We’re delighted to be taking part in the inaugural Bray Literary Festival 2017 in an event that’s free and open to all – drop in and join the conversation on the post-truth world (not just UK and United States of America…).
As an organisation based in Bray we’re particularly happy to be involved in the festival.
More info on event is below.
When: Sunday 24th September 2017
Time: 12.30-13.30
Place: Harbour Bar, Bray, Co. Wicklow
The post-truth is out there.
2016 was a year dominated by highly charged political and social circumstances. The Oxford dictionary declared “post-truth” as the Word of the Year.
Oxford Dictionaries President Casper Grathwohl tells us that it has been ‘fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time’.
What are the implications beyond the UK and the United States of America? Distorting the truth is not a new industry, particularly in contexts that involved power-grabs over democratic institutions and as a tool for suppressing facts over fiction in public relations exercises.
As the implications of business-as-usual approaches to affluent modern lifestyles are now seen in some of the richest and poorest countries, are linked to the rise of economic inequalities within and between countries and an irreversible changing climate system, these converging realities place new shocks to standards of dignity, a common humanity and happiness on an increasingly more unequal planet.
Are facts no longer sacred? Who is to blame? What does the post-truth world look like beyond the noise of social media bubbles and UK and US headlines? What can we do about it?
Tony Daly will be in conversation with environmental scientist Cara Augustenborg and child refugee rights campaigner Grace McManus. This event is brought to you by the team that produced 80-20 Development in an Unequal World, 7th edition – a primer on key international development, human rights and sustainability issues and ideas co-published by the New Internationalist, Oxford and 80:20 Educating and Acting for a Better World, Bray.
Photo credit: This is a pipe (2010) by Thomas Hawke, via Flickr (CC-BY-NC-2.0)