The Death of Truth

The Death of Truth WRITTEN BY MEGHA PRASAD

The death of truth is a tragedy that arrived to the 21st-century party unannounced; slipped inside somewhere between the celebratory toasts and clinks of champagne to a new technologically driven world. It then watched silently as chaos ensued.

In 2004, Mark Zuckerberg infamously sat in his Harvard dorm room and pitched to his roommates an idea that would eventually become Facebook. Over 15 years later, his initial concept of a website connecting people across the world has 2.6 billion users globally. There is no denying that modernday society has warped social media’s original intention. Where once it was a simple means of communication, social media now has its own goals and means of pursuing them.

Over the past decade, social media has evolved into capitalism’s greatest asset. A tool with the ability to obtain any information on billions of people in real-time. This information comes in the form of data points and is a means of knowing exactly who we are, how we make decisions, and who we can become. Armed with this data, companies can now influence populations with any agenda they see fit and craft their ideal consumers. For advertisers, using this information to retain people’s constant attention is the bedrock of modern business where the consumer becomes the product itself.

Prior to the rise of technology, our identity was grounded in our belief systems, upbringing, and life experiences; all of which provided a foundation to build our potential futures. The intimate integration of technology into daily life has meant that the intersection of who we are, who we will become, and who we are perceived to be, exist in two worlds – real life and the digital realm. In the digital world, the algorithms and content we interact with not only learn about us but shape us in ways we are wholly unaware of. The alluring illusion of social media is that we are in control over who we follow, what we like, and what content we see. The reality is, no matter what free will we believe we are exercising, the data

we provide to algorithms in the form of our likes, follows, and shares lends us vulnerable to subconscious influence. The result of this is a slow, unknowing death of our individual truths; our identities are bound to what the algorithm gives us and thus an imitation of reality becomes paramount.

Aside from the death of individual truth – the disregard for facts; destruction of language and manipulation of reason in favour of emotions are all issues that have rapidly evolved as a result of the aforementioned truth decay. Social media has a direct and bloody hand in this. The online world has made it possible for simultaneously everything and nothing to be true. Behind a screen, language can now be easily manipulated and weaponised against the reader for the writer’s agenda. Consequently, facts are no longer considered stable truths, but rather are considered opinions to be argued against. This has only been further fuelled by algorithms providing individuals with content they solely engage and ultimately agree with leading to echo chambers of hyper-polarised thoughts. Thus, as those on each pole are strengthened to believe in their correctness and virtue – the central ground of common truth has also become non-existent.

To survive the demise of these truths, the West has now fed into social media’s second sleight of hand. Vegetarianism, manifestation, and meditation are all spiritual practices that have existed in the East for thousands of years and are no less prone to the algorithms. These customs have been transformed into the health and wellness trends we see today to combat western society’s plummeting mental health. Capitalism and colonialism are long-standing allies; thus, it is no surprise that once these eastern beliefs were perceived as profitable, they were repackaged, commodified, and commercialised with little respect for the cultures behind them. The more this content was consumed and deemed advantageous; the more technology was used to serve capitalism’s ultimate monetary goals. It is in this way that cultural appropriation becomes a trend to be mass-produced and the cultural truth from which such practices were born, is lost.

The death of our truths sits at the table of the new world in the way that uninvited guests often do – masquerading purpose where their havoc is unwelcome. Now, at the end of the party, what is left? The double-edged sword of technology is a blade that as years go by has only been proven more difficult to wield. Nevertheless, the truth may still rise from the dead. Each individual’s existence is multi-dimensional and to believe that the online world could ever capture its extent is a disservice to all that we are and all that we can be. The reality we shape for ourselves offline will never be an imitation but rather is our most authentic self in all its intricate beauty. It is only when this is understood that we realise – the truth will always be elusive yet the only way to catch it is in person.