Program on Science, Technology & Society, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Soc Stud Sci. 2017 Oct;47(5):751-770. doi: 10.1177/0306312717731936.
The label 'post-truth' signals for many a troubling turn away from principles of enlightened government. The word 'post', moreover, implies a past when things were radically different and whose loss should be universally mourned. In this paper, we argue that this framing of 'post-truth' is flawed because it is ahistorical and ignores the co-production of knowledge and norms in political contexts. Debates about public facts are necessarily debates about social meanings, rooted in realities that are subjectively experienced as all-encompassing and complete, even when they are partial and contingent. Facts used in policy are normative in four ways: They are embedded in prior choices of which experiential realities matter, produced through processes that reflect institutionalized public values, arbiters of which issues are open to democratic contestation and deliberation, and vehicles through which polities imagine their collective futures. To restore truth to its rightful place in democracy, governments should be held accountable for explaining who generated public facts, in response to which sets of concerns, and with what opportunities for deliberation and closure.
“后真相”一词标志着人们背离了开明政府的原则，这让许多人感到不安。此外，“后”这个词暗示着过去的情况截然不同，而这种情况的丧失应该被普遍哀悼。在本文中，我们认为这种对“后真相”的描述是有缺陷的，因为它是没有历史背景的，并且忽略了知识和规范在政治背景下的共同产生。关于公共事实的争论必然是关于社会意义的争论，这些争论根植于被主观体验为包罗万象和完整的现实中，即使这些现实是局部的和偶然的。政策中使用的事实在四个方面具有规范性：它们嵌入了哪些经验现实重要的先验选择中，通过反映制度化的公共价值观的过程产生，仲裁哪些问题可以接受民主争议和审议，以及通过这些政治手段想象其集体未来。为了使真相在民主中回归应有的地位，政府应该对谁产生了公共事实、针对哪些问题以及有哪些审议和结束的机会负责做出解释。
