Post-truth: Collective Identities that Degenerate Democracies

Abstract

This research has as its main goal analyzing the post-truth phenomenon and its influence in the conformation of a society whose type of collective identity assigns great value to its beliefs and emotions in the construction of public opinion. This phenomenon creates political polarization that degrades democracies in societies that exclude the opinion of those who does not think as the collective body, which takes place, especially in social networks.

The method employed in this research is the hermeneutic one, given that it allows the analysis of some specific facts —that were recognized indifferently— to locate the post-truth concept in a political context that is conjunctural in several geographical spaces of the world. These spaces will be interpreted in the light of postmodern philosophy and critical reflection.

One of the most important reflections that arise from this research is that the objectivity pretended by the traditional epistemology has rapidly weakened in front of the fact that the belief systems have demanded citizenship. These systems summarize certainties in the collective imaginary, in the realm and knowledge of reality, of facts, of feelings, and intentions of people independently of the fact that judgements correspond or not things themselves. Thus, this allows us to see  hat these belief systems divert human beings, the common citizen, from objective reality, which also deviates  hem from truly critical thinking.