Post-Truth advocates for all perspectives being truthful, right and equal, a departure from singular norms and a deconstruction of objective Truth.
It unfolds on secular soil, with only the body politic left to arbitrate among perspectives and meaning. In turn, this latches onto opposite ends of interpretation to articulate its own position, turning what remains of post-Truth into an instrument of power.
Post-Truth puts pressure on society and culture, the same forces driving deconstruction, requiring them to solve the challenges they have raised.
The public square of democracy has relocated online, exerting even more pressure due to the expedient nature of discourse. Opposite ends of a perspective whose meaning is still in flux can easily be amplified as a result.
Despite its epistemological claim that all perspectives are truthful, right and equal (carriers of the same weight), post-Truth can easily place them at odds. It dismantles the meaning you arrived at and replaces with an alternative that feels incongruent, yet somehow still belongs at the table.
It’s deconstruction within deconstruction across society, culture and branding at a time when we’re ambitiously searching for cohesive answers for tomorrow.
So emerge the shifting sands we’re operating on: meaning that keeps changing shape on the one hand, and the need to build something lasting on the other.
A cacophony that must be mediated for stability, a common ground born of perspectives and meaning we can objectively agree on and collectively reclaim.
This search should take place in the public square, not online, and should restore separation between the discussions we’re having in politics, society, culture and branding to revive our ability to discern. Conflating these layers of meaning has only blurred clarity.
A process that might finally allow brands to retain their primary role instead of acting as intermediators in a world where moral and institutional gatekeepers have lost function.
Brands have traditionally been iconoclastic. They exist to serve their organisations, products and services, communicating messages that build perception and competitive advantage – for profit.
Post-Truth, however, risks setting brands up for failure when it leaves them claiming the legislative status of politics and the moral weight of society and culture. While business practices should evolve, and brands should be attuned to their environments, this must come from genuine correlation that enhances brand meaning instead of postulation.
Creating this space between meaning in politics, society and culture and meaning in brands could further refine and educate consumption practices where we, as consumers, no longer expect the same entities once seen as mastheads of greedy globalism to act as the moral temples of our time. It would restore our ability to curate what we consume and pursue a higher sense of meaning beyond the branded universe.
Out of the desire to solve the greatest challenges of our time, we’ve conflated political, social, cultural and brand meaning into one expecting it would deliver progress when instead it has produced a loss of nuance. A more realistic sign of progress might be to see politics, society, culture and brands as distinct altogether, accept and work within the space among them to weave an imperfect common ground. Brands can then return to their original goal of communicating relevant messages that drive competitive advantage for organisations, products, services and assist consumers in their decision-making journey, a more utilitarian, pragmatically humanist perspective.
In doing so, they themselves might rediscover what once made them relevant, the ability to add their own meaning into the world instead of just mirroring it. We can then move forward by understanding what endures instead of assuming all perspectives carry the same weight.
To be continued.
Unmistakably,
Irina
Irina Gheorghe 
Leave a comment