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The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
アメリカ建国時の理念と制度は、トランプ政権に打ち砕かれた。しかもその出現は予言されていた。フェイクニュースやプロパガンダがはびこり、客観的事実が消えゆく世界で、私たちはどう生きるべきか。不穏な時代に精神的な立ち位置を示そうとする、ピューリッツァー賞(批評部門)受賞者としても著名な文芸評論家の話題書、待望の邦訳。
208 pages, Hardcover
First published July 17, 2018
About the author
Michiko Kakutani
9 books421 followersMichiko Kakutani is a Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic and the former chief book critic of The New York Times.
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October 11, 2021
Being Reasonable
Epistemology - learning what it means to be reasonable - has become fashionable once again. With any luck this might prove to be Donald Trump’s most important achievement: a backlash against the reality (largely his) of fake news. Unfortunately The Death of Truth is yet more fake news not a way to beat it.
More formally, epistemology is the study of how we know what we know, of what constitutes a fact, and logically therefore about what constitutes an anti-fact, that is a lie (see here for some explanation of epistemology and its current problems: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). It doesn’t take much epistemological analysis to determine that Trump lies, more or less continuously, about everything he encounters - events, people, issues, decisions, statements, whether these are politically relevant or not. These lies are endorsed and disseminated by tame media like Fox News and Breitbart which have their own commercial agenda. This much is obvious.
But what is much more difficult to establish is the epistemological structure, as it were, of the human beings who hear these lies, cheer them and act on them - in the way they vote; their behaviour toward opponents, and minorities; and in their expressed opinions about the rest of the world. The presumption of a book like Kakutani’s is that these people have been duped, and that by demonstrating that the motivation for their actions is a pack of lies, the era of Trumpian mendacity can be checked. Essentially, lack of discriminatory power brought about by inadequate education is Kakutani’s key issue. Therefore better analytical education, she believes, is the solution.
This presumption, and its purported solution is, however, in Kakutani’s own terms, wrong. The people who adhere to the Trumpian ideology know well that the President lies. They know that Fox and Breitbart have their own interests in these lies. They simply don’t care. The fact that Trump lies has about as much political import to them as the barometric pressure or the population of an ant colony. If photographic evidence shows that Trump’s inauguration had much smaller crowds than claimed, if numerous women have prima facie valid claims for sexual harassment despite his denial, if his closest advisors were obviously involved in relationships on his behalf with the Russians and nefarious others: it does not matter at all to the folk who support him. He has said this over and over again during his campaign and his presidency. And his supporters cheer him and themselves when he says it.
To observe, therefore, that Kakutani’s book is preaching to the choir is not a very profound insight. But it does reveal the essential flaw in her epistemological analysis. People, all people, have interests. Interests are what defines the things which are not only important but the things which can be and will be seen, heard, recognised, and generally allowed into one’s cognition. Interests are also the motivating force for reason; it is they, not some arbitrary logic like that proposed by Kakutani, which defines the reasonable. Kakutani, like many before her, tries desperately to separate what is factual from what is of interest; she aspires to be ‘objective’ in the way that facts and truth are established. For her, recognising interests is equivalent to the terrible heresy of “postmodernist relativism.” She doesn’t quite know what she means when she uses this term but she’s sure it’s the reason Trump is in the White House and Putin is in the Kremlin.
Paradoxically, one might think, this abhorrence of relativism is shared with Kakutani by Trump’s evangelical and conservative ideological supporters. They too want a firm epistemological foundation; and they believe they can get it by the articulation of one or more basic doctrines - the inerrancy of scripture, the necessity for complete personal freedom, the benefits of unlimited competition, the non-existence of something called society or any of a number of other ideological or religious premises. This establishment of fundamental premises is the only path available toward absolute, irrefutable, non-relative truth according to their way of thinking. And they’re right, that is the only way to be absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure of what the truth is: define it beforehand. Otherwise one must simply muddle through with continuous nagging doubt, an uncomfortable and, one might say in our current culture, an unmanly state of mind.
But certainty and psychic ease come at a cost. Obviously diverse premises lead to diverse versions of what constitutes the truth, of facts, of signal versus noise. Evangelicals do not start with the same fundamental truths as economic neo-liberals, or radical nationalists. For the moment at least the competing versions of truth are not as important in American politics as the principle on which they all agree: Truth is fixed, certain, immutable, eternal and necessary for personal and social well-being. This is the basis of the populist alliance which Trump has created so skilfully. And Kakutani has decided that she will join it unwittingly using her own version of the truth.
It may not be obvious but this principle of absolute truth is in fact a religious concept. It is correlated with the explicitly Christian doctrinal idea of faith, that is to say the firm, ‘reasonable’ belief in eternal salvation. Faith is an epistemological principle invented by Paul of Tarsus as the foundational principle of his new religion of Christianity. This principle is arguably the most important contribution of Christianity to world culture. It provides a rationale for calming the apparent chaos of the world around us by simply removing large chunks of reality from our perception. If things don’t matter, they will not be perceived. If one is ‘tempted’ by distractions outside the realm of the doctrines of faith, one is urged to intensify one’s faith.
Intense faith is what the various components of the Trump alliance (and terrorists of all sorts) share. Trump’s lies are either irrelevant or they are contributing toward a greater good, of which even he may be unaware, according to Trumpists. Arguing against such a state of mind has never had much success for obvious reasons: the argument cannot be heard. Kakutani’s use of the principle of faith to undermine faith is consequently absurd.
So faith in absolute, invariable truth is the poison which creates and not the antidote which cures fake news. The only workable solution to the proliferation of fake news involves in the first instance the recognition of the interests represented by apparently unreasonable behaviour. Lack of apparent reason in someone else is indistinguishable from an inability in oneself to appreciate alien purpose when it is confronted. The idea of error is entirely dependent upon what one’s aims are. Ultimately, the effect of establishing the criteria of ‘objective’ truth is the exclusion of whole sets of human interests which then cannot be discussed politically. In other words, Kakutani’s solution is to intensify the problem we are experiencing at present.
I don’t know what the purpose of Trump supporters is. I suspect there are many, one of which, perhaps, is merely to be heard. This in itself could explain a great deal. I nonetheless do find them annoying because they don’t appear to consider it their responsibility to go beyond their pervasive nihilism and articulate what they’re really after. So there well could be an educational aspect to the situation because ostensibly unreasonable people may not have the ability to effectively articulate their reasons. If so, however, education in being able to listen articulately, especially among politicians, may be the most important parallel pedagogical task. Hearing the intentions of others, particularly others we abhor, is probably the most taxing political as well as social skill one can hope to develop. It is nevertheless the foundation of all epistemology. Kakutani has been listening to the wrong folk.
Postscript: Several people have written privately to me expressing an important issue with my review. What if, they remark, the purposes of some Trump supporters are morally unacceptable? Indeed, I have no doubt that this is the case, as it would be among any political group. One of the most important aspects of any political system, and the explicit purpose of the US party system, is the marginalisation of extreme and generally unacceptable purposes. The Trumpist alliance, I have no doubt, includes some, perhaps many, whom the vast majority of Americans would consider of questionable integrity. However, unless one is willing to conclude that half the American eiectorate has become politically insane (although a credible possibility), the bulk of Trump voters are expressing political views which while not extreme or evil have not been incorporated into political discussion. In fact it seems likely that the extremists have been attracted to the alliance of faith among disaffected voters and not the source of it. This doesn’t reduce the culpability of faith as an epistemological principle but rather makes it more urgent to make the consequences of this principle clear.
Postscript 17Sept2018: an interesting piece putting some context on the epistemological problem of Trump: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/americ...
Epistemology - learning what it means to be reasonable - has become fashionable once again. With any luck this might prove to be Donald Trump’s most important achievement: a backlash against the reality (largely his) of fake news. Unfortunately The Death of Truth is yet more fake news not a way to beat it.
More formally, epistemology is the study of how we know what we know, of what constitutes a fact, and logically therefore about what constitutes an anti-fact, that is a lie (see here for some explanation of epistemology and its current problems: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). It doesn’t take much epistemological analysis to determine that Trump lies, more or less continuously, about everything he encounters - events, people, issues, decisions, statements, whether these are politically relevant or not. These lies are endorsed and disseminated by tame media like Fox News and Breitbart which have their own commercial agenda. This much is obvious.
But what is much more difficult to establish is the epistemological structure, as it were, of the human beings who hear these lies, cheer them and act on them - in the way they vote; their behaviour toward opponents, and minorities; and in their expressed opinions about the rest of the world. The presumption of a book like Kakutani’s is that these people have been duped, and that by demonstrating that the motivation for their actions is a pack of lies, the era of Trumpian mendacity can be checked. Essentially, lack of discriminatory power brought about by inadequate education is Kakutani’s key issue. Therefore better analytical education, she believes, is the solution.
This presumption, and its purported solution is, however, in Kakutani’s own terms, wrong. The people who adhere to the Trumpian ideology know well that the President lies. They know that Fox and Breitbart have their own interests in these lies. They simply don’t care. The fact that Trump lies has about as much political import to them as the barometric pressure or the population of an ant colony. If photographic evidence shows that Trump’s inauguration had much smaller crowds than claimed, if numerous women have prima facie valid claims for sexual harassment despite his denial, if his closest advisors were obviously involved in relationships on his behalf with the Russians and nefarious others: it does not matter at all to the folk who support him. He has said this over and over again during his campaign and his presidency. And his supporters cheer him and themselves when he says it.
To observe, therefore, that Kakutani’s book is preaching to the choir is not a very profound insight. But it does reveal the essential flaw in her epistemological analysis. People, all people, have interests. Interests are what defines the things which are not only important but the things which can be and will be seen, heard, recognised, and generally allowed into one’s cognition. Interests are also the motivating force for reason; it is they, not some arbitrary logic like that proposed by Kakutani, which defines the reasonable. Kakutani, like many before her, tries desperately to separate what is factual from what is of interest; she aspires to be ‘objective’ in the way that facts and truth are established. For her, recognising interests is equivalent to the terrible heresy of “postmodernist relativism.” She doesn’t quite know what she means when she uses this term but she’s sure it’s the reason Trump is in the White House and Putin is in the Kremlin.
Paradoxically, one might think, this abhorrence of relativism is shared with Kakutani by Trump’s evangelical and conservative ideological supporters. They too want a firm epistemological foundation; and they believe they can get it by the articulation of one or more basic doctrines - the inerrancy of scripture, the necessity for complete personal freedom, the benefits of unlimited competition, the non-existence of something called society or any of a number of other ideological or religious premises. This establishment of fundamental premises is the only path available toward absolute, irrefutable, non-relative truth according to their way of thinking. And they’re right, that is the only way to be absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure of what the truth is: define it beforehand. Otherwise one must simply muddle through with continuous nagging doubt, an uncomfortable and, one might say in our current culture, an unmanly state of mind.
But certainty and psychic ease come at a cost. Obviously diverse premises lead to diverse versions of what constitutes the truth, of facts, of signal versus noise. Evangelicals do not start with the same fundamental truths as economic neo-liberals, or radical nationalists. For the moment at least the competing versions of truth are not as important in American politics as the principle on which they all agree: Truth is fixed, certain, immutable, eternal and necessary for personal and social well-being. This is the basis of the populist alliance which Trump has created so skilfully. And Kakutani has decided that she will join it unwittingly using her own version of the truth.
It may not be obvious but this principle of absolute truth is in fact a religious concept. It is correlated with the explicitly Christian doctrinal idea of faith, that is to say the firm, ‘reasonable’ belief in eternal salvation. Faith is an epistemological principle invented by Paul of Tarsus as the foundational principle of his new religion of Christianity. This principle is arguably the most important contribution of Christianity to world culture. It provides a rationale for calming the apparent chaos of the world around us by simply removing large chunks of reality from our perception. If things don’t matter, they will not be perceived. If one is ‘tempted’ by distractions outside the realm of the doctrines of faith, one is urged to intensify one’s faith.
Intense faith is what the various components of the Trump alliance (and terrorists of all sorts) share. Trump’s lies are either irrelevant or they are contributing toward a greater good, of which even he may be unaware, according to Trumpists. Arguing against such a state of mind has never had much success for obvious reasons: the argument cannot be heard. Kakutani’s use of the principle of faith to undermine faith is consequently absurd.
So faith in absolute, invariable truth is the poison which creates and not the antidote which cures fake news. The only workable solution to the proliferation of fake news involves in the first instance the recognition of the interests represented by apparently unreasonable behaviour. Lack of apparent reason in someone else is indistinguishable from an inability in oneself to appreciate alien purpose when it is confronted. The idea of error is entirely dependent upon what one’s aims are. Ultimately, the effect of establishing the criteria of ‘objective’ truth is the exclusion of whole sets of human interests which then cannot be discussed politically. In other words, Kakutani’s solution is to intensify the problem we are experiencing at present.
I don’t know what the purpose of Trump supporters is. I suspect there are many, one of which, perhaps, is merely to be heard. This in itself could explain a great deal. I nonetheless do find them annoying because they don’t appear to consider it their responsibility to go beyond their pervasive nihilism and articulate what they’re really after. So there well could be an educational aspect to the situation because ostensibly unreasonable people may not have the ability to effectively articulate their reasons. If so, however, education in being able to listen articulately, especially among politicians, may be the most important parallel pedagogical task. Hearing the intentions of others, particularly others we abhor, is probably the most taxing political as well as social skill one can hope to develop. It is nevertheless the foundation of all epistemology. Kakutani has been listening to the wrong folk.
Postscript: Several people have written privately to me expressing an important issue with my review. What if, they remark, the purposes of some Trump supporters are morally unacceptable? Indeed, I have no doubt that this is the case, as it would be among any political group. One of the most important aspects of any political system, and the explicit purpose of the US party system, is the marginalisation of extreme and generally unacceptable purposes. The Trumpist alliance, I have no doubt, includes some, perhaps many, whom the vast majority of Americans would consider of questionable integrity. However, unless one is willing to conclude that half the American eiectorate has become politically insane (although a credible possibility), the bulk of Trump voters are expressing political views which while not extreme or evil have not been incorporated into political discussion. In fact it seems likely that the extremists have been attracted to the alliance of faith among disaffected voters and not the source of it. This doesn’t reduce the culpability of faith as an epistemological principle but rather makes it more urgent to make the consequences of this principle clear.
Postscript 17Sept2018: an interesting piece putting some context on the epistemological problem of Trump: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/americ...
September 1, 2022
Update - I stumbled over a quote that gave me a chill. Here it is :
Sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realised how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts had become what Hitler and Goebbels said they were.
- William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)
It fits today's situation all too well.
******
it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.
Jonathan Swift, 1710
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W B Yeats, 1919
**
Trump will not be back! I myself am a very accurate political predictor – I said Trump could never ever win the election in 2016 and in the same year I said that the UK would never ever vote for Brexit in the referendum – so whatever I think will happen you can guarantee the opposite will. Therefore because I think Trump will definitely run again in 2024 that means he won’t!
This little book is very helpful in trying to wrap your poor throbbing head around all our manic and social political chaos, in which the two opposing sides deny each others’ grasp on reality whilst many alt-right jokesters cackle that there is no such thing as reality anyway. J G Ballard told us this was gonna happen way back in the 1960s. He wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised.
GOOGLE MAPS AS A METAPHOR
I found out that if you look at Google maps in India or China you will see something different than if you look at them in Pakistan or Taiwan. The way Google gets round the tricky issue of territorial disputes is to show each country the border it wants to see. So in Pakistan Google maps shows all of Kashmir to be inside Pakistan, and in India Kashmir is all Indian. Simple! Avoids so much hassle! Give people the reality they want.
BUT….I MISS REALITY
Trump constantly accused the press & tv which he called the main-stream media (implication: controlled by the deep state to keep the sheeple pacified) of broadcasting fake news. At the same time he referred to a terrorist attack in Sweden that didn’t happen and his counsellor referred to another fictitious event called the Bowling Green Massacre, and none of that mattered. You could fact-check these people all day long (and people did) and to the voters it didn’t matter. It was just mood music. Whilst Democrats jumped around exposing his untruths he knew that most voters didn’t care if something was factually correct or not. If it sounded right to them, then it happened. Or it didn’t. Whatever.
Likewise in Britain when Boris used to go round making up nonexistent ridiculous rules imposed by the EU on hapless British citizens he understood the same thing, it didn’t matter if it was true or not.
Occasionally you get a backwards somersault happening : in the recent Alex Jones trial he had said the Sandy Hook shooting was fake news and had never happened and he had to admit in court that it did. Of course he said that he never said it didn’t happen, he was just posing some alternative facts, asking some questions, presenting some independent research or some such bullshit. Maybe he didn’t say any such thing but it really doesn’t matter if he did or not, he might have. That’s good enough for me. I can do it too.
HOW DEEP IS THE DEEP STATE ANYWAY?
We now have the strange spectacle of many American citizens despising and distrusting their own government (and clinging fiercely to the second amendment in order, I suppose, to be able to defend their homes when the deep state sends in the army to kill all patriots like them. But don’t these patriots actually venerate the armed forces, those defenders of the state? Yes they do! There doesn’t seem to be any…logic…here….) Trump himself was at war with the FBI if I recall correctly. Has Trump ever said how he grappled with the deep state when he became president? Oh wait – the deep state fixed the election and got rid of him. Of course. That’s the story. Better remember that, Donald. They did it once and they’ll do it again!
EVIDENCE
We’re always told to check facts and don’t believe anyone until you have and so forth but that’s a counsel of perfection. If you ever read any stuff about the JFK assassination you will know what rabbit holes look like. The arcane intricacies of the Single Bullet Theory, to take just one example : you have experts over here with their 40 minute youtube videos, and experts over there with their entire books. If you’re not prepared to devote months to figuring out if that one bullet could have done all that damage then maybe you’re not allowed an opinion. After that we can begin consideration of the Zapruder film, frame by frame. There goes another six months. This explains partly why people are happy to believe stuff if it feels right. No one has the time for the details, except the true cranks.
DEMOCRACY
Steve Bannon : Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls.
HANNAH ARENDT
Michiko Kakutani unearthed a great quote from Hannah Arendt from 1951 :
Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
So : this is a short book which asks many difficult questions. Recommended.
Sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realised how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts had become what Hitler and Goebbels said they were.
- William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960)
It fits today's situation all too well.
******
it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.
Jonathan Swift, 1710
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
W B Yeats, 1919
**
Trump will not be back! I myself am a very accurate political predictor – I said Trump could never ever win the election in 2016 and in the same year I said that the UK would never ever vote for Brexit in the referendum – so whatever I think will happen you can guarantee the opposite will. Therefore because I think Trump will definitely run again in 2024 that means he won’t!
This little book is very helpful in trying to wrap your poor throbbing head around all our manic and social political chaos, in which the two opposing sides deny each others’ grasp on reality whilst many alt-right jokesters cackle that there is no such thing as reality anyway. J G Ballard told us this was gonna happen way back in the 1960s. He wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised.
GOOGLE MAPS AS A METAPHOR
I found out that if you look at Google maps in India or China you will see something different than if you look at them in Pakistan or Taiwan. The way Google gets round the tricky issue of territorial disputes is to show each country the border it wants to see. So in Pakistan Google maps shows all of Kashmir to be inside Pakistan, and in India Kashmir is all Indian. Simple! Avoids so much hassle! Give people the reality they want.
BUT….I MISS REALITY
Trump constantly accused the press & tv which he called the main-stream media (implication: controlled by the deep state to keep the sheeple pacified) of broadcasting fake news. At the same time he referred to a terrorist attack in Sweden that didn’t happen and his counsellor referred to another fictitious event called the Bowling Green Massacre, and none of that mattered. You could fact-check these people all day long (and people did) and to the voters it didn’t matter. It was just mood music. Whilst Democrats jumped around exposing his untruths he knew that most voters didn’t care if something was factually correct or not. If it sounded right to them, then it happened. Or it didn’t. Whatever.
Likewise in Britain when Boris used to go round making up nonexistent ridiculous rules imposed by the EU on hapless British citizens he understood the same thing, it didn’t matter if it was true or not.
Occasionally you get a backwards somersault happening : in the recent Alex Jones trial he had said the Sandy Hook shooting was fake news and had never happened and he had to admit in court that it did. Of course he said that he never said it didn’t happen, he was just posing some alternative facts, asking some questions, presenting some independent research or some such bullshit. Maybe he didn’t say any such thing but it really doesn’t matter if he did or not, he might have. That’s good enough for me. I can do it too.
HOW DEEP IS THE DEEP STATE ANYWAY?
We now have the strange spectacle of many American citizens despising and distrusting their own government (and clinging fiercely to the second amendment in order, I suppose, to be able to defend their homes when the deep state sends in the army to kill all patriots like them. But don’t these patriots actually venerate the armed forces, those defenders of the state? Yes they do! There doesn’t seem to be any…logic…here….) Trump himself was at war with the FBI if I recall correctly. Has Trump ever said how he grappled with the deep state when he became president? Oh wait – the deep state fixed the election and got rid of him. Of course. That’s the story. Better remember that, Donald. They did it once and they’ll do it again!
EVIDENCE
We’re always told to check facts and don’t believe anyone until you have and so forth but that’s a counsel of perfection. If you ever read any stuff about the JFK assassination you will know what rabbit holes look like. The arcane intricacies of the Single Bullet Theory, to take just one example : you have experts over here with their 40 minute youtube videos, and experts over there with their entire books. If you’re not prepared to devote months to figuring out if that one bullet could have done all that damage then maybe you’re not allowed an opinion. After that we can begin consideration of the Zapruder film, frame by frame. There goes another six months. This explains partly why people are happy to believe stuff if it feels right. No one has the time for the details, except the true cranks.
DEMOCRACY
Steve Bannon : Anger and fear is what gets people to the polls.
HANNAH ARENDT
Michiko Kakutani unearthed a great quote from Hannah Arendt from 1951 :
Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.
So : this is a short book which asks many difficult questions. Recommended.
June 27, 2018
As the former chief book critic of The New York Times, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michiko Kakutani has apparently spent the past three decades noting and commenting on the decline of “objective truth” in American literature and public life – and while she approves of this postmodern paradigm as it relates to art, she has been horrified to watch as disestablishmentarianism has migrated from a necessary Leftist pushback against the military-industrial complex to an alt-right, “drain the swamp” anti-intellectualism which has found its apex in the current alternate facts, fake news, lies tweeting president. Quoting from sources as diverse as Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, and Donald Trump's own Think Big, Kakutani's The Death of Truth is scholarly, logical, and angry. Here's the thing: For a book that decries polarisation and bipartisanship and the algorithms that ensure we only read news stories online that align with what we already believe, there's nothing neutral about Kakutani's treatise; she is preaching to her choir and dismissing everyone else as “alt-right trolls” and “dittoheads”; nothing here would be persuasive to anyone who believes that mainstream media has a liberal bias, and especially since she spent her career at The New York Times (which isn't to say that I fundamentally disagree with what she writes here). This is a quick read, divided into nine essays, and I've decided to let Kakutani do most of the talking here in excerpts I selected as demonstrative of either her points or her tone. (Two notes: I am a Canadian and have read this book only as an interested bystander. And since I read an ARC, it is probably particularly egregious that I have quoted such big chunks; these passages may not be in their final forms, but they do reflect the book I read.)
Despite making comparisons between Trump's misinformation techniques and those of Hitler and Lenin, Kakutani ends on a hopeful note; pointing out those citizens who are pushing back against threats of despotism and urging her readers to join in: “It's essential that citizens defy the cynicism and resignation that autocrats and power-hungry politicians depend upon to subvert resistance.” American citizens must also protect the institutions that their founding fathers put in place to uphold democracy: the checks and balances of a tripartite political system, education, and a free and independent press. This is an angry book, and while Kakutani laments the modern echo chamber of thought, I can't see this making much of an impact with those outside her own silo. Four stars is a rounding up.
The Decline and Fall of Reason:
Trump, who launched his political career by shamelessly promoting birtherism and who has spoken approvingly of the conspiracy theorist and shock jock Alex Jones, presided over an administration that became, in its first year, the very embodiment of anti-Enlightenment principles, repudiating the values of rationalism, tolerance, and empiricism in both its policies and its modus operandi – a reflection of the commander in chief's erratic, impulsive decision-making style based not on knowledge but on instinct, whim, and preconceived (and often delusional) notions of how the world operates.
The New Culture Wars:
Since the 1960s, there has been a snowballing loss of faith in institutions and official narratives. Some of this skepticism has been a necessary corrective – a rational response to the calamities of Vietnam and Iraq, to Watergate and the financial crisis of 2008, and to the cultural biases that had long infected everything from the teaching of history in elementary schools to the injustices of the justice system. But the liberating democratization of information made possible by the internet not only spurred breathtaking innovation and entrepreneurship; it also led to a cascade of misinformation and relativism, as evidenced by today's fake news epidemic.
“Moi” and the Rise of Subjectivity:
Writers as disparate as Louise Erdrich, David Mitchell, Don DeLillo, Julian Barnes, Chuck Palahniuk, Gillian Flynn, and Lauren Groff would play with devices (like multiples points of view, unreliable narrators, and intertwining story lines) pioneered decades ago by Faulkner, Woolf, Ford Madox Ford, and Nabokov to try to capture the new Rashomon-like reality in which subjectivity rules and, in the infamous words of former president Bill Clinton, truth “depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.”
The Vanishing of Reality:
Renee DiResta, who studies conspiracy theories on the web, argues that Reddit can be a useful testing ground for bad actors – including foreign governments like Russia – to try out memes or fake stories to see how much traction they get. DiResta warned in the spring of 2016 that the algorithms of social networks – which give people news that's popular and trending, rather than accurate or important – are helping to promote conspiracy theories. This sort of fringe content can both affect how people think and seep into public policy debates on matters like vaccines, zoning laws, and water fluoridation.
The Co-opting of Language:
Trump's incoherence (his twisted syntax, his reversals, his insincerity, his bad faith, and his inflammatory bombast) is both a mirror of the chaos he creates and thrives on and an essential instrument in his liar's tool kit. His interviews, off-teleprompter speeches, and tweets are a startling jumble of insults, exclamations, boasts, digressions, non sequiturs, qualifications, exhortations, and innuendos – a bully's efforts to intimidate, gaslight, polarize, and scapegoat.
Filters, Silos, and Tribes:
Because social media sites give us information that tends to confirm our view of the world, people live in increasingly narrow content silos and correspondingly smaller walled gardens of thought. It's a big reason why liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, find it harder and harder to agree on facts and why a shared sense of reality is becoming elusive.
Attention Deficit:
While public trust in the media declined in the new millennium (part of a growing mistrust of institutions and gatekeepers, as well as a concerted effort by the right wing to discredit the mainstream press), more and more people started getting their news through Facebook, Twitter, and other online sources: by 2017, fully two-thirds of Americans said they got at least some of their news through social media. This reliance on family and friends and Facebook and Twitter for news, however, would feed the ravenous monster of fake news.
“The Firehose of Falsehood”:
The sheer volume of dezinformatsiya unleashed by the Russian fire-hose system – much like the more improvised but equally voluminous stream of lies, scandals, and shocks emitted by Trump, his GOP enablers, and media apparatchiks – tends to overwhelm and numb people while simultaneously defining deviancy down and normalizing the unacceptable. Outrage gives way to outrage fatigue, which gives way to the sort of cynicism and weariness that empowers those disseminating lies.
The Schadenfreude of the Trolls:
Trump, of course, is a troll – both by temperament and by habit. His tweets and offhand taunts are the very essence of trolling – the lies, the scorn, the invective, the trash talk, and the rabid non sequiturs of an angry, aggrieved, isolated, and deeply self-absorbed adolescent who lives in a self-constructed bubble and gets the attention he craves from bashing his enemies and trailing clouds of outrage and dismay in his path. Even as president, he continues to troll individuals and institutions, tweeting and retweeting insults, fake news, and treacherous innuendo.
Despite making comparisons between Trump's misinformation techniques and those of Hitler and Lenin, Kakutani ends on a hopeful note; pointing out those citizens who are pushing back against threats of despotism and urging her readers to join in: “It's essential that citizens defy the cynicism and resignation that autocrats and power-hungry politicians depend upon to subvert resistance.” American citizens must also protect the institutions that their founding fathers put in place to uphold democracy: the checks and balances of a tripartite political system, education, and a free and independent press. This is an angry book, and while Kakutani laments the modern echo chamber of thought, I can't see this making much of an impact with those outside her own silo. Four stars is a rounding up.
June 4, 2018
I broke my rule about not reading books with Trump in the title for the ARC of this very solid extended essay by Michiko Kakutani. I particularly liked the way she incorporated her extensive reading in fiction and non-fiction to provide examples and commentary on today's politics and how we got here. Also, good footnotes provide a guide to further reading. My big reservation is that the only people who are likely to read this book are very unlikely to learn anything new. This can be read in one sitting unless it depresses you too much.
August 23, 2022
VDT — A Nova Verdade
“Donald Trump, o quadragésimo quinto presidente dos Estados Unidos, mente tão prolificamente e com tal rapidez que o jornal The Washington Post calculou que ele tinha feito 2140 reivindicações falsas ou enganadoras durante o primeiro ano do seu mandato: uma média de 5,9 por dia”
Está visto que Mr. Trump não sofre do célebre Síndroma de Pinóquio, pois tem-se revelado um mestre exímio no que toca à prática da inverdade em áreas que vão do trivial (bazófias do golfe) ao mais sério (patranhas relacionadas com o controle da imigração, por exemplo). Acontece que esta ilustre figura pública, tão bem conhecida de todos nós, se dedica fervorosamente à modulação da verdade, como se de barro se tratasse.
Dir-se-ia que Verdade e Trump são como azeite e água — simplesmente não combinam! Aquela Verdade pura e dura, rebelde e ousada, foi por ele barbaramente empurrada para o Vale da Extinção, de mãos dadas com a razão. Em seu lugar, surgiu uma outra mais submissa e lapidada — a VDT — uma verdade fantoche sua criação, e uma serva fiel de sua Majestade, El-Rei Donald Trump!
“Como é que a verdade e a razão se tornaram espécies tão ameaçadas e o que é que esse declínio iminente pressagia para o discurso público e para o futuro da política e da governação? É essa a matéria deste livro.”
De acordo com MK, dar com a verdade na Era de Trump, será tão desafiante, como encontrar uma agulha num gigantesco palheiro! 😜
“Donald Trump, o quadragésimo quinto presidente dos Estados Unidos, mente tão prolificamente e com tal rapidez que o jornal The Washington Post calculou que ele tinha feito 2140 reivindicações falsas ou enganadoras durante o primeiro ano do seu mandato: uma média de 5,9 por dia”
Está visto que Mr. Trump não sofre do célebre Síndroma de Pinóquio, pois tem-se revelado um mestre exímio no que toca à prática da inverdade em áreas que vão do trivial (bazófias do golfe) ao mais sério (patranhas relacionadas com o controle da imigração, por exemplo). Acontece que esta ilustre figura pública, tão bem conhecida de todos nós, se dedica fervorosamente à modulação da verdade, como se de barro se tratasse.
Dir-se-ia que Verdade e Trump são como azeite e água — simplesmente não combinam! Aquela Verdade pura e dura, rebelde e ousada, foi por ele barbaramente empurrada para o Vale da Extinção, de mãos dadas com a razão. Em seu lugar, surgiu uma outra mais submissa e lapidada — a VDT — uma verdade fantoche sua criação, e uma serva fiel de sua Majestade, El-Rei Donald Trump!
“Como é que a verdade e a razão se tornaram espécies tão ameaçadas e o que é que esse declínio iminente pressagia para o discurso público e para o futuro da política e da governação? É essa a matéria deste livro.”
De acordo com MK, dar com a verdade na Era de Trump, será tão desafiante, como encontrar uma agulha num gigantesco palheiro! 😜
July 24, 2018
The truth is this: If you like literature, this is the best book you’ve read this year. If you don’t like Trump, this will be the best book you’ve read since he descended the gilded escalator. And if you don’t like the tone of modern politics, it is the best book you’ve read in a couple of decades. It’s informative, extremely well written, and there is no personal mud slinging. It’s a book about literature and will tell you more about the politics of today (and literature) than any pundit could begin to.
The underlying point of the book is that the attack on truth began in the 1960s with the emergence of postmodernism. The author, however, does not just assert that truth, as most contemporary politicians would. She documents it; because, to her, the truth is still the truth, and it’s still important. And as Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” (I actually had lunch at a private table for four with him one time but he, sadly, did not use that quote. He did, however, talk about the outrageously high cost and lack of access to health insurance. Circa 1990!)
I am now a retired/involuntary gig economy resident of Michigan, so I understand how Trump got elected. (His opponent was actually denied, but that’s another story. Not as in cheated, but denied nonetheless.) What has amazed me ever since, however, is how stable his support appears to be. Orwell, whose 1984 I reread recently for context, could not have imagined, in his most creative moment, the current disregard for truth and honesty.
There is, nonetheless, a logical explanation, and this book provides it. It won’t make you feel any better, but it will make you feel a little less like you are wandering in the wilderness.
And, as you would expect from such a renowned literary critic, the writing is superb. It definitely made me yearn for those Sunday mornings several decades ago when I would rush out to buy The New York Times, a couple of croissants, and my wife and I would spend the morning in bed reading. (I lived in New York at the time—sans children, obviously.)
As one who truly enjoys the literary in literature and appreciates the value of words, and one who lived in China for a decade and resides in a necessarily bilingual household, my favorite line was, “Precise words, like facts, mean little to Trump, as interpreters, who struggle to translate his grammatical anarchy, can attest.”
A truly spectacular book that should be number one. You will cringe at times, laugh at others, but end up with a much better understanding of why life in America feels so surreal at the moment.
The book reminded me of the fact that during the entire time I was growing up my parents, both veterans of World War II, now deceased, refused to tell any of their children which candidate they voted for. I have no idea to this day if they were Democrats or Republicans. That, in their minds, was personal, a right to privacy they had both fought for.
Later, in the 1960s, I was a teenage boy not looking forward to receiving my draft notice and being shipped off to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. I watched Walter Cronkite religiously to get the latest news. And while it was never good he signed off each night, “And that’s the way it is.” Nobody bothers with that kind of truth any more. And that is a loss we all pay for.
The underlying point of the book is that the attack on truth began in the 1960s with the emergence of postmodernism. The author, however, does not just assert that truth, as most contemporary politicians would. She documents it; because, to her, the truth is still the truth, and it’s still important. And as Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” (I actually had lunch at a private table for four with him one time but he, sadly, did not use that quote. He did, however, talk about the outrageously high cost and lack of access to health insurance. Circa 1990!)
I am now a retired/involuntary gig economy resident of Michigan, so I understand how Trump got elected. (His opponent was actually denied, but that’s another story. Not as in cheated, but denied nonetheless.) What has amazed me ever since, however, is how stable his support appears to be. Orwell, whose 1984 I reread recently for context, could not have imagined, in his most creative moment, the current disregard for truth and honesty.
There is, nonetheless, a logical explanation, and this book provides it. It won’t make you feel any better, but it will make you feel a little less like you are wandering in the wilderness.
And, as you would expect from such a renowned literary critic, the writing is superb. It definitely made me yearn for those Sunday mornings several decades ago when I would rush out to buy The New York Times, a couple of croissants, and my wife and I would spend the morning in bed reading. (I lived in New York at the time—sans children, obviously.)
As one who truly enjoys the literary in literature and appreciates the value of words, and one who lived in China for a decade and resides in a necessarily bilingual household, my favorite line was, “Precise words, like facts, mean little to Trump, as interpreters, who struggle to translate his grammatical anarchy, can attest.”
A truly spectacular book that should be number one. You will cringe at times, laugh at others, but end up with a much better understanding of why life in America feels so surreal at the moment.
The book reminded me of the fact that during the entire time I was growing up my parents, both veterans of World War II, now deceased, refused to tell any of their children which candidate they voted for. I have no idea to this day if they were Democrats or Republicans. That, in their minds, was personal, a right to privacy they had both fought for.
Later, in the 1960s, I was a teenage boy not looking forward to receiving my draft notice and being shipped off to fight in the jungles of Vietnam. I watched Walter Cronkite religiously to get the latest news. And while it was never good he signed off each night, “And that’s the way it is.” Nobody bothers with that kind of truth any more. And that is a loss we all pay for.
May 6, 2019
"The Death of Truth" - the book is now available in German!
Kakutani's book is more like a long essay with features of an opinion piece than a thoroughly argued non-fiction book. The text's strength is clearly that the author, the former chief book critic of The New York Times, draws parallels between current phenomena and how writers like David Foster Wallace or Philip Roth commented on and described them - thus, she is highlighting how literature reflects and sometimes even shapes real life. Especially for book lovers, the fast-paced chapters, filled to the brim with interesting references and quotes, are an interesting and easy read, but that also brings us to the issue I had with the book: It lacks some necessary depth.
This plays into the question whether Kakutani's arguments are valid as presented. I agree with her basic assumptions and the premise that if facts become irrelevant, a society is doomed. She presents many examples taken from recent years but also the historical past, namely from Hitler/Goebbels and Stalin who also worked on the destruction of an intersubjective reality in order to wield limitless power without any moral accountability (so while in Fascism: A Warning, Albright shies away from directly comparing Trump's methods to those of Hitler, Kukatani does so).
What I found rather dubious though is the argument that postmodernism is a factor that helps to destroy the belief in truth and reality. Sure, people like Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida did question how well language is able to capture meaning, what role the author and the reader played in decoding messages etc., but that never meant that you can just claim anything to be true or real. To acknowledge that there are different sides to a story, that there are limits to our ability to convey our inner worlds and thoughts in language does not mean that nothing matters anymore, on the contrary: It means that we have to be mindful of those dynamics and limitations in order to come closer to truth and reality. Plus: "Stable meanings" and "eternal truths" can be very dangerous to any discourse.
But it's because some of Kakutani's arguments seemed a little dubious (but certainly not stupid) to me and made me think that I value this book: This is the kind of text that you need to read and then discuss with others, because there are tons of aspects mentioned that are worth contemplating. And if there's one thing we lack at the moment, it's people's willingness to truly think about other people's positions instead of remaining comfortable in one's own personal truths.
Kakutani's book is more like a long essay with features of an opinion piece than a thoroughly argued non-fiction book. The text's strength is clearly that the author, the former chief book critic of The New York Times, draws parallels between current phenomena and how writers like David Foster Wallace or Philip Roth commented on and described them - thus, she is highlighting how literature reflects and sometimes even shapes real life. Especially for book lovers, the fast-paced chapters, filled to the brim with interesting references and quotes, are an interesting and easy read, but that also brings us to the issue I had with the book: It lacks some necessary depth.
This plays into the question whether Kakutani's arguments are valid as presented. I agree with her basic assumptions and the premise that if facts become irrelevant, a society is doomed. She presents many examples taken from recent years but also the historical past, namely from Hitler/Goebbels and Stalin who also worked on the destruction of an intersubjective reality in order to wield limitless power without any moral accountability (so while in Fascism: A Warning, Albright shies away from directly comparing Trump's methods to those of Hitler, Kukatani does so).
What I found rather dubious though is the argument that postmodernism is a factor that helps to destroy the belief in truth and reality. Sure, people like Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida did question how well language is able to capture meaning, what role the author and the reader played in decoding messages etc., but that never meant that you can just claim anything to be true or real. To acknowledge that there are different sides to a story, that there are limits to our ability to convey our inner worlds and thoughts in language does not mean that nothing matters anymore, on the contrary: It means that we have to be mindful of those dynamics and limitations in order to come closer to truth and reality. Plus: "Stable meanings" and "eternal truths" can be very dangerous to any discourse.
But it's because some of Kakutani's arguments seemed a little dubious (but certainly not stupid) to me and made me think that I value this book: This is the kind of text that you need to read and then discuss with others, because there are tons of aspects mentioned that are worth contemplating. And if there's one thing we lack at the moment, it's people's willingness to truly think about other people's positions instead of remaining comfortable in one's own personal truths.
August 19, 2018
I have a very close friend who is highly intelligent and whose opinion I value. I had mentioned to him something about the basketball player Kyrie Irving and his quote that having flown around the world multiple times as an NBA player, he believes the earth is flat. I was incredulous that a highly educated man such as Irving who attended Duke University could believe this. My friend however had a slightly different view on it. “Well, we live in a post truth world now. You and I may believe that the earth is round but it is his experience and belief that it isn’t.”
This idea of “post truth” is at the heart of Michiko Kakutani’s book where she lays out a well reasoned case that rather than living in information bubbles, we are actually living in information silos. Where once access to demonstrably false information put out by a handful of, at best unhinged, at worst manipulative, people was somewhat contained, it now spreads like wildfires and finds its way into custom tailored newsfeeds. Dissenting opinions or any that may challenge or worldview are noticeably absent as nothing motivates clicks more than fear or outrage. Whether that fear or outrage has any legitimacy or not is inconsequential to, as my friend alluded, how it makes you feel. Or more succinctly, if I feel its true, it is.
Kakutani spends a large part of this book tracing the roots of deconstructionism and how it has brought us to this moment in time where objective truth seems to be devalued. Rather than trying to fight established and scientifically verifiable facts, one can now just prevaricate and do so with such speed and volume that a kind of fatigue to fight these lies creeps in that Kakutani describes as:
“Choose your metaphor: muddying the waters, throwing chum to the sharks, cranking up the fog machine, flinging gorilla dust in the public’s eyes: it’s a tactic designed to create adrenal fatigue and news exhaustion, a strategy perfectly designed for our ADD, information-overloaded age, ‘this twittering world’, in T. S. Eliot’s words, where people can be ‘distracted from distraction by distraction.’ ”
It is to be sure a frightening age we are entering. One where as Kakutani suggests, artificial intelligence and other technological advances may lead to a day where video and audio can be so deftly altered as to the point where we will be unable to trust our own eyes. Before that day however, we as human beings still possess the ability to filter information if we choose to step out of our silos and choose to verify what we hear, rather than let fatigue and exhaustion choose for us. The question raised by this book is, will we?
This idea of “post truth” is at the heart of Michiko Kakutani’s book where she lays out a well reasoned case that rather than living in information bubbles, we are actually living in information silos. Where once access to demonstrably false information put out by a handful of, at best unhinged, at worst manipulative, people was somewhat contained, it now spreads like wildfires and finds its way into custom tailored newsfeeds. Dissenting opinions or any that may challenge or worldview are noticeably absent as nothing motivates clicks more than fear or outrage. Whether that fear or outrage has any legitimacy or not is inconsequential to, as my friend alluded, how it makes you feel. Or more succinctly, if I feel its true, it is.
Kakutani spends a large part of this book tracing the roots of deconstructionism and how it has brought us to this moment in time where objective truth seems to be devalued. Rather than trying to fight established and scientifically verifiable facts, one can now just prevaricate and do so with such speed and volume that a kind of fatigue to fight these lies creeps in that Kakutani describes as:
“Choose your metaphor: muddying the waters, throwing chum to the sharks, cranking up the fog machine, flinging gorilla dust in the public’s eyes: it’s a tactic designed to create adrenal fatigue and news exhaustion, a strategy perfectly designed for our ADD, information-overloaded age, ‘this twittering world’, in T. S. Eliot’s words, where people can be ‘distracted from distraction by distraction.’ ”
It is to be sure a frightening age we are entering. One where as Kakutani suggests, artificial intelligence and other technological advances may lead to a day where video and audio can be so deftly altered as to the point where we will be unable to trust our own eyes. Before that day however, we as human beings still possess the ability to filter information if we choose to step out of our silos and choose to verify what we hear, rather than let fatigue and exhaustion choose for us. The question raised by this book is, will we?
November 8, 2019
DTT — A New Truth is Born 🎊
“Trump, the forty-fifth president of the United States, lies so prolifically and with such velocity that The Washington Post calculated that he’d made 2,140 false or misleading claims during his first year in office—an average of nearly 5.9 a day”
According to MK, bumping into the truth through the Age of Trump, will be something like finding a needle in a gigantic haystack, and check it out later, just in case it’s a false one!😉
“The postmodernist argument that all truths are partial (and a function of one’s perspective) led to the related argument that there are many legitimate ways to understand or represent an event."
“Postmodernism didn’t cause Trump. It explains him!”
Step aside, old Truth!...
Make way for a brand newborn Truth — DTT — Donald Trump’s trademark Truth! 😉
“Trump, the forty-fifth president of the United States, lies so prolifically and with such velocity that The Washington Post calculated that he’d made 2,140 false or misleading claims during his first year in office—an average of nearly 5.9 a day”
According to MK, bumping into the truth through the Age of Trump, will be something like finding a needle in a gigantic haystack, and check it out later, just in case it’s a false one!😉
“The postmodernist argument that all truths are partial (and a function of one’s perspective) led to the related argument that there are many legitimate ways to understand or represent an event."
“Postmodernism didn’t cause Trump. It explains him!”
Step aside, old Truth!...
Make way for a brand newborn Truth — DTT — Donald Trump’s trademark Truth! 😉
February 5, 2020
لم يسبق لي مذ أن وعيت على هذه البسيطة ان مقت شخصاً قدر مقتي للكائن المسمىٰ ( دونالد ترامب ) لذا وجدت هذا الكتاب فرصة سانحة لصب جم غضبي على هذا المدعو المسخ
رجل أحصت له الواشنطن بوست الذائعة الصيت2140 ادعاءً كاذب ومضلل خلال عامه الرئاسي الأول وذلك بمعدل 5.9 كذبة في اليوم تتنوع ما بين أكاذيبه في مسألة التحقيقات بشأن التدخل الروسي في انتخابه إلى موضوع شعبيته وانجازاته الزائفة, وإبداعاته الوقحة في نبذه لمن حوله وتطاوله المستهجن على المنظومة الصحافية التي لا تؤيد آراءه العنصرية
دونالد ترامب المدمن على مشاهدة التلفاز والذي لا يتوانى عن خلط الواقع والحقيقة بعالم افتراضي كاذب يتبع مصالحه وان كان منافياً للحقيق�� والمبادئ التي تراعي الصالح العام
لن يهز له جفن عن قتل الأطفال والعزل في سبيل صرف العالم وشعبه عن فضيحة تقوم به مؤسساته الفاسدة وسلطته الباغية
هذا الأسلوب الجديد الذي انتهجته أمريكا منذ توليه الرئاسة يعكس الواقع الهش الذي يعيشه العالم الذي تقوده هذه السلطة التي هي تتنكر بصورة حكومة لمافيا تجارة سلاح
لقد ابتدع هذا الشرير واقعه بحالة تخطت خيالات الرواة عن سرد لنرجسية فظة ديكتاتورية تستهلك نوازعها في كل ما يبذل في سبيل تأجيج فكرة شيطانية او احلال حقيقة بكذبة ما
أسعدني ان هذا الكتاب اعتمد النخبوية في مفرداته لينوء بسرده عن مستنقع الفكرة التطرفية وبرغم حياد مصادره الا انه لم يستطع ايجاد ميزة يتسم بها عصر هذا الرئيس
وما يبدو واضحاً وجلياً ان هذه الرئاسة تتبع بوقاحة تأجيج الفكر الضال لدى الدهماء وتستخلص معلوماتهم واتجاهاتهم العنصرية الفجة من خلال الخوارزميات التي تعمل على مس الوتر الحساس لديهم فتوقظ الخلايا الخبيثة في فكرهم وهكذا يطوعون التكنولوجيا في دمار العالم من اجل المال والسلطة
الكتاب وبرغم صفحاته القليلة سوف يطلعك على ما هو أدهى وأمر ... انصح به بشدة
رجل أحصت له الواشنطن بوست الذائعة الصيت2140 ادعاءً كاذب ومضلل خلال عامه الرئاسي الأول وذلك بمعدل 5.9 كذبة في اليوم تتنوع ما بين أكاذيبه في مسألة التحقيقات بشأن التدخل الروسي في انتخابه إلى موضوع شعبيته وانجازاته الزائفة, وإبداعاته الوقحة في نبذه لمن حوله وتطاوله المستهجن على المنظومة الصحافية التي لا تؤيد آراءه العنصرية
دونالد ترامب المدمن على مشاهدة التلفاز والذي لا يتوانى عن خلط الواقع والحقيقة بعالم افتراضي كاذب يتبع مصالحه وان كان منافياً للحقيق�� والمبادئ التي تراعي الصالح العام
لن يهز له جفن عن قتل الأطفال والعزل في سبيل صرف العالم وشعبه عن فضيحة تقوم به مؤسساته الفاسدة وسلطته الباغية
هذا الأسلوب الجديد الذي انتهجته أمريكا منذ توليه الرئاسة يعكس الواقع الهش الذي يعيشه العالم الذي تقوده هذه السلطة التي هي تتنكر بصورة حكومة لمافيا تجارة سلاح
لقد ابتدع هذا الشرير واقعه بحالة تخطت خيالات الرواة عن سرد لنرجسية فظة ديكتاتورية تستهلك نوازعها في كل ما يبذل في سبيل تأجيج فكرة شيطانية او احلال حقيقة بكذبة ما
أسعدني ان هذا الكتاب اعتمد النخبوية في مفرداته لينوء بسرده عن مستنقع الفكرة التطرفية وبرغم حياد مصادره الا انه لم يستطع ايجاد ميزة يتسم بها عصر هذا الرئيس
وما يبدو واضحاً وجلياً ان هذه الرئاسة تتبع بوقاحة تأجيج الفكر الضال لدى الدهماء وتستخلص معلوماتهم واتجاهاتهم العنصرية الفجة من خلال الخوارزميات التي تعمل على مس الوتر الحساس لديهم فتوقظ الخلايا الخبيثة في فكرهم وهكذا يطوعون التكنولوجيا في دمار العالم من اجل المال والسلطة
الكتاب وبرغم صفحاته القليلة سوف يطلعك على ما هو أدهى وأمر ... انصح به بشدة
June 6, 2018
Simply put, this is essential reading if you want to understand, at least in part, the political chaos caused by technology, and perpetuated by those who harness its power for authoritarian purposes.
November 8, 2019
A Verdade Enferma
“Donald Trump, o quadragésimo quinto presidente dos Estados Unidos, mente tão prolificamente e com tal rapidez que o jornal The Washington Post calculou que ele tinha feito 2140 reivindicações falsas ou enganadoras durante o primeiro ano do seu mandato: uma média de 5,9 por dia.”
Concluída esta leitura, imaginei uma imagem da Verdade de Trump, criada pelo célebre cartunista Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, que todos conhecemos por Quino:
Estou em crer que a Enferma Verdade seria enfiada numa cama 🛌, com uma Mafalda preocupada e vigilante sempre por perto, espantando todos os que dela se acercassem com um sussurrado mas vigoroso:
“Sssshhhhhhh!.... A Verdade está doente!🤕
“Isto é uma maçã: 🍎
Algumas pessoas poderão tentar dizer-lhe que isto é uma banana.
Poderão mesmo gritar «Banana! Banana! Banana!» vezes sem conta.
Poderão até escrever BANANA em maiúsculas.
E você poderia inclusive começar a acreditar que isto é uma banana.
Mas não é.
Isto é uma maçã: 🍎”
“Donald Trump, o quadragésimo quinto presidente dos Estados Unidos, mente tão prolificamente e com tal rapidez que o jornal The Washington Post calculou que ele tinha feito 2140 reivindicações falsas ou enganadoras durante o primeiro ano do seu mandato: uma média de 5,9 por dia.”
Concluída esta leitura, imaginei uma imagem da Verdade de Trump, criada pelo célebre cartunista Joaquín Salvador Lavado Tejón, que todos conhecemos por Quino:
Estou em crer que a Enferma Verdade seria enfiada numa cama 🛌, com uma Mafalda preocupada e vigilante sempre por perto, espantando todos os que dela se acercassem com um sussurrado mas vigoroso:
“Sssshhhhhhh!.... A Verdade está doente!🤕
“Isto é uma maçã: 🍎
Algumas pessoas poderão tentar dizer-lhe que isto é uma banana.
Poderão mesmo gritar «Banana! Banana! Banana!» vezes sem conta.
Poderão até escrever BANANA em maiúsculas.
E você poderia inclusive começar a acreditar que isto é uma banana.
Mas não é.
Isto é uma maçã: 🍎”
September 6, 2018
Immediately below is my preliminary 4-star review. Having finished now (after a more careful re-read from the start), I find it necessary to cut the rating to 3 for reasons discussed in the second part of the review.
* *
Halfway through but I feel I want to put some things out there right now (and by the way, although I’m early post publication, I’m reading a purchased — pre-ordered — ebook, not the holder of an ARC copy).
I’m not a Trump lover at all (I voted for Hillary), but Chapter 1 is a Trump Derangement Syndrome disaster that leaves me embarrassed; i.e. that my disdain for Trump paints me as one who would associate with that mindless rant. I really, really wish Kakutani would revise the manuscript simply by deleting Chapter 1 and then renumbering the other chapters. Seriously. Chapter 1 is that bad.
Once Kakutani stops with the amateurish political diatribe and goes back to her own wheelhouse, as a serious cultural critic (literary in her case), the work picks up steam and starts to deliver on the premise of the title, The Death of Truth. It’s not an easy read, which is not surprising since Kakutani is not an author but a critic and as such delivers points in a crisp condensed manner rather than in the elaborately drawn out way one might expect of a scholarly writer. But if you can hang with it, there’s a lot to think about.
The topic itself is a powerful and important one (I don’t usually pre-order but did so here) and I’m impressed with the perspective Kakutani brings to it; not just a chronicling of every major liar out there or essays about how subjectivity is now king. Instead, its a well-argued discussion of how this springs from larger societal developments reflected in other ways, particularly developments in the arts.
As another reviewer said, this is a short work that seems readable in one sitting but at the halfway point, I decided that this would be better appreciated by slowing down and, as another reviewer suggested, taking time to think in between chapter readings.
My rating is based on my half read and, of course, is subject to change when I finish. I took away a point because of the sophomoric Trump obsession that cheapens what otherwise looks to be a valuable and insightful dissertation. (This Trump derangement syndrome is real and is making it too easy for his critics to get lazy and think they accomplish something if they just find creative ways to say Trump sucks. Kakutani fell for it in Chapter 1, which is why I wish she’d delete it, and perhaps kill the sub-title.)
* *
OK. I’m finished now. There are terrific insights here about how and why notions of objective truth are badly damaged nowadays. I don’t dispute anything Kakutani says and appreciate how she broadened my thinking on the subject. Unfortunately, though, her insistence of maintaining the tie to Trump (understandable, perhaps, as a potent selling point for the book) limits the work to much less than it could have been.
The Trump obsession (accompanied by nods to other well-known bad guys such as Putin and Hitler) seems to have blinded Kakutani to the “truth” that falsehood flourishes with comparable valor even when supposed good guys are pulling the strings. I live in New York City, where our current Mayor and City Council President (and, it seems, next-mayor-wannabe) bill themselves as “progressives.” Their tweets and media soundbites abound in goodness. But to those mired in the day-to-day reality of life in this city, their connection to truth is every bit as strained as anything that has come out of Trump and those around him.
Yes, lies can seen as valuable tools in the hands of those we assume disseminate evil. But the merchants of good peddle falsehood with equal vigor and effectiveness.
The biggest thing that Kakutani misses, in my opinion, is the role of complexity. Even for the most objective, well-intentioned, diligent and intelligent speaker addressing an audience that really wants to know, truth can be hard to discern, very hard, and often not possible given the current state of our investigatory resources.
Kakutani herself walked right into this trap even in this book, when she made a reference to how banker misconduct in connection with the 2008 financial crisis went unpunished. It got less than a full sentence as I recall. Kakutani just stated it apparently assuming her audience (presumably educated urban and probably left leaning folks who read the NY Times where she spent most of he career) knew this to be a well established fact. There are many who do assume this, But is it? Really? Does Kakutani know what a derivative is? Does she know why mortgages are securitized? Does she know what securitization is? What does she know of the process of appraisal? What does she know of the sort of modeling done by the army of “quants” (not people with political or economic agendas but most likely physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. majors who love the creativity of developing numerical models to describe and forecast the real world) who developed the models that supported what the bankers were doing?
Part of Kakutani’s casual departure from objective truth on this topic (a departure so casual, I doubt she realizes it should even be tested for accuracy) seems attributable to Kakutani herself being influenced by some of the cultural forces she describes. But even beyond that is the complexity of the topic itself. It may be generations before any of us can confidently explain what happened and why, (Even now, there are things about the 1930s depression that can be debated.)
Complexity is not just limited to things like this, Take something that many of us wrestle with every day; diet and nutrition. Are fats good or bad? Are carbs good or bad? Etc. Answers constantly change as we learn new things.
And what we “know” now may later be seen as nonsense. We can go on and on. Are video games bad for kids or do they enhance certain cognitive skills? Is a higher minimum wage good for low income workers (more money) or bad (fewer jobs)? Etc., etc. etc. in every walk of life.
It’s important when discussing a topic like truth to avoid getting so wrapped up in a specific agenda (such as anti-Trump) that we refrain from naively accepting a whole different set of falsehoods, something that is remarkably easy to do considering how difficult it often is to identify truth. Missing this was an important shortcoming in the book.
* *
Halfway through but I feel I want to put some things out there right now (and by the way, although I’m early post publication, I’m reading a purchased — pre-ordered — ebook, not the holder of an ARC copy).
I’m not a Trump lover at all (I voted for Hillary), but Chapter 1 is a Trump Derangement Syndrome disaster that leaves me embarrassed; i.e. that my disdain for Trump paints me as one who would associate with that mindless rant. I really, really wish Kakutani would revise the manuscript simply by deleting Chapter 1 and then renumbering the other chapters. Seriously. Chapter 1 is that bad.
Once Kakutani stops with the amateurish political diatribe and goes back to her own wheelhouse, as a serious cultural critic (literary in her case), the work picks up steam and starts to deliver on the premise of the title, The Death of Truth. It’s not an easy read, which is not surprising since Kakutani is not an author but a critic and as such delivers points in a crisp condensed manner rather than in the elaborately drawn out way one might expect of a scholarly writer. But if you can hang with it, there’s a lot to think about.
The topic itself is a powerful and important one (I don’t usually pre-order but did so here) and I’m impressed with the perspective Kakutani brings to it; not just a chronicling of every major liar out there or essays about how subjectivity is now king. Instead, its a well-argued discussion of how this springs from larger societal developments reflected in other ways, particularly developments in the arts.
As another reviewer said, this is a short work that seems readable in one sitting but at the halfway point, I decided that this would be better appreciated by slowing down and, as another reviewer suggested, taking time to think in between chapter readings.
My rating is based on my half read and, of course, is subject to change when I finish. I took away a point because of the sophomoric Trump obsession that cheapens what otherwise looks to be a valuable and insightful dissertation. (This Trump derangement syndrome is real and is making it too easy for his critics to get lazy and think they accomplish something if they just find creative ways to say Trump sucks. Kakutani fell for it in Chapter 1, which is why I wish she’d delete it, and perhaps kill the sub-title.)
* *
OK. I’m finished now. There are terrific insights here about how and why notions of objective truth are badly damaged nowadays. I don’t dispute anything Kakutani says and appreciate how she broadened my thinking on the subject. Unfortunately, though, her insistence of maintaining the tie to Trump (understandable, perhaps, as a potent selling point for the book) limits the work to much less than it could have been.
The Trump obsession (accompanied by nods to other well-known bad guys such as Putin and Hitler) seems to have blinded Kakutani to the “truth” that falsehood flourishes with comparable valor even when supposed good guys are pulling the strings. I live in New York City, where our current Mayor and City Council President (and, it seems, next-mayor-wannabe) bill themselves as “progressives.” Their tweets and media soundbites abound in goodness. But to those mired in the day-to-day reality of life in this city, their connection to truth is every bit as strained as anything that has come out of Trump and those around him.
Yes, lies can seen as valuable tools in the hands of those we assume disseminate evil. But the merchants of good peddle falsehood with equal vigor and effectiveness.
The biggest thing that Kakutani misses, in my opinion, is the role of complexity. Even for the most objective, well-intentioned, diligent and intelligent speaker addressing an audience that really wants to know, truth can be hard to discern, very hard, and often not possible given the current state of our investigatory resources.
Kakutani herself walked right into this trap even in this book, when she made a reference to how banker misconduct in connection with the 2008 financial crisis went unpunished. It got less than a full sentence as I recall. Kakutani just stated it apparently assuming her audience (presumably educated urban and probably left leaning folks who read the NY Times where she spent most of he career) knew this to be a well established fact. There are many who do assume this, But is it? Really? Does Kakutani know what a derivative is? Does she know why mortgages are securitized? Does she know what securitization is? What does she know of the process of appraisal? What does she know of the sort of modeling done by the army of “quants” (not people with political or economic agendas but most likely physics, chemistry, engineering, etc. majors who love the creativity of developing numerical models to describe and forecast the real world) who developed the models that supported what the bankers were doing?
Part of Kakutani’s casual departure from objective truth on this topic (a departure so casual, I doubt she realizes it should even be tested for accuracy) seems attributable to Kakutani herself being influenced by some of the cultural forces she describes. But even beyond that is the complexity of the topic itself. It may be generations before any of us can confidently explain what happened and why, (Even now, there are things about the 1930s depression that can be debated.)
Complexity is not just limited to things like this, Take something that many of us wrestle with every day; diet and nutrition. Are fats good or bad? Are carbs good or bad? Etc. Answers constantly change as we learn new things.
And what we “know” now may later be seen as nonsense. We can go on and on. Are video games bad for kids or do they enhance certain cognitive skills? Is a higher minimum wage good for low income workers (more money) or bad (fewer jobs)? Etc., etc. etc. in every walk of life.
It’s important when discussing a topic like truth to avoid getting so wrapped up in a specific agenda (such as anti-Trump) that we refrain from naively accepting a whole different set of falsehoods, something that is remarkably easy to do considering how difficult it often is to identify truth. Missing this was an important shortcoming in the book.
July 31, 2018
“The Death of Truth” is a short book that reads like a long essay. The author, Michiko Kakutani, is a well known literary critic and former chief book review editor of the New York Times. She is (or should be) a legend to anyone interested in reading good books and being highly and critically discerning about the books that one reads. It is not necessary to agree with all that she writes, although that may well happen. It is difficult to be a discerning reader and not pay attention to what she thinks about a book.
The book is concerned with the assaults that have come to characterize the Trump Administration, ranging from the theatre surrounding the Press Secretaries that have worked for the President, to the Twitter Feed of the President, to the various public falsehoods that regularly issue in Washington DC and are catalogued by the press, to the emotional and more often than not baseless and hyperbolic attacks that issue from the President towards those with whom he disagrees. We all know about this and Kakutani is highly critical of the evolving norms that seem to focus on making claims and other statements that do not seem intended to be subjected to standards of truth or falsity - what Harry Frankfurt analyzes in his book, “On Bullshit”.
Kakutani’s book is interesting not for new points that she raises. Indeed, if one follows the mainstream press and is concerned about these issues, he or she will feel right at home. The perspective she adopts is also clear - Kakutani is deeply critical of the attack on truth and sees it as a threat to American democracy. She provides a rich context for these developments, showing that they have been around in American literary life for quite some time. She goes into some detail on deconstruction as practiced by Derrida, Foucault, and others, and how the parlor games of left intellectuals have been adopted, intensified, and put to practical use (weaponized) conservative extremists. I had noticed this too before reading this book, but am reassured by her analysis.
An interesting focus on part of the book is on the rebirth in interest in dystopian fiction, especially of a political variant, since the 2016 election. For example, Orwell has seldom sold more copies, especially 1984 and Animal Farm. She also brings up the renewed interest and relevance of Huxley’s Brave New World, which is a very different view of how civilization ends in tyranny than that of Orwell. By juxtaposing Orwell and Huxley, Kakutani hints at ways in which the current assault on truth and reason may differ from prior attacks. I hope she develops these ideas further.
The book is concerned with the assaults that have come to characterize the Trump Administration, ranging from the theatre surrounding the Press Secretaries that have worked for the President, to the Twitter Feed of the President, to the various public falsehoods that regularly issue in Washington DC and are catalogued by the press, to the emotional and more often than not baseless and hyperbolic attacks that issue from the President towards those with whom he disagrees. We all know about this and Kakutani is highly critical of the evolving norms that seem to focus on making claims and other statements that do not seem intended to be subjected to standards of truth or falsity - what Harry Frankfurt analyzes in his book, “On Bullshit”.
Kakutani’s book is interesting not for new points that she raises. Indeed, if one follows the mainstream press and is concerned about these issues, he or she will feel right at home. The perspective she adopts is also clear - Kakutani is deeply critical of the attack on truth and sees it as a threat to American democracy. She provides a rich context for these developments, showing that they have been around in American literary life for quite some time. She goes into some detail on deconstruction as practiced by Derrida, Foucault, and others, and how the parlor games of left intellectuals have been adopted, intensified, and put to practical use (weaponized) conservative extremists. I had noticed this too before reading this book, but am reassured by her analysis.
An interesting focus on part of the book is on the rebirth in interest in dystopian fiction, especially of a political variant, since the 2016 election. For example, Orwell has seldom sold more copies, especially 1984 and Animal Farm. She also brings up the renewed interest and relevance of Huxley’s Brave New World, which is a very different view of how civilization ends in tyranny than that of Orwell. By juxtaposing Orwell and Huxley, Kakutani hints at ways in which the current assault on truth and reason may differ from prior attacks. I hope she develops these ideas further.
June 24, 2018
This book scares the hell out of me.
The current state of the world and Nationalist leaders scares the hell out me.
This book does nothing to help put those fears to rest.
This book fuels these fears further.
This is the point of this book.
I hope it works for you how it has worked for me.
There was a one star detraction in the review from a perfect score as there is no breathing room. This book is unrelenting with facts and continues to hammer at the reader from the first page to the last.
There is a bright epilogue to close this book out. Thankfully.
The current state of the world and Nationalist leaders scares the hell out me.
This book does nothing to help put those fears to rest.
This book fuels these fears further.
This is the point of this book.
I hope it works for you how it has worked for me.
There was a one star detraction in the review from a perfect score as there is no breathing room. This book is unrelenting with facts and continues to hammer at the reader from the first page to the last.
There is a bright epilogue to close this book out. Thankfully.
September 16, 2018
This is not a book. It's a series of current event articles and then a rant about the current state of our discourse. I liked the point about some of the deconstruction theories leading to the post-truth environment, but there was really not much interesting or new substance here.
July 27, 2021
A sobering look at the world of politics and culture in today's world. Written during the Trump presidency, Kakutani (cultural critic for The New York Times for many years) looks at what happens when we lose faith in facts, reason, and consensus.
She focuses on the use (or rather misuse) of language, the Soviet interference with the 2016 elections, the influence and manipulation of social media, and the ways both the left and the right have given up on working together for the good of the country.
The book is fascinating but I would have liked it if she had gone into a little more detail. It is excellent as an overview to the current situation both in our country and in the larger world. She also cites a number of books that looked interesting and that I will be looking at.
Too short, very painful, and thought-provoking.
She focuses on the use (or rather misuse) of language, the Soviet interference with the 2016 elections, the influence and manipulation of social media, and the ways both the left and the right have given up on working together for the good of the country.
The book is fascinating but I would have liked it if she had gone into a little more detail. It is excellent as an overview to the current situation both in our country and in the larger world. She also cites a number of books that looked interesting and that I will be looking at.
Too short, very painful, and thought-provoking.
January 4, 2019
Skimpy little tome that rehearses all the liberal arguments against Trump you've heard a thousand times before. What makes this self-important little rant so tiresome is that Miss Michiko has no sense of humor and no sense of irony. And she never met an authority figure she didn't like. I mean, attack Trump for being coarse and crude and hateful towards women -- but don't quote Philip Roth. Insist on the value of objective truth and scientific facts if you like -- but don't quote the Pope to back up your arguments. Reading this book, you get the impression that privileged Miss Michiko sees Trump as a threat to "the established order," but she never seems to understand that the cruelty and hypocrisy of the established order is exactly what produced Donald Trump in the first place.
There are no quotes from Abraham Lincoln in this book.
There are no quotes from Abraham Lincoln in this book.
July 23, 2018
There is a certain amount of hubris in Kakutani's take that the world and politics revolves around literary trends and theories. As much as I want to buy in whole hog, the hubris is the downfall of the book. Maybe I'm getting old and cynical, but it seems much more likely (and realistic) to me that literary trends are usually in response to changes in the political and social world, not the instigators of the change. Trump seems more a product of reality television than post-modern, relativistic thought as evidenced by our literature.
So much more is going on that Kakutani can see through the literary-lens glasses.
So much more is going on that Kakutani can see through the literary-lens glasses.
September 15, 2018
Kakutani, as a former Times book critic, has read widely and is familiar with a plethora of philosophical authors. She quotes many of them in this condensed argument regarding the loss of accepted facts in our current political discourse. She attributes much of this phenomenon to postmodernist arguments that challenge consensus opinion in favor of marginal ones. Just look at anti-vaxxers and global warming deniers that reject the work of an overwhelming majority of scientists.
Kakutani recites a litany of Trump lies that most of the population is familiar with, and how they mimic the actions of totalitarian leaders like Hitler, Lenin, and now Putin. What was new to me is learning of the efforts of the German media and opposition leaders to enumerate Hitler’s lies when he first came to power. Their efforts obviously came to naught. That is a sobering thought in our current political environment.
More troubling is learning that my efforts to learn more about a person, a policy or a subject by Googling about them on the internet is based upon previous media searches—and is thus, biased. Here, I was under the impression that my searches would result in unbiased search engine results. Apparently, I have been pretty naïve. Recommend.
Kakutani recites a litany of Trump lies that most of the population is familiar with, and how they mimic the actions of totalitarian leaders like Hitler, Lenin, and now Putin. What was new to me is learning of the efforts of the German media and opposition leaders to enumerate Hitler’s lies when he first came to power. Their efforts obviously came to naught. That is a sobering thought in our current political environment.
More troubling is learning that my efforts to learn more about a person, a policy or a subject by Googling about them on the internet is based upon previous media searches—and is thus, biased. Here, I was under the impression that my searches would result in unbiased search engine results. Apparently, I have been pretty naïve. Recommend.
January 30, 2020
يُنصح بقراءته جدا، يضع النقاط فوق الحروف حول ترامب وكيف وصل للبيت الأبيض ويناقش قضية عمالته مع الروس تلك الأزمة التي تكاد تنفجر في وجهه وما هي إلا شهور وأيام ويظهر كل شيء للعلن.
July 13, 2018
The Death of Truth by Kakutani is a fairly short read, coming in ~200 pages. But it is densely written and full of quotes and insights from a large number of sources. To get the most from it, I recommend reading only a chapter at a time and really mulling over the premise of each before moving on. (Do as I say, not as I did.) That said, Kakutani is merely one of the newest authors in a long line in the past several decades to call out the attack on intellectualism, truth, and government.
My first exposures to these concepts (other than my own insights) came from Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason and Al Gore's The Assault on Reason--both of which are referenced in The Death of Truth. I think that these (and others) set the bar too high, because while I wanted to like the Death of Truth, I was not overly impressed. Kakutani updates the premise with myriad examples focused on the Trump campaign and administration. Though the examples used certainly bring the points across, I found little analysis of the underlying reasons for the current situation beyond what has already been hashed out by Jacoby, Gore, and the countless others mentioned in the book.
tl;dr: if you've not previously read any substantive book on the topic, this is a great intro (and I *highly* suggest using the book to curate a reading list). But if you've been paying attention for the last 20+ years and this is not your first rodeo, as it were, skip this in favor of a weightier tome with more analysis and insight.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC through a Goodreads giveaway.
My first exposures to these concepts (other than my own insights) came from Susan Jacoby's The Age of American Unreason and Al Gore's The Assault on Reason--both of which are referenced in The Death of Truth. I think that these (and others) set the bar too high, because while I wanted to like the Death of Truth, I was not overly impressed. Kakutani updates the premise with myriad examples focused on the Trump campaign and administration. Though the examples used certainly bring the points across, I found little analysis of the underlying reasons for the current situation beyond what has already been hashed out by Jacoby, Gore, and the countless others mentioned in the book.
tl;dr: if you've not previously read any substantive book on the topic, this is a great intro (and I *highly* suggest using the book to curate a reading list). But if you've been paying attention for the last 20+ years and this is not your first rodeo, as it were, skip this in favor of a weightier tome with more analysis and insight.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC through a Goodreads giveaway.
July 26, 2018
Brilliantly researched and assembled by an author who is undeniably, a legend. Sure, I could knock off a star for being a bit scattershot and slightly overwhelming, but the importance of this book in 2018 can't be understated.
April 28, 2019
While I agree with the author, there is nothing new here. She is just preaching to the choir. This is basically an elongated op-ed piece. At least she got it off her chest, but it didn’t do anything for me and is unlikely to sway anyone to her point of view.
July 29, 2018
Good for college students. I may assign it to one of my classes. Certainly not ground breaking, or analytically deep. Surveyish...
October 2, 2018
I bet you've never thought of Trump as a postmodernist, but according to legendary literary critic Michiko Kakutani, Trump is a product of the postmodern school of thought. According to Kakutani, a consequence of the postmodern movement was a prevalent spirit of skepticism toward "the establishment," i.e. an attitude of doubt when considering mainstream news, scholarly facts/statistics, and even established science. A product of the times, Trump has latched on to this viewpoint and, alongside his right-wing media cronies, constantly attacks any facts he doesn't like, such as global warming, immigration, and any news that casts him in a negative light (FAKE NEWS). There is always another set of facts to every story, Trump says. Terrifyingly, in Trump’s world, our world, alternative facts prevail as the notion of absolute truth decays.
Kakutani has been reading and writing about these issues for almost four decades. Her objective in The Death of Truth is to discuss Donald Trump's war on language, his efforts to normalize the abnormal, and the way the technology of the internet age has affected how we, the people, process and share information. Kakutani draws upon the extensive list of books she has read (if you are someone who likes to jot down book recommendations as they are mentioned in the text, you're in trouble; Kakutani references a different book on almost every page, and now my Amazon wish-list has grown quite a bit) and her analysis of current events to "connect some of the dots about the assault on truth and situate them in context with broader social and political dynamics that have been percolating through our culture for years."
This book isn't very long (only 173 pages before the notes section) but it's quite dense and requires a careful reading to answer the questions Kakutani presents to us. Truth is a cornerstone of our democracy. So, what happened to it?
Kakutani has been reading and writing about these issues for almost four decades. Her objective in The Death of Truth is to discuss Donald Trump's war on language, his efforts to normalize the abnormal, and the way the technology of the internet age has affected how we, the people, process and share information. Kakutani draws upon the extensive list of books she has read (if you are someone who likes to jot down book recommendations as they are mentioned in the text, you're in trouble; Kakutani references a different book on almost every page, and now my Amazon wish-list has grown quite a bit) and her analysis of current events to "connect some of the dots about the assault on truth and situate them in context with broader social and political dynamics that have been percolating through our culture for years."
This book isn't very long (only 173 pages before the notes section) but it's quite dense and requires a careful reading to answer the questions Kakutani presents to us. Truth is a cornerstone of our democracy. So, what happened to it?
September 9, 2018
This book is important for all of us who care about saving our democratic institutions and empowering the checks and balances of our three branches of government. At this time in our history, when authoritarian rule seems to becoming a possibility in the United States of America, Michiko Kakutani's book, "The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump" clearly spells out how we have allowed ourselves to arrive at this demoralizing juncture. Set aside any feelings you may harbor of fatigue or overwhelm caused by the actions of the president. Fatigue, confusion, surrender, avoidance, despair are the techniques that authoritarian despots use to subjugate populations to their will. Trump is using the Lenin and Hitler and Putin playbook to enable his survival and dominance. Nevertheless, we will take heart, we will persist, we will resist...and WE VOTE.
August 18, 2018
An exceptional book, The Death of Truth is not just a book on falsehood in the age of Drumpf. In every instance, Michiko Kakutani documents her opinions and facts with quotations from other works, making the book an amazing reference tool on democracy and freedom and the attempts by tyrants throughout history to subvert truth and freedom of the press.
I cannot recommend The Death of Truth more highly and encourage everyone to read it. Although it would be difficult for followers of Drumpf to read and accept, the logic presented is almost incontrovertible as Kakutani presents evidence throughout history and through other writings. Well-written and well-constructed, I have no doubt that this book will become referenced as well in the future.
I cannot recommend The Death of Truth more highly and encourage everyone to read it. Although it would be difficult for followers of Drumpf to read and accept, the logic presented is almost incontrovertible as Kakutani presents evidence throughout history and through other writings. Well-written and well-constructed, I have no doubt that this book will become referenced as well in the future.
August 15, 2018
Cataloging America's truth decay does not make for easy bedtime reading. While Kakutani does an excellent job of reiterating all the misrepresentations, falsehoods, and outright lies of the Trump administration, most of us have heard all of them before. Stacking them up in one volume makes the reader alternately despondent and outraged. The author's historical and cultural analysis is impressive, but more suggestions for how we might bring back truth and decency could have made this a stronger work.
July 22, 2018
For my money, the most important book on politics, culture and the phenomenon of "fake news" over the past two years. Brilliantly written and argued.
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