Living in a post-truth world

With ingenuity, belief in occasional divine intervention and extraordinary events in the past can sit alongside belief in the findings of science. Maintaining that God can ignore the laws of physics is compatible with accepting that on all other occasions those laws hold.

Miracles are compatible with science in what sense exactly? To a mind willing to accept anything on faith there is no rational limit to what is possible. While miracles are perfectly acceptable in the post-truth world, the use of simple rhetorical techniques to build enthusiasm for a project or cause is somehow beyond the pale:

It is not always easy to distinguish those who are creating truth and those who are creatively hiding or disfiguring it. Indeed, sometimes there is a grey area between the two, one that dissemblers exploit. Perhaps the most recent example is Donald Trump's advocacy of 'truthful hyperbole'…

Firstly, hyperbole is not a form of dissembling or disguise, but of exaggerating to elicit enthusiasm for something. Further, the "most notorious recent example" that Baggini gives is from a book published over 30 years ago. In The Art of the Deal Trump explains his technique as follows:

The final key to the way I promote is bravado. I play to people's fantasies. People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. That's why a little hyperbole never hurts. People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. I call it truthful hyperbole. It's an innocent form of exaggeration-and a very effective form of promotion. (Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal)

Baggini concludes his book on truth with a rubric of 10 rules that will help us navigate the dangers of a 'post-truth' environment. Not quite as catchy or simple as 'Clean up your room', these include the following conundrums:

• "Spiritual 'truths' should not compete with secular ones but should be seen as belonging to a separate species."

This separation of different 'truths' is a recipe for disaster in my view, especially in a society with conflicting religious belief systems and militant identity groups. To understand each other we need common ground, a shared standard of rationality that can encompass our whole humanity. The status of spiritual belief and experience is important, but no more or less than those of human emotion and feeling itself.

• "Truths need to be created as well as found."

What status does a truth have if we need to create it? And exactly what 'truths' should we create? Interestingly, he gives instant Muslim divorce or 'triple talaq' as an example of making something true through speech. This is followed by the new 'truth' of gay marriage (but probably not in the Muslim community).

• "Alternative perspectives should be sought not as alternative truths but as enrichers of truth."

The more diversity we can cram into our 'truth' package the better. Nevermind consistency or compatibility of values.