Najam Gives Lecture at SDPI on the Post-Truth Era
Adil Najam, Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, delivered a January 2, 2017 lecture on the role of the media, academics and researchers in the “post-truth” era.
Najam’s lecture, entitled “Living in a Post-Truth Era and What Does it Mean for the World and for Pakistan,” was organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in Islamabad. During the lecture, Najam argued that politics in the current post-truth society are dictated by nationalism and fear.
The lecture was detailed in a January 2, 2017 article in Pakistan Today entitled “Media, Academia and Researchers Should Play Role to Bring Truth Back, says Dr. Adil Najam.”
From the text of the article:
“The eco-system of post-truth society thrive on over information,” Dr Najam said and added that the people tend to choose the information according to their personal desires and beliefs. He said that it was the failure of the institutions of verification where fear was being used as an instrument of survival in post -truth society. He said that the post-truth era has also influenced scientific areas as well and politics on climate change was just one example of this phenomenon.
“Brexit and other expressions of ultra-nationalism around the globe were an aftermath of globalisation. Most of the people tend to ignore the falsehood and it was clearly a failure of intellectual responsibility,” he said. “The politics in the post-truth era is heavily reliant on fear, ignorance and hate; thus, being the custodian of values, the phenomenon has added the responsibility of media, academia and researchers to establish the sources of verification.”
The case of Pakistan, he said, was no different where the element of trust in politics has been eroded by over information based on falsehood. “However, the youth could define the future of Pakistan as they have been somehow resisting the post-truth society,” he concluded.
You can read the entire article here.
Adil Najam is the inaugural dean of the Pardee School and was a former Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences in Lahore Pakistan. Learn more about him here.