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212th out of 218 books
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21 voters
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True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society
Why has punditry lately overtaken news? Why do lies seem to linger so long in the cultural subconscious even after they've been thoroughly discredited? And why, when more people than ever before are documenting the truth with laptops and digital cameras, does fact-free spin and propaganda seem to work so well? "True Enough" explores leading controversies of natio...more
Hardcover, 250 pages
Published
March 1st 2008
by John Wiley & Sons
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This was my election 2008 attempt-to-escape-the-news read. And it served its purpose well. It covers an awful lot of ground, but its main point is this. People tend to interpret and understand new information in a way that accords with their existing views. Just as fans of opposing teams "see" different football games (and blame referees accordingly), consumers "see" different news reports. And although we look for truth (to a point), we are seeking information that jibes...more
Not living up to the title irks me, even if the book remains thought-provoking and readable.
When you entitle a book with something like, "Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society", there's an implication that you might drop a few bits of wisdom on what the hell you should actually do about the current state of affairs.
Farhad Manjoo sets up his arguments quite well, asserting that the changes in media and the way humans think has led to a fractured culture where p...more
When you entitle a book with something like, "Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society", there's an implication that you might drop a few bits of wisdom on what the hell you should actually do about the current state of affairs.
Farhad Manjoo sets up his arguments quite well, asserting that the changes in media and the way humans think has led to a fractured culture where p...more
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There's really nothing new in Manjoo's book. Yes, I realize that I'm always being sold something. Yes, I realize that I have a pre-existing mindset. I know that there are right wing lobbyists that are always up to their nefarious ends...
The book wasn’t bad though. It just reiterated what I already knew. It relied heavily on some sociology experiments that were rather fun to read about, and heaven knows I would never pick up “Journal of Personality and Social Psycho...more
This book is about the psychology involved in evaluating information. Why was the swift boat campaign against John Kerry successful? Why do conspiracy theories surround the 9/11 tragedy? Experts or so-called experts are influential even if their arguments have no merit - the Dr. Myron Fox effect. Because of personal bias, different people who look at the same set of facts are likely to arrive at drastically different conclusions. There is that Daniel Patrick Moynihan quote about opinion and...more
Richard
marked it as to-read
Recommended to Richard by:
NY Times article "Texts Without Context"
Shelves:
non-fiction
This book is mentioned in the thoughtful-if-long New York Times Magazine article "Texts Without Context", which explores how technology is altering the way we absorb ideas, especially the written word, and how that change in subjectivity is setting us up for subtle but radical shifts in everything from political discourse to the rights of authors.
With respect to this book itself, the article includes the following paragraph:
With respect to this book itself, the article includes the following paragraph:
As Mr. Manjoo observes in “True Enough: Learning t...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
This book was really terrific, as might be evidenced by the fact that I flew through it in three days. But don't let that fool you - it wasn't all fluff and non-sense. There are some really great ideas in here and though the information is mildly complex and riddled with sociological terms, it never feels intimidating or unreadable; in fact, I'd say it reads like the perfect text book on modern mainstream media. A lot of ground is covered - how the left and right differ in their thinking, why th...more
"Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" --George Carlin
"This isn't about what is . . . it's about what people think is. It's all imaginary anyway. That's why it's important. People only fight over imaginary things." --Neil Gaiman, American Gods
"If they think it's the truth, then they believe it, and if they believe it long enough, then it becomes the truth." --J...more
"This isn't about what is . . . it's about what people think is. It's all imaginary anyway. That's why it's important. People only fight over imaginary things." --Neil Gaiman, American Gods
"If they think it's the truth, then they believe it, and if they believe it long enough, then it becomes the truth." --J...more
If you like Malcolm Gladwell-esque social science books about how other people think and why they act the way they do, this is the book for you. If you've ever wondered how people can be so blind to the facts, or draw such stupid conclusions, or watch Fox News, "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society" explains it all.
Manjoo, who now writes for Slate (but who wrote for Salon when the book was published) uses real-life case-studies to illustrate and illuminate ...more
Manjoo, who now writes for Slate (but who wrote for Salon when the book was published) uses real-life case-studies to illustrate and illuminate ...more
A brilliant little book; almost a long essay on the nature of truth in the modern age. Manjoo describes a situation that is post-post-modern: not only is there no truth, only control of the narrative, but there is a myriad of narratives and the digital age gives us access to all of them: truth seems to be at once dead and continuoulsy created. Dealing with ideas like biased attribution and naive realism (where a subject agrees with facts that already fit his preconceptions but, at the same time...more
2009 Writer as Witness Book.
Another reviewer mentions how the book did not live up to the title, and I share that frustration. Manjoo bids us to "choose wisely" when we evaluate the information with which we are bombarded...but offers little on how to break free of our biases. I think most of us know which camps we fall into (for example, I watch the Daily Show and listen to NPR--guess which way I vote?!) and do choose the information that supports our views. And we unde...more
Another reviewer mentions how the book did not live up to the title, and I share that frustration. Manjoo bids us to "choose wisely" when we evaluate the information with which we are bombarded...but offers little on how to break free of our biases. I think most of us know which camps we fall into (for example, I watch the Daily Show and listen to NPR--guess which way I vote?!) and do choose the information that supports our views. And we unde...more
A lot of what I read now has to do with sociology and psychology, as it is at least peripherally useful when it comes to my job which involves influencing people. This book offers some ideas that I haven't heard of before, concepts of weak and strong dissonance, and the idea that different political leanings result in different reactions to weak dissonance and strong dissonance. I highly recommend this book to anyone who takes for granted that people can be convinced by reason alone--and espec...more
I want to rate this both 3 and 5 stars at the same time. What it's saying is critically important and represents, I think, a huge danger to global society, and it has numerous interesting case studies and examples. Reading this book made Fox News's popularity make sense to me, for example (and no, not all the examples are on the right side of the political spectrum -- the "Bush stole the election" meme gets a good drubbing here too). So 5 stars for the intent and the content. But it's ...more
The author presents a convincing theory about how we are creating our own versions of "truth" (reality), aided by the multiple dispersion of information on the Internet and in the media. This dispersion and repackaging of facts only adds to fragment society. This tends to conflict with our general idea that because of how readily available so much information is, we should be headed more towards a consensus of facts, of the "truth". I like this book for the idea it present...more
Very interesting book, although Manjoo was really just preaching to the choir with me. It certainly gets the wheels turning though, and I would recommend it to anyone who thinks this nation as a whole is badly in need of some information literacy skills. Although I should point out that I think the best parts of this book were the ones that made me realize how multi-dimensional information can be. Some of the people who reside firmly in a "post-fact" world are VERY good at doing resear...more
I think this is an important book, but I think it is out of date. I think that in especially the last year we have seen that personal bias isn't limited to the "left vs. right" view of the world. Many news programs you see today might have a left or a right bias while simultaneously having a pro-corporate bias. This book was written before anyone but people like me were thinking like that. Much of television news and, as we've seen with CEOs, simply assumes that it's correct to vie...more
Tony Canas
added it
This book was not at all what I thought it would. I thought it would deal with how to deal with a world where all the facts are easily available on Google and wikipedia and there's no facts left to argue over. It's the complete opposite. It's a very interesting study of how our attention has fragmented and we no longer agree on the base facts. For example: Was John Kerry's Vietnam record real or did he lie about it? The facts show that his record is real, but well placed propaganda from the righ...more
Excellent book. Should be required reading in high school or college.
Clearly sets out how we selectively hear news to fit with our world view and that in the age of the internet, this has become more extreme to where no one is ever required to encounter facts that might show them where their views are wrong.
My only quibble is that at the end, as he looks forward to new types of media, Mr. Manjoo appears to fall victim to exactly this. As a silicon valley denizen, he's bought...more
Clearly sets out how we selectively hear news to fit with our world view and that in the age of the internet, this has become more extreme to where no one is ever required to encounter facts that might show them where their views are wrong.
My only quibble is that at the end, as he looks forward to new types of media, Mr. Manjoo appears to fall victim to exactly this. As a silicon valley denizen, he's bought...more
Manjoo's book iterates that a majority of us choose to get our information from our preferred sources, those that align with our tendencies and beliefs, thus creating a very skewed view of the world and facts therein. Indeed, it has become easier for publishers, content authors, and news outlets to create content that is overtly false. Do we choose to trust the experts, those who are well-studied, published, and reviewed? Or will we choose to live in our own reality infused with information from...more
Mmm... truthiness. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and apparently so are a lot of other things. As Manjoo explores the "truth" behind a variety of controversial (and not-so-controversial) new items (Kerry and the Swift Boat, stealing of the 2004 election, 9/11, etc.) I started to feel confirmed in my opinion that I should never trust anything, ever. Combining news information, personal research, and psychological studies, Manjoo concludes that our eyes, ears, and mind regularl...more
This is a timely book. In fact, this is the book I'd like to have written. It addresses one of the most interesting questions of our time: how is that we are more "connected" than ever, and yet more isolated and fractured than ever? The young author makes a very good stab at this and writes with amazing clarity. I worry alot about the rise of 'truthiness' and our increasing trend to seek out opinions that reinforce our own rather than to engage in real fact finding or truth seekin...more
Liberally samples examples and theories from cognitive psychology, media studies, and contemporary to support his notion that 21st century Americans are literally able to choose their own truths. If you know someone who exclusively watches Fox News, or is certain the moon landing was a hoax, you know what Majoo is talking about. This has given me a lot to think about for my own studies, but I wish he had been a bit more rigorous in his examination of relevant theories. But it's not an academic w...more
Very interesting book. It talks about the 'splintering of realities' that has happened in the internet years that allows people to sincerely believe, and convince others, such miths as: HIV does not cause AIDS, that Obama really is a Muslim terrorist, and that 9/11 really was a US conspiracy.
How did we get to a point where these myths appear 'true' enough that so many people could be taken in by them? Farhad Manjoo analyzes at the contributing factors, and helps us to imagine what the...more
How did we get to a point where these myths appear 'true' enough that so many people could be taken in by them? Farhad Manjoo analyzes at the contributing factors, and helps us to imagine what the...more
This book made me angry - mostly because there's not much we can do about the problem the book addresses. The main idea of the book is that with the Internet and other ways of quickly and cheaply providing information to the public, we are often provided with two - or more - versions of the "truth." That people with very little expertise or knowledge in a particular area can sway thousands simply by posting persuasive (if untrue) information online, and that people now select and int...more
I really like what Manjoo has to say about technology and geeky techy stuff in the column he writes for Slate. I sort of thought his book might build off that, and talk about how technology and the Internet impact the way we perceive what is "true" and what we believe. That wound up being a very, very small part of this book. I'm not even sure what the majority of the book was about. It was just a disjointed ramble about cable news hacks (Lou Dobbs gets an entire chapter), Steven C...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
oriana
marked it as to-read
S'possible that this book will be too smart (or too dry) for me, but it sounds fascinating and I should like to try.
I don't know whether this features explicitly in the book or not, but in the same article where I heard about this book, a new word & concept was mentioned: agnotology, the study of culturally constructed ignorance. Fucking genius. Examples include the Swift Boat Veterans, cigarette companies spending jillions on proving that their product doesn't cause cancer, creation...more
I don't know whether this features explicitly in the book or not, but in the same article where I heard about this book, a new word & concept was mentioned: agnotology, the study of culturally constructed ignorance. Fucking genius. Examples include the Swift Boat Veterans, cigarette companies spending jillions on proving that their product doesn't cause cancer, creation...more
Let me start off by saying that True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society is the best book I've read in a long time.
In it, Manjoo sets out to make three main points:
1) People consume news in such a way as to confirm their own preconceived biases and notions of the way in which the world works.
2) With the splintering of media (tv > cable, newspapers > web, etc) it has become easier than ever before for individuals to only expose themselves to information ...more
In it, Manjoo sets out to make three main points:
1) People consume news in such a way as to confirm their own preconceived biases and notions of the way in which the world works.
2) With the splintering of media (tv > cable, newspapers > web, etc) it has become easier than ever before for individuals to only expose themselves to information ...more
This was a really good book that made me think quite a bit. Specifically, the changes in the way the news has been presented over the years were interesting. The concept of "naive realism" was especially intriguing.
I have a favorite paragraph, want to hear it? Here it goes:
"For people who feel strongly about an issue - for Apples fanatics, for abortion partisans, for folks who think they know the truth about global warming or what's going on in the Middle E...more
I have a favorite paragraph, want to hear it? Here it goes:
"For people who feel strongly about an issue - for Apples fanatics, for abortion partisans, for folks who think they know the truth about global warming or what's going on in the Middle E...more
Simple but illuminating. 50 years ago, when there were just a handful of news sources, we all roughly agreed on the basic facts of the political world. We just argued about the implications. Now there are sources of news for every interest and bias, so we no longer agree on even the facts. We can easily see the result: polarized electorates and an inability to maintain rational discussions about politics.
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