Post-Truth

A mixed bag, which is a shame, because once Ball got to the core of his argument it was a good read. Mildy outdated already, of course, but that's just the nature of writing about current affairs, and I was sure it would be when starting the book. My main problem was that a large chunk of the book was yet another blow-by-blow account of both Trump's raise to power in the US and the triumph of the Leave campaign in the UK's Brexit referendum. I have two problems with this. Firstly, unless you've been living under a rock for the past few years, you've already heard this a million times over, and, secondly, focusing on these examples I think gives the false impression that misinformation or “bullshit”, as Ball calls it, is unique to this time period in these two Western countries. I know this isn't what Ball is suggesting at all, as he says himself in the (better) later chapters, but then why put such a focus on these two examples? Why not compare and contrast different countries with different political systems at different time periods? This seemed like odd omission, and I think adding this would have given more depth to Ball's argument and would have got us closer to defining exactly what “bullshit” is and how it's come about. The strongest chapter, in my opinion, was chapter 9, called “Why we fall for it”, which goes into concepts like “confirmation bias”, the “backfire effect”, “conformity”, and other psychological and social reasons which go some way in explaining why groups and individuals are inclined to believe information from one source, while disregarding information from another. Fascinating stuff and an area I'd like to read more on in the future. Fortunately, Ball has provided a wonderful bibliography at the end of the book to get you started. So not a bad read overall, even if I skimmed some chapters.