Nostalgic post-truth: towards an anti-humanist theory of communication

ENDiscussions of post-truth have underpinned attempts to understand contemporary politics for already nearly a decade. Nevertheless, the domi- nant interpretations of post-truth fail to fully capture the nature and meaning of this phenomenon and, therefore, to provide a politically productive theory of post-truth. That is because of the nostalgic nature of such accounts: they, either implicitly or explicitly, emphasize ‘post-truth’ as a retreat from the Enlightenment ideal of objective reason, as an irrup- tion of the emotional masses into the epicentre of agenda-setting—either through communicative actions of populist politicians—or as a result of technological change (or both in tandem). Paradoxically, such thinking is structurally identical with the populism those same authors aim to criticize: effectively, truth has allegedly been undermined and, therefore, supposedly has to be made great again, while those in defence of truth need to take back control. By contrast, this chapter calls for an alternative view of politics as a tragic domain in which individuals and groups may compete and suffer, but ultimately in vain due to the underlying ground- lessness of social life. As a result, post-truth should better be seen as a moment of unconcealment, as the becoming-evident of the impossibility of privileged subjects and privileged knowledge positions.The chapter is structured as follows. First, the mainstream depictions of post-truth are reviewed, focusing on their nostalgic character and the emergent dichotomies of good versus evil that underpin the supposed epochal nature of post-truth. The second part of the chapter deals with the criticisms of the dominant narrative as misguided nostalgia for a non- existent ideal. Finally, in order to move beyond the humanist focus on a single superior reason, an alternative, tragic take on politics is developed [Introduction].