das für unsere Rede von Wahrheitserkenntnis und Irrtum?

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Finlayson

Recent political developments have made the notion of 'post-truth' ubiquitous.  Along with associated terms such as 'fake news' and 'alternative facts', it appears with regularity in coverage of and commentary on Donald Trump, the Brexit vote, and the role – relative to these phenomena – of a half-despised, half-feared creature known as 'the public'.  It has become commonplace to assert that we now inhabit, or are entering, a post-truth world.   In this paper, I issue a sceptical challenge against the distinctiveness and utility of the notion of post-truth. I argue, first, that the term fails to capture anything that is both real and novel. Moreover, post-truth discourse often has a not-fully-explicit political force and function: to ‘irrationalise’ political disaffection and to signal loyalty to a ‘pre-post-truth’ political status quo. The central insight of the speech act theory of J. L. Austin and others – that saying is always also doing – is as indispensable for understanding the significance of much of what is labelled ‘post-truth’, I’ll argue, as it is for understanding the significance of that very act of labelling. Keywords: post-truth, speech acts, Trump, brexit, Austin


2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Colin Lang

Recently, the effort to counter Fake News faced a counter attack: academic »postmodernism « and »social constructivism« it was said—because they say that facts are soaked in prior interpretations—are either purveyors of Fake News or set the cultural context in which it flourishes. They do so by undermining confidence in inquiry governed by simple facts. That is erroneous, argues William E. Connolly, because postmodernism never said that facts or objectivity are ghostly, subjective or »fake«. However, that what was objective at one time may become less so at a later date through the combination of a paradigm shift in theory, new powers of perception, new tests with refined instruments, and changes in natural processes such as species evolution. But the emergence of new theories and tests does not reduce objectivity to subjective opinion. Facts are real. Objectivity is important. But as you move up the scale of complexity with respect to facts and objectivity, it becomes clear that what was objective at one time may become subjective at another. Not because of Fake News or postmodernism. But because the complex relationships between theory, evidence and conduct periodically open up new thresholds. Colin Lang in turn rhetorically asks if »fake news« or »alternative facts« are a new carnival and Trump its dog and pony show? The idea of »fake news« and »alternative facts« as a carnival could not only help to see the constructedness of the media spectacle, but also provides a new perspective on Trump as an actor who is playing a particular role in this carnival, and that role is not one that any of us would describe as presidential. Many in the popular press have assumed it is just what it looks like, an infantilized narcissist, a parody of some Regan-era New York real estate tycoon straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that this description is all too obvious, and misses something fundamental about alternative facts, and the part that Trump is playing. A central assumption is, then, that the creation of alternative facts is one symptom of a more structural, paradigmatic shift in the persona of a president, one which has few correlates in the annals of political history. The closest analogy for his kind of performance is actually hinted at in the title of Trump’s greatest literary achievement: The Art of the Deal. Trump is playing the part of an artist, pilfering from the tactics of the avant-garde and putting them to very different ends.


Tábula ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 25-53
Author(s):  
James Lowry

Este artículo sostiene que el concepto de “umbral archivístico” del ius archivi en el que la recepción de documentos por un archivo sirve para autenticar esos documentos, se invierte en la era de los datos gubernamentales abiertos y de las tecnologías cívicas. Estas tecnologías crean una expectativa de transparencia que invierte la función del umbral. Sólo a través de la transmisión de datos desde los archivos al espacio público se puede determinar la autenticidad. En una época de “noticias falsas” y de los llamados “hechos alternativos”, esta dinámica es problemática y plantea interrogantes sobre la participación en los sistemas de información estatales. This paper argues that the ius archivi concept of the “archival threshold”, in which receipt of records by an authoritative archive serves to authenticate those records, is inverted in the era of open government data and civic technologies. These technologies of witnessing create an expectation of transparency that reverses the function of the threshold; it is only through the transmission of data out of archives and into public space that authenticity can be judged. In a time of ‘fake news’ and so called ‘alternative facts’, this dynamic is problematic and raises questions about participation in state information systems.


2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511877601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Ross ◽  
Damian J. Rivers

Twitter is increasingly being used within the sociopolitical domain as a channel through which to circulate information and opinions. Throughout the 2016 US Presidential primaries and general election campaign, a notable feature was the prolific Twitter use of Republican candidate and then nominee, Donald Trump. This use has continued since his election victory and inauguration as President. Trump’s use of Twitter has drawn criticism due to his rhetoric in relation to various issues, including Hillary Clinton, the size of the crowd in attendance at his inauguration, the policies of the former Obama administration, and immigration and foreign policy. One of the most notable features of Trump’s Twitter use has been his repeated ridicule of the mainstream media through pejorative labels such as “fake news” and “fake media.” These labels have been deployed in an attempt to deter the public from trusting media reports, many of which are critical of Trump’s presidency, and to position himself as the only reliable source of truth. However, given the contestable nature of objective truth, it can be argued that Trump himself is a serial offender in the propagation of mis- and disinformation in the same vein that he accuses the media. This article adopts a corpus analysis of Trump’s Twitter discourse to highlight his accusations of fake news and how he operates as a serial spreader of mis- and disinformation. Our data show that Trump uses these accusations to demonstrate allegiance and as a cover for his own spreading of mis- and disinformation that is framed as truth.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-358
Author(s):  
Robert Smith ◽  
Mark Perry

The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent term of the United States President, Donald Trump, brought the term “fake news” to the attention of the broader community. Some jurisdictions have developed anti-fake news legislation, whilst others have used existing cybercrime legislation. A significant deficiency is the lack of a clear definition of fake news. Just because a person calls something “fake news” does not mean that it is indeed false. Especially during pandemics, the primary aim should be to have misinformation and disinformation removed quickly from the web rather than prosecute offenders. The most widely accepted international anti-cybercrime treaty is the Convention on Cybercrime developed by the Council of Europe, which is silent on fake news, the propagation of which may be a cybercrime. There is an Additional Protocol that deals with hate speech, which the authors consider to be a subset of fake news. Using examples from Southeast Asia, the paper develops a comprehensive definition of what constitutes fake news. It ensures that it covers the various flavours of fake news that have been adopted in various jurisdictions. Hate speech can be considered a subset of fake news and is defined as the publication or distribution of fake news with the intention to incite hatred or violence against ethnic, religious, political, and other groups in society. The paper proposes some offences, including those that should be applied to platform service providers. The recommendations could be easily adapted for inclusion in the Convention on Cybercrime or other regional conventions. Such an approach is desirable as cybercrime, including propagating fake news, is not a respecter of national borders, and has widespread deleterious effects. Keywords: Fake news; hate speech; Convention on Cybercrime; draft legislation


2022 ◽  

Truth has always been a central philosophical category, occupying different fields of knowledge and practice. In the current moment of fake news and alternative facts, it is mandatory to revisit the various meanings of truth. Departing from various approaches to psychoanalytic theory and practice, the authors gathered in this book offer critical reflections and insights about truth and its effects. In articulations of psychoanalysis with (for instance) philosophy, ethics and politics, the reader will find discussions about issues such as knowledge, love, and clinical practice, all marked by the matter of truth.


2019 ◽  
pp. 441-450
Author(s):  
Scott MacDonald

Russian-American filmmaker Maxim Pozdorovkin has made a series of films documenting Russia in the age of Putin, including the well-known Pussy Riot (2013), about the radical feminist performance group. This interview focuses specifically on Our New President (2017), which traces the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump presidential race and the Trump election as depicted in Russian propaganda. Pozdorovkin’s film is a significant contribution to the recent history of recycled cinema. The political weaponizing of media to produce “fake news” is the focus of Our New President. Pozdorovkin demonstrates that in the 2010s propaganda is not so much misinformation carefully embedded in an otherwise informative context, but an attempt to overwhelm by creating total media confusion. He makes clear that in Russia the government controls all major news outlets and hacking into the online networks of other nations is considered patriotism.


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