It is said\nthat we are now living in an age known as \u2018post-truth\u2019 age, where objective\nfacts are becoming less and less important compared to appeals to emotion and\npersonal beliefs. One of the key ingredient of post-truth culture is social\nmedia, where opinions worth more than the facts. With the rise of social media\nanyone can publish his opinion about anything, and all that is needed is a\nsmartphone and an internet connection. And\nin a post-truth culture everything is relative, because there is no such thing as\nthe truth, so stories and fake news are being made up all the time.\nConsequently a new political culture arises, i.e. one that does not rely on\nevidence but lies, because it seems nobody cares about evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truth is, truth has never been\nthe main agenda of most people, so if a person stick to unalloyed reality very few\npeople will follow him. One contender in the 1952 US presidential election was\ntold by his supporter that every thinking person in America is going to vote\nfor him, and he replied: \u201cGreat, but I need a majority! Yuval Noah Harari believes\nthat human beings have always been a post-truth species because propaganda and\ndisinformation are actually not new in human history and they even managed to\nconquer this planet due to the unique ability to invent fictional stories,\nspread them around, and convince millions of others to believe in them. And\nreligion, according to Harari, is among the fictions created by man, so it\nought not to be believed just like fake news. But he also believes that humans\nprefer power to truth, because they spend more time trying to control the world\n(through invented fictions like religions) instead of trying to understand\nit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If there is no objective truth people will believe in\nwhatever they want to believe as long as they feel it is right! And the world\nwill ultimately descent into chaos and destruction. While it is true that\npeople have been using half-truths, propaganda, brainwashing and misinformation\nthroughout history in order to mislead and manipulate others it does not mean\nthat truth does not exist or that it is not possible to know. Islam, on the\ncontrary, holds that knowledge is always possible and it can be objectively\nverified. So, to a Muslim there is no such a thing as post-truth age because truth\nis always \u2018there\u2019 and human beings are bestowed with the capacity and means to\nknow and verify it. To seek knowledge therefore is the first and foremost\nobligation in Islam, and in the presence of conflicting claims and opinions the\nright attitude is to check the evidence and to judge accordingly. Yes,\nknowledge means to be able to make correct judgement pertaining to the truth or\nfalsity of a proposition. And in an era of lies and delusion we have to strive\neven more in pursuit of the truth instead of being led by just feelings. So\ntoday students have to be taught how to weight facts, consider different views,\nform an opinion and then articulate it. They must be trained to deconstruct\nclaims they see in social media, to search for evidence and objectively\nevaluate it instead of choosing those that reinforce their own viewpoints or\nfollowing popular opinions. In short they must be able to judge by themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We live in an era characterized by extensive, easy and\nquick access to information, but constant barrage of information and opinions\nenabled by the internet is not only disorienting but also making it difficult\nto discern between what is true and untrue. So there is growing fear of the\ndanger of modern information technology due to its ability to blur reality and\nmassively manipulate people\u2019s opinion. But technology is just a tool, and it is\nup to humans to use it for a good or an evil purpose. So our priority should be\nto ensure that our young generations are properly educated so that they become\ngood, ethical human beings, and only then we can expect to see good outcome. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is said that we are now living in an age known as \u2018post-truth\u2019 age, where objective facts are becoming less and less important compared to appeals to emotion and personal beliefs. One of the key ingredient of post-truth culture is social media, where opinions worth more than the facts. With the rise of social…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"_wpzoom_pinterest_image_url":"","_wpzoom_pinterest_hidden_image":"0","_wpzoom_pinterest_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[139],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-straits-times","category-139","description-off"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ikim.gov.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}