We live in a world of relative ignorance, and we are comfortable with that ignorance because it is all we know (‘Plato’s Cave’, n.d.). Nothing can explain the issues in the 21st century like that powerful statement of Plato. Ideally, the perspective of the world has changed immensely, exacerbated by the transformation in technology and the robust use of the internet. Perhaps, it is logical and necessary to pay homage and credit to Plato for his great philosophical interpretations that are progressively manifesting themselves in modern society.
Characteristically, people are more or less likely to argue that we live in a digital age, which is true but one of the most important questions we fail to ask ourselves is whether or not the digital age has added value to what we are. It is a subjective question, yet it requires detailed reasoning to provide a coherent understanding. What most people fail to cognitively understand is the fact that technology and the internet have made us ignorant, always making decisions based on intuitions rather than reasoning.
Fake news and information has clearly been a major issue in the 21st century.
In the advent of the information era, the global society was upbeat on the implied fact that faster spread of information will facilitate and make human activities easier, prospects that have long proven true in the economic and social sense, at least from a superficial point of view. However, for those with the capacity to compressively connect philosophical knowledge to the prevailing issues relative to increased use of the internet as a source of information and sharing of knowledge, a number of parameters and societal characteristics have been adversely affected.
Society has become synonymous with fake news, truth skepticisms and increased judgments that are based on intuitions and emotional perspectives; more specifically personal judgments have been greatly undermined due to the influence of the media. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to assert that the philosophical sentiments of Plato are consistent with the issues affecting society in the 21st century, something that we are trying to exquisitely address here.
Over the past couple of years, the United States of America has experienced a surge in the number of fake news, more pragmatically connected to the 2016 presidential elections and the eventual Trump`s ascension to power. Similarly, the unfolding of the events that are preceding the efforts of Britain to separate from the European Union has been major political news, commonly known as Brexit. The idea of fake news in the current world and the resurgence of the terminological use of the word post-truth in the domestic and international political commentary is attributed to 2016 US election campaigns and the Brexit referendum. They have become the most significant talking points of fake news, skepticism about the truth, and intuitive judgment in the population of modern time (Floridi, 2016). Post-truth, a word famously used in the 2016 is the perfect fit for providing an elaborate understanding of the 2016 circumstances and how they act as a reflection of the issues surrounding in the modern world. It relates to ignorance or complacency in searching for the hard data and truth, basically stooping low for the easily provided information, which in most occasions are misleading (‘Word of the Year 2016 is… | Oxford Dictionaries’, 2016). Technically, the US 2016 elections and Brexit referendum have proved beyond doubt that post-truth is a serious modern-day challenge. Information is power, but can as well harm if it is not objectively positive for society. Essentially, the congruent of post-truth which unfortunately is synonymous in the 21st century pertains to ignoring the inherent value of using objective facts to influence public opinions, instead, public opinion is shaped by emotions and personal beliefs. This event where public opinion is greatly influenced by intuitions resonates quite well with events that led to the sentencing of Socrates. The judges in this occasion were immensely influenced by emotions and personal beliefs despite the fact that Socrates had proven facts beyond doubt that he was not guilty of accusations of corrupting the youths of Athens city (Jowett, n.d).
There are a number of arguments in contemporary society that seems implicit in explaining the potential factors that have contributed to intuitions in judgments. Whereas the modern era of technological advances has demonstrated an exponential increase in collective knowledge and the IQ, there are assumptions that one of the key challenges facing humanity is increase in skeptical views (Gleiser, 2014). Overreliance of post-truth is ignorant. Instinctively, indications are prime that the gap between what individuals are presumed to know and what the world knows is increasing exponentially with the improvements in technology. This points out the philosophical illustration of the enlightenment by Socrates where he demonstrates how human beings are living a den, unable to learn anything because the constraints of the prevailing circumstances have tied them to even notice there exists a way out (‘Plato’s Cave’, n.d.). Technically, it is explicit that technology has achieved the same fit for the current generation of people where it has crippled the ability for humans to exercise their intellectual capacity, instead focusing on cheap, easy, repeatable news rather than factual and objective reasoning (Stierwalt, 2017). As a matter of fact, these attributes that define a common individual in the modern society has resulted into the emergence of numerous issues and challenges that mankind has to put up with or invest time and resources in attempts to solve them.
In the wake of innovations and improvement of technology, it has become extremely difficult for the occurrence of events, activities, and operations to have a predictable framework, more importantly in the fields of business and politics. Interdependence is a cope with the robustness of changes being witnessed. As mentioned above, it has similar implications in leading to the inception of new problems such as cybercrimes, sophisticated terrorism, and social memes. It is some sort of satire that technological innovations and the apparent globalization have had a tremendous share of negative effects to mankind, in perspective defined on the scope of increased connectivity. Categorically, it has become common with mankind in the 21st century to make judgments based on emotions and beliefs, a fact that has surmounted the emergence of numerous issues. Discoveries have suggested that people are more likely to use personal beliefs and intuitions on complex and uncertain issues than obvious issues. This again begs the question of whether the 21st is witnessing intellectual meltdown or growth and the latter has more supportive evidence (Birkinshaw, 2017). Some of the characteristic traits that define the majority of the people in the global population and perhaps contribute significantly to inherent issues include personal biases. Perspective-taking is on the brink of collapse and logic is progressively losing ground to emotions when it comes to judgments.
The issues that have engulfed the global society in the 21st century are systemic to the advent of technology in general. Improvement in technology has immense contributions to the society, but on the counterpoise it has introduced untenable cultural and social practices that undermine the validity and credibility of information, technically turning humans into intellectual zombies. Therefore, it is important for the society to address the negative implications of increased globalization due to innovations, increased use of social media, and the spread of fake news with lack of intellectual perspective (Brooks, 2017).
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