Critical Thinking and Post-Truth

“A lie wins battles, but the truth wins the war.” — Socrates

 It is common to hear experts in the field of education assert that there are four essential competencies that today's generation of students must develop in order to succeed in the contemporary world and in the one that is still taking shape. Although it is impossible to predict the future, these competencies are fundamental for individuals to function effectively in any context, as they are central to successful human interaction and to coping with the challenges of everyday life. These competencies are communication, collaboration, creative thinking, and critical thinking. The latter, however, is increasingly threatened by the practices associated with the post-truth era. What is critical thinking, and how is its development being undermined by the tactics of post-truth, particularly through the ecosystem of cyberspace?

According to the Bases for Curriculum Review and Updating (2018), critical thinking is the practice of questioning the foundations of one's own ideas as well as those of others in order to promote greater levels of freedom and foster humanism. In essence, it is the habitual practice of examining the truthfulness of the information upon which judgments and opinions are based, while taking into account the interests of those who produce such information and the contexts in which it is communicated. In other words, the competency of critical thinking seeks, on the one hand, to deconstruct the myths of subjective reality and move toward objective reality through the analysis and questioning of our own judgments and beliefs. On the other hand, it encourages us to examine and evaluate the information and opinions expressed by others, considering their sources, underlying interests, and consistency in comparison with other available evidence.

According to the Collins English Dictionary, post-truth refers to "the disappearance of commonly accepted objective standards of truth." In this regard, Naím (2022) explains that post-truth consists of destabilizing people's perception of reality; in essence, it is the confusion that arises in our minds regarding what is true and what is false.

In this regard, educators must pay particular attention to a post-truth phenomenon that is becoming increasingly prevalent among pre-university and higher education students: the tendency to label as conspiracy theorists those who apply critical thinking to certain types of information, especially information obtained from the Internet. According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), conspiranoia is "the tendency to interpret certain events as the result of a conspiracy." It is important to emphasize that conspiratorial thinking is a genuine psychological phenomenon that affects many individuals. However, young students often struggle to distinguish between the legitimate exercise of critical thinking and a mindset characterized by attributing every event to a malicious plan orchestrated by political and economic elites to manipulate and exploit the masses. The reality is that the Internet is flooded with misinformation and hoaxes designed to distort the truth, create confusion, and manipulate public perception.

A clear example can be found on social media platforms, where misleading stories and fabricated claims are frequently disseminated with the intention of influencing public opinion. Internet users are exposed to these posts and often read the comments supposedly written by people reacting to the false information. Consequently, many conclude that a significant portion of the population—whether local or global, depending on the scope of the hoax—shares a particular viewpoint. What they often fail to realize, however, is that, first, the information itself is false and, second, many of the comments are generated by armies of automated bots programmed to express those opinions. These comments are typically strikingly similar because their purpose is precisely to create the illusion of widespread consensus and thereby shape public opinion.

For this reason, educators must address this issue directly and raise students' awareness that many of them are becoming victims of the malicious intentions of the post-truth era, driven by manipulators pursuing agendas designed to create a legion of individuals incapable of discerning the truth or defending their own interests. It is the mission of educators to guide students so that they are not manipulated or indoctrinated into supporting actions that ultimately harm them and lead to their own detriment. Education must empower learners to question, analyze, and evaluate information independently rather than passively accepting narratives imposed by others.

I believe that we must make our students aware of the dangers posed by the post-truth phenomenon and of what is happening with online news and bot-generated comments. Likewise, they should recognize the importance of critically examining not only their own beliefs, judgments, and opinions but also those of others. Through the development of critical thinking, students come to understand the collective power that citizens possess to prevent wars, combat environmental degradation, oppose the legalization and consumption of harmful substances, influence public policies, demand accountability from those who violate the law, improve quality of life, challenge abuses of power, and protect a nation's public resources from corruption and exploitation, among many other social objectives. Critical thinking is the most powerful weapon for achieving better living conditions. It is through this capacity that we expose those who act with malice and deception while recognizing those who genuinely serve the common good. Critical consciousness is the ultimate goal; it must be cultivated not only as an intention but also as a sustained course of action.

References

Collins Dictionary. (n.d.). Post-truth. In Collins English Dictionary. HarperCollins Publishers. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/post-truth

Ministerio de Educación de la República Dominicana. (2018). Bases de la revisión y actualización curricular. MINERD.

Naím, M. (2022). La revancha de los poderosos: Cómo los autócratas están reinventando la política para el siglo XXI. Debate.

Real Academia Española. (n.d.). Conspiranoia. In Diccionario de la lengua española (23.ª ed.). https://dle.rae.es/conspiranoia

Note: This article was originally written in Spanish by Damián Francis Melenciano. The English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and subsequently reviewed by the author.