Fact-challenging arises from motive to protect beliefs and enables political domination

Evidence

Someone does not dispute an obvious or easily confirmable fact for no reason; he or she does so when it is to his or her advantage. When a person’s beliefs are threatened by an “inconvenient fact,” sometimes it is preferable to challenge the fact. This can happen at either a conscious or unconscious level (since sometimes the person we are seeking to convince is ourselves), but the point is that this sort of post-truth relationship to facts occurs only when we are seeking to assert something that is more important to us than the truth itself. Thus post-truth amounts to a form of ideological supremacy, whereby its practitioners are trying to compel someone to believe in something whether there is good evidence for it or not. And this is a recipe for political domination. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 49

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines post-truth as ideological supremacy aimed at compelling belief regardless of evidence.
• XREF: connects to: Brexit and Trump’s election resulted from rather than caused post-truth — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 53; Repeated truths eventually overcome even motivated reasoners’ resistance — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 322; The layered structure of belief makes totalitarian lies foolproof against exposure (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Repeated truths eventually overcome even motivated reasoners’ resistance #contradicts (0.85) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 322
• Cognitive dissonance strengthens rather than weakens false beliefs under contrary evidence #corroborates (0.82) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1798
• The layered structure of belief makes totalitarian lies foolproof against exposure #qualifies (0.75)