| dc.description.abstract | Fake news. Disinformation. Alternative facts. Foolishness and indecision are perfect words to describe the state of Western politics and society today, where facts have lost their value and right-wing populism is gaining ground. The world is changing rapidly and in unexpected ways; so much so that literary authors from across the generic spectrum—from House of Cards author Michael Dobbs to magical realist Salman Rushdie—have exclaimed that our current reality is stranger than any fiction. If there was ever much reason in Western politics, it has certainly died by now and been replaced by chaos and apathy. We live in an age of post-truth, where the distinctions between right and wrong, fact and fiction, are becoming increasingly blurred and irrelevant. In today’s upside-down world, where politicians tell lies of such mind-boggling magnitude that altogether new terms have to be invented to do them justice, while literary authors make desperate attempts to find some semblance of reality, it is high time to take a closer look at the wasteland of post-truth and see what we can learn from it. This thesis situates the phenomenon of post-truth in its historical context, engaging particularly with the idea that postmodern philosophy—as expressed by, among others, Lee McIntyre and Daniel Dennett—somehow caused this current crisis of truth. Instead, I argue that postmodern philosophy provides a framework and the tools necessary to understand post-truth, by revisiting postmodern philosophers (including Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Bruno Latour, and forerunners such as Friedrich Nietzsche) and using their insights to make sense of this crisis of truth as expressed in a range of (post-)postmodern American novels (including Dave Eggers’ The Circle, Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America). | |
