OPTIONAL THEME:
KNOWLEDGE AND POlitiCS
POST TRUTH?
Oxford Dictionaries declared "post-truth" as its 2016 international word of the year!
Image source: Oxford Languages
CLASS ACTIVITY I
ARE WE LIVING IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD?
What are the implications for knowledge and knowing when complex and contentious issues are reduced to simplified soundbites. Recently, the sheer volume of digital dross, clickbait, conspiracy theories, thinly disguised appeals to base emotion, mistrust of scientific expertise; and obfuscations like “alternative facts” and “fake news,” have made it increasingly difficult for students to discern what is true.
Does this mean we are now living in a “post truth” world or has it always been this way and we are simply becoming more aware of it?
The political aspects of this important question are, of course, inextricable from knowledge and technology.
In the introduction to knowledge and politics we initially made light of the banal truism that “might is right,” by including a clip from the 1996 Matilda movie. Danny DeVito, playing the nasty dad character, violently pokes his (much smarter) step-daughter and yells in her face, "I'm smart; you're dumb. I'm big; you're little. I'm right; you're wrong... And there's nothing you can do about it!"
The real world political ramifications are all too familiar. In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt highlights another sinister aspect. She identifies deliberate, bare-faced lying, without fear of redress, as a measure of despotic power. According to Arendt, “before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Several of your students may be familiar with these and other iconic photos often presented in IB history courses. Ask them to elucidate approximate time and place, identify the two key players and attempt to explain why photographs like these were altered by Stalin's darkroom technicians.
Briefly address the following generative questions:
Would images like these be successful propaganda today? Why?
What recent technological advances have further debased the notion that “the camera cannot lie”?
How should we approach academic history written under the auspices a totalitarian regime?
Show this Deepfake Alternative Queen’s speech video for fun; and to set the stage for the “Then and Now” class exhibition that follows.
Visit Faking it in the knowledge and technology theme for a behind the scenes look at how this Deepfake video was made by Channel 4.
Next we return to Hannah Arendt. Ask students to read in silence, and then have a volunteer read aloud, the quotation below. Break the 4th wall and let them know that this particular quote directly influenced the educators who developed the new TOK program. Concerns about the contemporary resonances of the notion of a nightmare scenario where “everything is possible and nothing is real,” played into building political, digital, and statistical literacy into the new TOK curriculum.
“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true... 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, under such conditions, 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.”
CLASS ACTIVITY II—
PROPAGANDA THEN AND NOW
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION
This informal “Propaganda Then and Now” virtual exhibition, of course, evokes the formal TOK Exhibition. Students should work in pairs to select two exhibits. One should be more or less contemporary (current would be best, but certainly within the last decade) the other historical. The 20th Century and the latter part of the 19th Century offer rich pickings for the historical choice.
Student pairs should embed their chosen publicity/advertising/propaganda images to a shared Google Slide document (or equivalent). Allow 10-15 minutes for online research. Later, when the slideshow is projected to the whole class, students will say a few words about their choices.
During the slideshow avoid teacher censorship, but provide editorial on any images or videos containing racist, misogynistic or other offensive material notwithstanding the historical context. Do not allow general class discussion at this stage. Tell students that their emergent thoughts and questions will be the raw material for the conversation activity that is coming next.
INTERLUDE:
—IN PREPARATION FOR THE NEXT ACTIVITY—
A REALLY GOOD CONVERSATION
This class activity hinges on students engaging in, and being aware they are engaging in, a conversation. And not just any conversation--a really good conversation! But what is a good conversation? Isn't it obvious? Begin by asking students what they think?
How would you characterize a really good conversation?
Record highlights of student responses informally on the white board. Based on this input, craft some consensual, advance agreements, and stated optimal conditions for participating in a high-quality, productive conversation. You will likely generate some version of this:
There is something exhilarating about a really great conversation! It was time well spent. It felt productive and you learned something.
A good conversation is engrossing and feels like it has a life of its own.
It unfolds spontaneously and you cannot predict the direction it will take in advance. You go with the flow, allowing yourself to be carried along by any novel subject matter that arises, as well as questions and unanticipated directions/tangents that emerge.
You don’t have to stay within the confines of the original topic. It is precisely the digressions, detours—and silences—which are the fruits of what is being uncovered in the subject matter.
Humor is good in a conversation. Laughter is mainly a tool for social bonding.
A conversation is not a debate--a zero sum game with a winner and a loser. There is respectful, active listening and a productive to-and-fro with participants actually responding to what the other is saying—adding an element, posing a question, enlarging—rather than waiting to make their own precious point disjointedly.
Let go. Do not try to control.
Be sincere and open. We are more likely to learn something when we are able to air and test our biases and prejudices in relative safety.
A conversation can remain a conversation if it takes a confrontational turn, but will break off if either participant resorts to manipulative trickery or an argumentative tone of speech.
If as a collective your class missed a few salient points, do not hesitate to steer them. The activity that follows depends on having that really good conversation! If students get quite close to encapsulating what makes a good conversation, even with significant Socratic intervention, congratulate them wryly. From first principles, they have echoed what German philosopher, Hans Gadamer proposed after a lifetime of study.
Photo source: Universitat Heidelberg/Reinhardt
CLASS ACTIVITY III—
POST-TRUTH CONVERSATIONS
Assign the students in random pairs. Tell them explicitly that they are now “conversation partners”! Have them sit opposite each other comfortably. Unleash 6-7 minutes of good conversation based on the following generative questions. Encourage students to refer to: Trotsky being air-brushed out of history, Arendt quotes, Holocaust Museum. Snyder’s On Tyranny, the “Propaganda Then and Now” virtual exhibition, Jonestown, and the Deepfake Queen’s speech, as source material.
1. Are we really living in a post-truth world or have we always been surrounded by obfuscations and lies disguised as facts?
2. Have we reached a tipping point in our digital age where the sheer volume of advertising, distraction and outright deception have created a new chapter for humanity worthy of the name “post-truth”?
You will know that the activity is going well if there is a buzz in the room and students appear engrossed. Provide a genteel 2 minute warning. When the time is up, interrupt more politely than usual, modeling respect for the rare magic of getting lost in really good conversation.
Don’t ask students in the first instance about content; ask them if they were having a really good conversation, and if so what were some of the vital signs? Allow them to share their thoughts about what just happened. It may or may not be necessary to add that if any of the conversations lacked flow and did not have a life of their own, what could they as participants. pre-committed to expanding mutual understanding, do next to improve things?
Next combine combine pairs of bonded conversation partners to make groups of four. Remind them of the need for good listening in this new dynamic. The unleash at least another 5 minutes on the following supplementary generative questions.
3. Has “post-truth” muddied the waters? Have the consequences of fake news, social media bubbles, partisan echo chambers and the like, made it more difficult for TOK students to discern the difference between good and bad interpretations and to avoid the pitfalls of outright relativism?
4. In a populist, post-truth era has it become harder for IB students to embrace the value of multiple perspectives and to maintain an unjaded international mindset?
Read the room and consider allowing the conversation quartets, with fair warning, some concluding minutes of really good conversation.
Finally, allow some time for full class discussion focused on Question 4. The question may appear commonplace and innocuous at first glance; a closer reading will reveal that it is highly nuanced. In fact it is not an exaggeration to state that variations on this very question underpin much of the new TOK curriculum.
At the very least, pondering the question will enable students to gain some second order, holistic, meta-perspective on their own IB experience.
ENDNOTE: WORTH THE FIGHT
On its very best days, TOK cultivates a nuanced and very particular mindset that is, at once, subversive, curious and pluralistic. Facts, evidence and the pursuit of truth are critical. We are only human. Embracing our inherent fallibility and the frontiers of our ignorance are essential to our quest for knowledge and understanding. At times we must live with ambiguity, incommensurability and paradox. If we keep our wits honed. we can navigate a so called “post-truth” world.
Waterhouse, John William (1891) Odysseus and the sirens Oil on canvas National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne
“Crafty Odysseus faces a series of trials as he seeks to return home after the victory at Troy. The most apposite test was that of the sirens. Their song was irresistible because they adapted it to each listener, like the algorithms of today.
Anyone who yielded to their summons would die. Odysseus wanted to understand the sirens, but he also wanted to live and move on. He made a plan with his men. He had his sailors stop their ears with wax and tie his body to the mast. He heard the sirens, he felt his limits, he learned, and he persisted.
Like Odysseus and his ship, we have the technology we need to live and move. We have also created a digital siren song that will tell each of us what we want to hear. Together though, we can understand our nemesis—and ourselves—and move on. It took him twenty years, but Odysseus made it home.
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Why do you think Lee Macintyre approved this particular image for the front cover of his book? What are the implications? What is at stake?