Are We Living in a Post-Truth World?
✍️ Inspired by Logically Fallacious by Bo Bennett, PhD
(Direct quotes reproduced from the Academic Edition, 2020)
🌍 Welcome to the Age of “My Truth”
We hear it all the time:
“That’s true for me.”
“I believe it, and that’s all that matters.”
We live in a world where personal conviction often outweighs objective truth.
In the opening of Logically Fallacious, Bo Bennett puts it bluntly:
“There are those who say that we are living in a ‘post-truth world.’ This is the idea that the truth no longer matters. People back up their personal religious beliefs by stating, ‘It’s true to me, and that’s all that matters.’ People support their political candidate despite lie after lie by finding a way to derive a kernel of truth from their candidate’s lies.”
Sound familiar? Scroll through your social feed today and you’ll see hundreds of “kernels of truth” wrapped in emotional arguments, memes, or moral outrage. We’ve all been there — it feels true, so we click “share.”
But Bennett reminds us that while feelings change, truth doesn’t:
“The concept of truth has not changed; what has changed is our willingness to sacrifice our intellectual integrity for information that supports our beliefs, personal values, and ideologies.”
That, right there, is the heart of the post-truth problem.
🧠 Why Truth Still Matters
Think of your brain as an engineer’s toolkit. The tools themselves — logic, reason, observation — haven’t changed since Aristotle first started cataloging fallacies 2,000 years ago. What’s changed is how we use them.
As Bennett writes:
“Most of us get our ‘news’ from social media and heavily-biased media sources that we choose based on what confirms what we already believe to be true. This creates an echo chamber… only making us more confident that the information and perspective we receive is the ‘truth.’”
In other words, we’ve built personalized bubbles where every post nods in agreement. The more we scroll, the more we believe we’re right.
The result?
We stop checking our reasoning.
We stop questioning our sources.
We stop changing our minds.
And as Bo warns, “This story does have a happy ending — or it can.”
Because there is a solution — it starts with learning to recognize our own errors in reasoning, also known as logical fallacies.
🧩 The Hero in the Post-Truth Story: Critical Thinking
Bo Bennett clarifies what his book is really about:
“This is a book about reason, not formal logic. Fallacies have been discussed in philosophy since Aristotle first introduced them in his work On Sophistical Refutations.”
You don’t have to be a philosopher to think clearly. You just need a willingness to question what you believe — and how you came to believe it.
That’s where identifying logical fallacies becomes a superpower. Every time you catch a fallacy (whether in a headline, a debate, or your own argument), you’re doing your small part to bring more truth back into our world.
Or as Bo puts it:
“Being able to identify errors in reasoning, known as logical fallacies, is a way that you can do your part to bring more truth back into our ‘post-truth world.’”
💬 Real-World Example: “It’s True Because I Believe It”
Imagine a friend says:
“I don’t trust vaccines — I just know they’re bad. Everyone I know online agrees.”
The reasoning sounds confident, but it’s built on emotion and social proof, not logic.
The belief feels true because it’s been echoed and reinforced inside a personal echo chamber — exactly what Bennett warns about. The conclusion may be comforting, but the reasoning is fallacious.
The fix? Ask:
- What’s the evidence?
- What’s the source?
- Could my belief be based on something that merely feels right?
That’s the kind of question Bennett wants us all to start asking.
🔎 What We’ll Learn Next
This 12-week series on Logical Fallacies (inspired by Bo Bennett’s work) will help you:
- Spot deceptive reasoning — in others and in yourself
- Understand why smart people fall for bad arguments
- Build stronger, more rational beliefs
- And yes, win debates without being a smart-ass (more on that in Week 5!)
💡 Final Thought from Bo Bennett
“Being able to identify errors in reasoning… is a way that you can do your part to bring more truth back into our ‘post-truth world.’”
That’s not just a call to logic — it’s a call to integrity.
🚀 Call to Action: Think Like a Logician This Week
- Pick one news headline that made you emotional.
- Ask: What’s the reasoning behind this claim?
- Identify whether it’s based on fact, belief, or fallacy.
- Share your reflection — not your outrage.
Because every time you reason clearly, you make the world a little less “post-truth” and a little more truth-based.
🔖 Reference:
Bo Bennett, PhD (2020). Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies (Academic Edition). Archieboy Holdings LLC.
