Do we live in a post-truth era?
There has been a terrorist attack in the center of Stockholm.
The day before I walked in that street.
The terrorist, with connection to ISIS, wanted to start chaos and disharmony in our society.
But he was also unemployed and stayed here without permission.
In the last time he mostly "smoked and slept", according to himself.
So probably he was depressed and probably angry because of the decision about expulsion from Sweden.
So the attack was just partly motivated by religion, and just by a small part or Islam, Fundamental Islamism.
Two Swedish Muslims arranged a peace meeting just some days later - and so many came.
If we had a dictatorship here, the dictator probably had used the opportunity to accuse the whole Islamic society for the attack.
Our government wont do that.
But Timothy Snyder warns in his book "On Tyranny" about this scenario. Because it has happened before.
Here is his message in a minimal package:
Yuval Harari doesn't think that we live in the post-truth era. Because there has never been a truth-era.
Bur there has probably been times when people in power has lied more than usual.
So what is a "fact" and what is "truth".
We live in a post-modern time.
The author Karl Ove Knausgård writes in an essay about the differences between photos by August Sander (from the beginning of the 20-century) and the contemporary Cindy Sherman.
Knausgård means that the photos of Sanders is connected to real people and moments.
While Sherman shows us pictures of reality, as if we saw a character in a movie.
It if as Sherman want us to know that we nowadays are so influenced by films, advertising and pictures in magazines, that we hardly can separate them from "reality".
In the post-modern era the surface are important and even the possibility to change identity.
Authenticity and truth are not so important.
Most or at least many things are social constructions, as gender, social classes and religions.
Maybe it's not strange if some of us are longing for a golden time when everything was stable and God was above us to decide everything.
But there has never been a golden age,
In a political survey made by Yugov, 1000 persons in eleven European countries were asked about their opinions (not, as usual, about what party they preferred).
And it seems that in average 50 % of the people in the survey had authoritarian - populist opinions,
Older men with limited education were over represented.
Romania in the top with 82 percent and Germany in the bottom with 18 percent.
But the average number were about 50%
Seem to be like in the US.
It can be that this opinions nowadays are more adequate than the left-right wing opinions.
But the different scales can also be measured and shown in the same diagram as it it here were the different Swedish parties is put in different axles:
Of course V stands for left-wing and H for right -wing.
GAL; green, alternative and liberal and TAN; tradition, authority, and nation.
We have a quite new and growing national party (with a big blue and yellow flower as their symbol).
Though most parties are in the middle.
It makes you wonder of it always been like this, Maybe the nationalist party in, for instance Sweden is bigger now than before because of the stream of refuges that has come in recent years.
We also nowadays a lot of people from Romania, mostly Romani people, are begging in the streets.
That becomes more understandable if you see that 82 % of the people in Romania seem to have TAN opinions.
But if most people with TAN opinions are men with little education, there must be more
people with GAL opinions in the future.
In the end love and compassion to all living beings most be the ultimate truth.
And that also includes love for nature.
If we meditate on the words you and me, we and them, humans and nature disappear.
And all we see is interaction.
The day before I walked in that street.
The terrorist, with connection to ISIS, wanted to start chaos and disharmony in our society.
But he was also unemployed and stayed here without permission.
In the last time he mostly "smoked and slept", according to himself.
So probably he was depressed and probably angry because of the decision about expulsion from Sweden.
So the attack was just partly motivated by religion, and just by a small part or Islam, Fundamental Islamism.
Two Swedish Muslims arranged a peace meeting just some days later - and so many came.
If we had a dictatorship here, the dictator probably had used the opportunity to accuse the whole Islamic society for the attack.
Our government wont do that.
But Timothy Snyder warns in his book "On Tyranny" about this scenario. Because it has happened before.
Here is his message in a minimal package:
Yuval Harari doesn't think that we live in the post-truth era. Because there has never been a truth-era.
Bur there has probably been times when people in power has lied more than usual.
So what is a "fact" and what is "truth".
We live in a post-modern time.
The author Karl Ove Knausgård writes in an essay about the differences between photos by August Sander (from the beginning of the 20-century) and the contemporary Cindy Sherman.
Knausgård means that the photos of Sanders is connected to real people and moments.
While Sherman shows us pictures of reality, as if we saw a character in a movie.
It if as Sherman want us to know that we nowadays are so influenced by films, advertising and pictures in magazines, that we hardly can separate them from "reality".
In the post-modern era the surface are important and even the possibility to change identity.
Authenticity and truth are not so important.
Most or at least many things are social constructions, as gender, social classes and religions.
Maybe it's not strange if some of us are longing for a golden time when everything was stable and God was above us to decide everything.
But there has never been a golden age,
In a political survey made by Yugov, 1000 persons in eleven European countries were asked about their opinions (not, as usual, about what party they preferred).
And it seems that in average 50 % of the people in the survey had authoritarian - populist opinions,
Older men with limited education were over represented.
Romania in the top with 82 percent and Germany in the bottom with 18 percent.
But the average number were about 50%
Seem to be like in the US.
It can be that this opinions nowadays are more adequate than the left-right wing opinions.
But the different scales can also be measured and shown in the same diagram as it it here were the different Swedish parties is put in different axles:
Of course V stands for left-wing and H for right -wing.
GAL; green, alternative and liberal and TAN; tradition, authority, and nation.
We have a quite new and growing national party (with a big blue and yellow flower as their symbol).
Though most parties are in the middle.
It makes you wonder of it always been like this, Maybe the nationalist party in, for instance Sweden is bigger now than before because of the stream of refuges that has come in recent years.
We also nowadays a lot of people from Romania, mostly Romani people, are begging in the streets.
That becomes more understandable if you see that 82 % of the people in Romania seem to have TAN opinions.
But if most people with TAN opinions are men with little education, there must be more
people with GAL opinions in the future.
In the end love and compassion to all living beings most be the ultimate truth.
And that also includes love for nature.
If we meditate on the words you and me, we and them, humans and nature disappear.
And all we see is interaction.
Comments
Post a Comment