On behalf of all four, thank you for having us.
So we will be talking about the post-truth era, and it is quite appropriate that we have
a scientist, a philosopher, a politician and a journalist with each their own approach to the subject.
Ole you mentioned to me what Thales said about everything.
Can you just repeat what he said about everything?
Yes, Thales was the first philosopher.
He set philosophy in motion in Asia Minor, and his claim was that everything is water.
The question is, is that a pre-post-factual claim?
Everything is water?
Everything is water, and it seems to be untrue because anyone can see that not all is water.
His claim was that you can see that water becomes air when it evaporates,
and that it becomes earth when it settles
and if you light it up, air becomes fire.
All elements in the world are created from water.
This was a claim that strongly contradicted our senses, and if the word had existed back then
they could easily have said that it is not factual.
Despite this, he did have a point: That you can say something that is seemingly untrue,
and still be on to something.
I would like to begin from here and then say a few words myself about the post-truth era.
There are a number of questions we have have been asked and the second question is:
Does the post-truth era exist? Have we seen it before? How pervasive is it?
One of the worst examples of fake-news in history is from the beginning of the 15th century.
It was the story about how the Jews in a little Italian town killed Christian children and used their blood
to bake ritualized bread at the Jewish Easter.
This story quickly spread from this little village via Easter sermons to large parts of Italy
and resulted in terrible pogroms with lots of people killed.
The pope tried to stop it but it was unsuccessful.
Later it became one of the pillars of European antisemitism, and
people still believe this story in large parts of the world.
This is just to say that fake-news is something that has been part of our upbringing as a species.
There have always been people with a political interest in spreading rumours containing made-up stories.
Later in the 15th century Gutenberg invented the press.
This meant that they began to think that- and we still do- if something is in print it must be true.
Therefore rulers of all kinds tried to get their hands on these press machines, not just to print books but
also to print news. There was a huge demand for news in print in the form of flyers, pamphlets et cetera.
If you take the major historical events of Europe, such as the earthquake in Lisbon, they would almost always
result in a multitude of pamphlets and flyers saying what had happened and who was to blame.
With respect to the earthquake in Lisbon all the heretics- the non-believers- were to blame and
they were also the ones that died, while the survivors were those closets to the church.
This continued for decades and centuries until in the middle of the 17th century, also in Copenhagen,
they started to take measures to control this new technology.
They gave permission to print papers under the condition that it was truthful,
and that there was an editor-in-chief that they could put in jail if the paper lied.
That did not help much.
It was not before the end of the 19th century that newspapers arose based on the principle that
what they reported should be true.
Especially stock brokers were interested in news that could be trusted.
This meant that it was not until the end of the century that the enlightenment ideal about
truth began to flourish as something that was in the interest of those in power, to the extent that it should
be institutionalised around the judiciary system, the universities, and the educational system.
These are the three pillars that defend truth and objectivity.
So it is actually not since the beginning of last century that there has been a kind of political consensus around
that there is something that is true, and that society is neither pre- or post-factual but factual.
So perhaps we have been living in a parenthesis in world history where there has been a political interest in
defending the truth.
And now hundreds of years after Gutenburg a new technology has emerged that has made us all panic.
We talk about the post-truth era without quite knowing what we mean by it, and we can observe how,
just like in the 15th century, there are political interests that try to take advantage of the new technology and
spread their version of truth.
That is how I see it.
So the question is, let`s begin with you Ole; How problematic is it what we see today?
Are things just the way they have always been, with a minor exception?
I think there is something that is new, but it is not that we are careless about facts because
that is how it has always been.
For instance, I think of the Bible as an extremely fabricated story.
It is so fabricated that one has to have faith in it in order to believe it.
We have just celebrated Ascension Day. Did Jesus really ascend to heaven? Probably not but
that is what we have been told.
Saxo wrote History of the Danes with a specific purpose which was to say that as long as the church and king
were united things were good, and if they parted ways things would go bad.
Language is used for many other purposes other than to tell the truth.
We use language to seduce, to encourage, to promise, to frighten, to threaten,
and everyone who has a specific agenda, politicians, Bertel, who has an interest in presenting the world in
a specific light. Not necessarily to lie, but to frame in a certain way. So yes, I think the post-truth society
has always existed.
What is new are all the news sources.
We are confronted with an infinite amount of information without any substance.
It is meant to shock and be weird. All kinds of strange interests are behind this
avalanche of information, and it makes it difficult to navigate in.
And then we have these so-called echo chambers that perpetuate it:
It might start out as a lie but then someone says "I have heard that...". That is not a lie, and
suddenly I read that hundreds of thousands "have heard that...", and the next thing you know it has been
transformed into something that resembles a fact.
So you are saying that what is new is the technology?
What is new is the amount of information.
So our ability to spread stories around?
Lying people and people with an interest in twisting the truth have always existed.
What do you say to that, Bertel? Is it the same as we have always seen, except that technology makes it
easier for people with an interest in spreading lies to do so?
My view is that it has become worse, and that it is the social media and the weakening of the press
that has made it worse, because you can live in your own echo chamber, where you only hear those that you
agree with. A false story can thrive for a very long time there, because the actual knowledge that comes
with public service newspapers, including Weekendavisen, is on the backfoot, and it has become
easier to present completely ridiculous viewpoints.
But Ole Thyssen, please don´t derail the debate.
This is not about faith and knowledge. We all know that faith begins where knowledge ends, and this has nothing
to do with the post-truth era.
Kim Bildsøe Lassen made me aware of the post-truth era many years ago when he said to me:
"Are you aware that we are now living in a post-truth era?" Complete false claims can thrive indefinitely.
And Putin is not the first to exploit it. So did Goebbels and Hitler, and you can always point to parallels in
the past, but I think that in my lifetime an erosion has taken place because of the things I mentioned.
It has become easier to sidestep facts.
I get so angry when I hear spin-doctors who later become commentators that
don´t take an interest in the subject matter, but are only interested in the political game.
It removes us from what is factual because then the game becomes all there is.
What kind of facts and knowledge are under pressure? It is not all I presume?
I am thinking of how you can claim something about another group of people- about the western world- about
anything- and then it can live inside the echo chamber that social media provides. And my ideal is
that these things will be met with public education. That is to say that it is not without consequence to say
something that is not true. It has to involve a risk for a politician to say something that is not true.
This is why we are all very happy that we have journalists even though they are annoying
many of them, because they are the ones that have to shine their lights on those that become post-factual.
So is it political truth that is under pressure? You say it is possible for politicians to claim all kinds of fake
things because of social media and a weakened press?
Well, I don´t differentiate between political truth and other kinds of truth. In any kind of political claim there
has to be a foundation of truth. Perhaps you exaggerate or play down but there has to be a foundation of truth,
and if it is not there, then it is important that there is media that can expose it, and this is
what I think they have become worse at.
What is the consequence of this? Can you sense in your colleagues and in the political life that there is
less respect for truth and less consequence if you don´t respect the truth?
I would say yes. As a politician you meet many completely ridiculous claims through social media.
Yes
And in a way it is a good thing that all kinds of strange opinions can be heard, but it is a problem if they find
their way into a place where they are not challenged.
My ideal is that we have a
public space where there is a public debate with both people from the far left and from the far right.
We are very tolerant in Denmark toward weird opinions, more so than in Sweden. But the reason why
it has value is that it is critically debated in the public sphere.
And that it has consequence?
Yes, that it is not without consequence to tell lies.
Okay
I will talk to you shortly (Dorthe Dahl Jensen), but I just want to finish this round.
Ole- how does this sound to you?
Bertel talks about how there can be just as much respect around political truth as other kinds of truth?
Well, democracy is not about truth- you don´t say that one party has the truth whereas the other is lying.
The microphone.
Yes sorry.
There are many different truths, and what counts is to figure out in what way can you
get a majority. And in this struggle it can be hard sometimes not to overbid or twist things because
of specific interests.
For instance, we have had a series of tragic terror attacks. One was in Denmark. Omar El-Hussein
committed terror. Yes- well- did he? Was he a terrorist? What word should we use about him?
I still think it was better to say that he was a confused petty criminal gone astray and who had learned some
muslim phrases. To call him a terrorist is somehow to do him too much honour, and to
make too much out of the tragic act he committed.
What is the point?
The point is what words we use- that is, what is factual?
Since his atrocity it is a fact that
we have now had terrorism in Denmark, and we play this out in the big political echo chamber too.
It is said over and over again.
Machiavelli said that a monarch should come across as truthful but not care about the truth.
He should come across as pious but not care about religion.
So in these situations truth is a piece in a game, but not something to be taken especially serious.
Are you not actually in agreement with this Bertel?
The question is whether it is possible to move the truth around without being defeated?
Yes, and it is also a question of what the media spends its time on.
And it is in a somewhat different way that I speak of post-truth.
Take for instance the tax-scandal. What media has tried to analyze if you could have created a
reclaiming system that worked?
Because it matters whether or not those responsible were
sloppy criminals that denied reality and got a deduction before it was proper.
Therefore I wish some media had focused on the factual instead of on people.
With regard to the question of whether or not the prime minister should stay or not, which is a relevant question,
and you think he should step down, but the important question is;
"What does he and the governing parties stand to gain from staying?". This is what is factual about the case.
There is a tendency toward it always being about people.
I would like it to centre around facts so that people can become smarter.
Okay, you represent an area under pressure, one might say, Dorthe: Climate science and climate politics.
Ten years ago climate science was prioritised higher, at least in public. It took up much more room in the media.
What has happened since then? Is it normal fatigue because it was not
possible to come to agreement politically, or are you the victims of the post-truth era?
Climate is actually a quite interesting area because we were one of the areas that were first exposed to
post-factual evaluations.
To believe in climate or be a climate denier is in my opinion an extremely strange concept, because
we actually measure the temperature of the surface of the Earth and can tell that it is getting hotter.
That some then say they do not believe that at first brings great bewildering, then a feeling of
powerlessness, and then, "hmm- what do we do about it?".
I have great respect for politicians who say that there are better ways to spend our money even though
the climate is warming.
But to say that you do not believe in it, I think is a very strange way to approach the research.
I don´t think the debate has stalled though.
In Denmark we are very calm and well adjusted to the idea that
it is getting warmer, and we believe it is important to do something about it.
Compared to the rest of the world I would say that despite changing governments there is a very strong
willingness to do something, and there is, at any rate, no doubt about what direction we are heading.
So in this way I think we are now in a phase where other things are more important to debate, such as
immigration and refugees, but the climate has not been forgotten.
Are you saying that the post-truth era, if it exists, to a larger extent than it has before, has not been able to
subdue climate politics?
I don´t think so. And even in the USA, which is facing difficult times with Trump, it is remarkable
how many grassroots movements and people there are, who actually believe that the climate matters and
do something about it in various ways.
I would just like to go back to a subject that perhaps is not quite my turf.
We talked about why the post-truth era have come about and two things have happened within the last year
that has really put the post-truth subject on the agenda: Brexit and Trump.
Englishman Arron Banks from the organisation Leave.EU, stated many times that
"facts don´ t work- you`ve got to connect with people emotionally".
I think the post-truth debate also has a lot to do with parallel societies, where people have another mind-set
that is not as fact based.
And one thing that I think Brexit and Trump have in common is that they got low-income groups involved
in the debate.
This way you enter into another sphere- another bubble- where communication is different, and where Twitter
and fast communication has a role that the political system perhaps cannot quite capture.
That way the debate runs wild and go someplace else.
So when you say, Bertel, that the media should assert themselves and ensure a proper fact-based assessment,
then it is not a sure thing that those groups that think post-factually will listen to you.
The debate takes place in an entirely different place and it is not the media that is guiding it first of all.
And you think it takes place on social media for instance?
I think it is the fast communication: Twitter and social media, that we have to connect with.
So you can say a lot about Trump and his false statements, but he has
engaged a low-income group that voted for him.
They were probably mistaken. They probably did not get what they where hoping for.
Could we combine it and say that the new technology and new media has engaged some people that are
willing to listen to alternative facts because of political dissatisfaction, and that this has had very big
political consequences?
Bertel, is there a correlation between the new technology and the large part of the electorate in
USA, Great Britain and the rest of Europe, that do not feel represented by the established
politicians and institutions?
It seems to have created some quite dramatic political results.
Yes, and I think Trump is an example of this, to an even greater extent than Marine Le Pen, of whom, upon
analysis one can see that a big part of what she says is plain and simply wrong.
But it is not being confronted because those that she appeals to are not
present in the public spaces where the criticism takes place.
And I agree with you (Dorthe). I disparage the echo-chamber where people get their own opinion.
It is better to have a common room with public education where light is shone on it for everyone to see.
In my youth we had what we called the butter and margarine war.
The butter people thought that margarine would kill us like the stroke of lightning and vice versa.
So what was the healthier option? Both sides could mobilise scientists,
so the layman that did not have access to these things were at a loss about what to think.
Later we had the nuclear power plant debate where there was also
two sides that could both mobilise scientists that supported their view.
The same could be said of the climate debate at one point.
There were people who said both one or the other thing.
And the only thing we have to go by are pundits on tv saying that "research shows...",
but we cannot verify its validity, on the spot.
Ole, you do think there are objective facts that one should consider when making political decisions, right?
Well, facts are not something you can go around and pick up like little solid balls and count.
Facts are also something that is created when you throw light on the world.
What is factual is when reality answers back.
This is also what you talk about, Bertel. One thing is that the media corrects things, but sometimes reality corrects:
I can't say that that thing is two meters tall, however, in some areas, things are not directly adjusted like that.
They can then be part of the political space where there can be many reasons to believe them or not, but
the public does not have acces to verify or dismiss them.
This creates a huge space with myriads of information that makes us all dizzy and where
we have to pick and choose.
In my youth there was also a liberal paper and a conservative paper and their view of reality was-
let´s say- different.
What one side said was correct and true the other side said was a perversion and a distortion of reality.
There were two groups competing against each other, and what was true and false?
Was Omar a terrorist or a confused poor wretch?
What words should we use in all of this?
But Ole Thyssen, I don`t think you can make use of this, because there have always been arguments
to support one side and the other, and things have always been difficult to figure out-
and in the olden days there was also fake news.
What we have experts for is not to say what the absolute objective truth is.
We have people like Dorthe Dahl-Jensen to say what seemingly and in accordance with our data
is most likely.
And the climate experts believe that it is extremely likely that CO2 has an influence,
together with other greenhouse gases.
That is as much as they know, and then along comes a sunspot expert, which is very interesting,
who says that sunspots also have an influence.
Yes- perhaps- you cannot dismiss that, especially in certain situations.
And then you have become more enlightened when you have heard this.
I want to emphasise that there is a difference between belief and knowledge,
even if knowledge cannot be a hundred percent certain.
And the job of public education, public service and the media is to try to get as close to what we,
with our current knowledge, know.
Just a short comment on what you have both said.
It is very common that the media cover climate in such a way as to ensure impartiality.
This means that both sides should be represented, even if 95 percent of researchers agree on one of the views.
I think this confuses the audience and makes it difficult to understand where the truth lies
With regards to sunspots.
Well, us researchers always think it is very exiting when there are new theories.
We don´ t go, "No- let´s just continue this way". We say, "wow- `lets look into this".
And with regards to what I am doing where we look back in time by analysing ice cores,
we can figure out what happened in those periods where there were sunspots and see
that the climate varied a little, but not at all so much that it can explain the current temperature increase.
That is how we work. And we think it is very exiting when new ideas are presented.
And it is not the case that one thing is fake and the other is fact.
You talk about public education, Bertel, and its responsibility for creating a
common understanding of what is more correct, more true.
Perhaps this rests on an illusion that has been revealed by the new technology?
Perhaps you just thought that there was a public space where everyone has the same information,
and form the same impression of the same reality- listened to political arguments for and against, and
then formed political opinions based on rational analysis.
Perhaps a large portion of the electorate is actually outside of this public sphere, and with the new
technology they found ways to speak and gained access to a public sphere that for you seems
untrue, incorrect and wrong, but for them is just as correct as yours?
It is true that a lot more people have now got a voice, and large groups of people who previously neither
went to political gatherings or wrote opinion pieces can now easily let themselves be heard.
And that is good for democracy.
But we have to have a society that is built on trust to the extent that we recognise,
that some people know more than others- for instance in regard to climate.
And we have to have confidence that they mean what they say- that according to their best
estimate there is a 90 percent chance that it is CO2 that effects the climate, and not sunspots.
We need this trust and I think it is a bit in danger at the moment.
What Dorthe said is also frightening, I think. If there really is such endless information to choose from,
and if there are large groups that are outside of the previous central public sphere,
then there can be politicians who see a great potential for gaining a majority by appealing directly to them.
It is not about true or false but about conquering voters.
You might say that would be bad politics- that Le Pen and Farage and Orbán are bad politicians.
But we must admit that they bring about something- they conquer the masses and use it to strengthen
their own position.
You can say that this is fake, but it is not more fake than that it is a massive political reality.
We see it in Hungary, in Poland, in Russia, England, France- we see it everywhere.
But is that not another discussion? It seems that you question whether it makes sense to talk about
whether or not it is fake.
Let`s take Brexit as an example. One of the most important claims from the Brexit supporters was that
buckets of pounds were being send to Brussels every week.
This number was placed on the side of the Brexit buses that drove around- Farage and UKIP`s buses.
The claim was that we can take this money and put it straight into the national healthcare system.
This was, from all meaningful perspectives, a lie.
First of all the number was wrong, and second of all
Brexit would not mean that you could take what the Brits pay to Brussels and transfer it directly to the
national healthcare system.
Does it not make sense to call a political lie like that post-factual?
Yes it does.
But consider, drawing on Machiavelli, if a politician`s objective is not to say what is true or false,
he has scientists for that, but to conquer influence.
This means that the political game is about gaining influence, and a politician must therefore consider:
"What instruments do I have? Truth/false, Correct/wrong, Pretty/obnoxious, piety/not piety?"
Yes, if it suits me.
What others think of as central pillars, a cynical politician can think of as tools in his fight for power.
Are you really saying that we have just gotten used to all the politicians, including Bertel, and therefore think that
it is the truth, until new ones come along, and that it has always been post-factual in this sense?
Machiavelli's analysis is 500 years old and I dont think we have lacked politicians who have had this kind of
instrumental relationship to the truth. You can find scores of examples of this.
I think that some of those limitations, and I think too many limitations that politicians have accepted to
navigate within, have been shattered by Machiavelli and people whose names we should know by now.
And because what matters is the majority and not the truth:
We don`t say the government is right and the opposition is wrong. We say: They have different suggestions.
And if what matters is concurring the majority then there is in democracy an inherent risk that
potential rulers appeal to post-factual lies, illusions, deceptions, and things of that nature,
in order to get the votes that can give them the majority.
What you say is completely true, and I think that in the countries where we see this happening right now,
such as USA and England, there has been a huge split between the rich and the poor in the last ten years.
I think this is contributing a lot to post-factual claims being so influential.
Interestingly Denmark is a bit different.
We have been characterised as the world`s happiest country, and the
nation with the highest degree of trust in its politicians- and who is happiest to pay taxes- believe it or not!
This shows to me that we are a society where we do not have such a large gap between rich and poor, and where
we have a lot of confidence in our leaders.
I think that one of the ways to avoid that fake-facts becoming too powerful is that people must have
confidence in the system and thereby become capable of listening to what is being said.
Yes, trust is crucial.
But what I think we are talking about here is that we trust that there is something called knowledge, and
that we have experts who, in each of there own fields, know something that we need to make decisions,
and when we vote at elections.
We need experts and confidence in them, and this is where the post-truth society becomes a danger,
because here a lie can thrive almost as well as a truth, and if this lie can be used by someone who wants
power, then democracy is in trouble.
So I would say that what is crucial is to have confidence in knowledge and enlightenment.
It was not for play that Grundtvig said that you cannot have democracy if you do not have enlightenment,
and that is what carried the Danish enlightenment.
You guys know it better than I, but as far as I know, one of the reasons why Voltaire resonated with
so many people was that people reacted to fake-news.
There were these conspiracy theories that impacted real people with very sensational cases where
innocent people were convicted and burned or hanged or executed and so on.
Voltaire`s mission with the enlightenment was to create institutions that safeguarded the truth in regard to
rule of law, tribunals and freedom of speech, where you would find some thought of truth through
enlightenment, and as you talked about before, public education,
the educational system and through research institutions.
And it was interesting who Trump attacked first in his first week as president:
It was the judicial system with named judges that he accused of politicising, the educational system and
research that he wants to cut down substantially.
And also the media that he calls fake when he disagrees with them.
Ole, should we understand it such that you don`t think we should take this so terribly important, because
what we see is a constant political battle for "the truth" that is fundamentally political?
Plato believed that the truth was out there, and therefore he hated rhetoric because it was about
making an impression. Aristotle, his student, was less sure and said that there are situations where we do not
know the truth and we will have to affect it. In this case we use rhetoric in order to affect people when we do not
know the truth in full.
I have been in the university world half a century, and I would not say they are all experts but there are a couple
or two, and experts are also in disagreement and competition with other experts.
Experts belong to different schools of thought that are in disagreement with each other.
Experts are vain, ambitions, determined, competing people who want to present dramatic claims and
have an impact.
So this idea that there is public education- a box that we should all comply with- I think is an illusion.
There are some areas where the truth answers right back:
When Trump claims that there were more people at his inauguration than at Obama`s, you can take two pictures
and see that this is not true. But it is very rare that we have this kind of situation.
Yes but the difference is, as Bertel said, that 20-30 years ago it would have consequences for a politician to claim
something that was obviously nonsense, that is what you say right?
Yes
You could not say that. You would be ridiculed by the media, and the media that does that now is not
followed by Trump`s supporters. They think he must be right because they never see the correction.
That is what is new about the situation.
Yes, and I totally agree that it is difficult to find a precise objective truth, but we must not end where you and I
remember from the 70`th when we got our education, and where they said that since there is no
such thing as objective science, we might as well throw all integrity overboard and politicise as much
as possible.
There were literally university people in the 60th and 70th that spread this message.
I knew a couple.
Yes you knew a couple.
Here I really think we must react and emphasise that the whole point of a university is to balance and judge, and
perhaps it is not completely correct but then you must wait for someone to come up with a better conclusion.
This is how natural science has developed throughout history. No one finds the final truth but this is not an
argument to say that one thing is not more true than another.
We have to maintain the difference between nonsense and what can be reasonably argued for.
Yes, if you take the natural sciences and make them the standard of science then you are right.
However we also have areas where interpretation is at the centre- humanistic sciences where we don´ t have
the same robust facts.
You can interpret Goethe in many different ways and one is not more correct than the other.
The various developments compete for influence and to be the accepted interpretation.
But to talk about true and false in this more robust way I dont think is possible in the humanities.
But should people really take a five year education and not become better at knowing what is right and wrong?
No, they hit a wall that has to do with how there are different interpretations in the same way that there are
political differences that cannot just be reconciled with each other.
A liberal and a conservative politician see the world in different light and are ready to highligt different
things and find different patterns. And one is not more objectively true. It is a battle of interpretations that is
being played out in the humanities as well as in politics where opinions clash, and must clash.
I don`t agree with this. I have taught social science in a way that I think is sensible, and I think I can get a lot
of people who disagree with me politically to testify to, that there is a difference between
prudent and sensible and not prudent and sensible.
Are there not different interpretations that cannot be reconciled with each other?
That is academic talk, in my opinion. I am talking about the moral imperative that you have a duty to
be as prudent as possible toward your students and those you debate.
What does the natural sciences say?
I would say that natural science has made huge progress in the last 50 years.
Think about medicine and how much we can treat now that we could not treat in the past.
Think about all the quantum physics that we use in our mobile phones. Things have progressed.
When you talk about how we debate and disagree and are ambitious, then you are talking about very very
little things in natural science. Normally we agree and things really do progress.
I would support Bertel in this.
As climate scientists we have chosen to stand united. We make the big climate reports every five years.
The world`s scientists come together to write a document about the state of the climate.
And this is also a channel to the political system where we try to communicate what 99 percent
of scientists think about the climate.
So I don` t think it is correct to say that one says one thing, the other says another and that we dont know
where we are heading. This is not true.
Can I just ask- okay you can just answer first.
I just have a short comment.
I have never, while watching politicians debate during an election, heard a politician from one party say to
the other:"I never thought of that, you are right".
It is not something they say because they disagree at a fundamental level.
It is a clash between fundamental principles of the various political parties. It is a clash between opinions,
and an opinion is not something that can simply be changed- it is also a way of viewing the world.
A certain pattern is formed, and I think that this neither can or should change.
The idea that all people think the same is a terrible idea.
This is wrong. I can give you countless of examples of politicians that have changed their mind, but
you are right in that they sometimes will not admit it.
I can confirm this- it happens very rarely.
That is coming from an experienced man.
Bertel, can you tell of an interesting example of where you changed your opinion because you now
see things differently, informed by reality?
I can even give an example where I changed back.
I wrote a book at a time where there was talk about pros and cons about having a common European currency.
And I was very much opposed to it.
But then something happened in the '80s where Denmark was about to go broke, and the Danish
currency had to follow the Deutsch Mark, which was extremely beneficial.
Then I became a supporter of the common currency.
But after what I have seen in Southern Europe in recent years I have begun to doubt it a bit- at least as to
whether we should introduce it tomorrow.
It has benefitted Denmark- we have been tied to it, but the project had some inherent problems.
So here you are sitting opposite of the young Bertel and you think, "Oh, you were right, Bertel".
Yes, and you know what, it is not uncommon that you should have kept to your first thought.
Does this count then, that here we have a politician who has been corrected by reality?
Yes, I think there are many politicians that are corrected by reality.
I just think there is a kind of ritualised disagreement- that is one way of saying it.
Another way to say it is that there is a difference in fundamental views between
liberalism and conservatism. They see the world differently and that can`t be reconciled with arguments.
But come on- we know for instance that cervical cancer exists. It exists and it kills a lot of people.
There is a vaccine that works. We know there are the same risks involved with this as in all kinds of other
vaccines, and of those that get the vaccine very few have side-effects.
We know this, but then a story is being built up by the media, politicians and social media that this is a lie.
That it is a distortion of truth. It is also a conspiracy theory about how the scientists are controlled by
the pharmaceutical industry and so on.
They also get to be heard because, as you say Dorthe, the opposing views are always highlighted no matter
how crazy these views are- or how disingenuous the opposition is.
And now we have a situation where the proportion of vaccinated women have plummeted, with very
damaging health consequences.
This is not a question of political opinions but of a very poisonous blend of technology and, what should we say,
an interest in spreading misconceptions.
Yes, or a fear that we have a medical industry that hides some side-effects, and such fear is very
difficult to contain, because the more you try to the more suspicious of you people become.
When Gertrud in Hamlet promised and promised, Hamlet said, "That lady promise me too much".
If you promise and promise then perhaps people become suspicious that you are hiding something.
So what are you thinking when you witness all this misery and the HPV vaccine?
I think the way I think about Trump`s voters.
There are people who, for all sorts of reasons, come together in refusing to accept this.
And if they are enough, and they can reinforce each other in these echo chambers, it will
eventually become a political force, because if there are enough people in a democracy where the goal is
to appeal to voters, then there are politicians who see an advantage in supporting this,
because that is where there are voters.
Is this not a result of a post-factual society that is different than it was 25 years ago?
Well, Stalin and Hitler and Bismarck- there are many liars.
Yes, but this takes place in a democracy and not a fascist dictatorship.
In this way there is a difference.
Yes , but before Hitler became Hitler he was part of the democratic public sphere.
He also appealed to voters and did not just do as he pleased.
His method was, if you read Mein Kampf, which I have had the curious pleasure of doing, that he appeals to
the fist- not to arguments. This is his point. Don´t talk to the opposition- beat them, physically.
He thinks the Jews are to blame for everything and nothing can change his opinion.
And this huge confidence with which he presents his message is appealing.
Let me then ask all three of you before we move on. You describe the phenomenon.
Is it something we should try to prevent and fight- these echo chambers- this spreading of
fake news, lies and conspiracy theories?
I don`t think it is something you can fight. I think it has come to stay.
I think we have to find new ways of communicating so that we can reach
these new spaces and expand our communication to the social media and where the debate takes place.
I don think we will get back to our big unified space that we had before.
If it ever really existed.
Yes
Democracy is a place where you have many opinions clashing with each other.
It is full of claims about facts that others then dispute are facts.
The new is the amount, and that you have so many transmitters with so many degrees of irresponsibility.
It is a sandstorm of information which makes it almost impossible to create a common order.
In some areas reality answers back, such as in natural science and in some areas of the social sciences.
In my area, the humanities, there has always been trouble and squabble and that is what feeds us.
And that is good. All truth go through the grinder and we see what is robust enough to survive.
As long as we don`t end in academic relativism, which I think you have a tendency to.
Because dictatorship and inhumanity has always thrived on ignorance.
The more ignorance the easier it is to be a dictator and point to scapegoats.
Therefore we must give knowledge and enlightenment a chance.
We must make sure that we have media that confronts false statements, and that people pay attention to them.
Alright, should we take questions and comments?
Yes
And comments masked as questions are also okay.
Hi, my name is Bogdan.
Bertel, I would like to know to what extent you think that the death of ideology, as it is known, has influence on
what we are debating?
And Martin, my personal opinion is that the media play the biggest part in all of this, and I dont think you
have said so much about how the media should live up to this responsibility.
Specifically I am thinking of your new article where you criticise Lea Korsgaard in Weekendavisen.
Also, does the journalistic truth always lie between two positions?
You first Bertel.
Yes, the death of ideology happened around 1990 and then you would think that
enlightenment had a better chance.
Perhaps it did but then all this that we have debated in the last hour happened.
Therefore enlightenment is once again under pressure like it was in the '60s and '70s in some
universities as a result of ideology.
And I think that Lea Korsgaard with (the digital newspaper) Zetland that I visited recently, has part of
the solution.
She is not interested in news.
They have four stories everyday, some of them are old, and their only purpose is to report on
the most correct and relevant there is to say about the topic.
This is a new kind of journalism that is a bit similar to Weekendavisen, and I think we need more of that.
With regards to the media it is very true that they play an important role.
What has happened in the last 15 years is that those institutions that have relied on controlling
the fast communication have panicked.
The politicians have panicked because they can no longer control the information around them.
All politicians want to do that.
Bertel Haarder has the same instinct as Kim Jung-un in North Korea.
They both want to control as much information around them as possible.
It is easier for Kim because he can throw people in jail if they say something unpleasant about him.
Bertel cannot do that.
Democratic people cannot control the information around them.
The new technology has made it completely impossible.
All they can control is what they say themselves, and therefore it becomes more and more meaningless.
I don´t mean Bertel Haarder, and I am not saying that because he is sitting here. I have said this many times:
There are very few politicians who make an effort to say something meaningful.
The closer they are to the centre of power the less this effort is, and the closer Bertel has been to
the financial ministry the harder it has been for him to say something meaningful.
There is some truth to that.
My point is that the politicians have reacted to the new technology by becoming more and more willing to use
politics as communication where what matters is not what is right or wrong but
to put oneself in a positive light.
This has been a reaction to the technology that has made the communication around them uncontrollable.
We in the media have also reacted with panic.
We have also controlled the communication. We have decided what stories were important.
We don`t any longer have this monopoly. This means that the financial platform of the media has crashed.
They have reacted by exclusively thinking in terms of new platforms and ways of capturing new
readers, viewers and get clicks.
They have completely forgotten the fundamental interest in controlling those in power in an orderly manner.
I think there is a counter reaction now.
One serious media after another holds back on trying to get as many page views as possible
instead of using their resources on good journalism, and in this way create a viable business model.
So it is apparent that a shift is taking place in the media at the moment.
I believe it is getting better.
Regarding Lea Kårsgaard, I of course do not think that journalists should aim to take the middle position
between two opposites.
And Lea Kårsgaard has just written a book about that, and it is clearly a problem for
large part of the journalistic profession.
This I agree with her on.
What I disagree with her on is that she believes that the role of journalism is not merely to
control those in power, but to also find the most correct stories and a deeper truth.
She thinks we have an obligation to show the reader the correct ethical way of living together.
I strongly disagree with this.
It is a big mistake if the media becomes ethicists.
This was not what she said the other day, or what she writes in her book.
She is not here so we cannot ask. She does write that we have a responsibility to find a deeper truth.
But not the deeper meaning. We have a responsibility to be truthful.
Yes we do, but she is talking about helping people to find the right way to live together.
Okay- well that is a bit fishy.
Will journalists not always choose sides?
Yes perhaps, if you don`t have time to reflect and that is where Zetland has a good ambition, and where we at
Weekendavisen also have an ambition to write the most correct story.
If your ambition is to write a quick story then you can ask someone who believes that the
HPV vaccine works, and someone who thinks it has terrible side-effects and is a result of a conspiracy
between the pharmaceutical industry and the health authorities.
You can then make them seem equally correct, which they are not.
And here the media clearly has a responsibility to shed light on the inaccuracies coming from
the vaccine opposition.
Should we take another question? Wasn't it you I pointed to before?
Yes, one of the questions was answered- what is the role of the media. The other thing is that you talk about
how natural science is based on objective facts and the social sciences and the humanities are not.
However sometimes these things blend together.
For instance in psychiatry you have the question of who is ill and not ill and normal and not normal.
And at the same time you have a debate between prominent researches` who either say that
the medicine kills patients or makes them much more sick, or that it cures them.
There must also be some interests involved in this?
What about those situations where things are blurred? Where we are not talking about hard core physics or
whether or not an airplane can fly?
What are your thoughts on that?
You are completely correct. In this regard we should be more investigative and transparent in our models,
because here you cannot just say what is true or not.
I think the only solution is to invest more money in it.
However I am also a naive supporter of basic research.
In the 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill believed that with some effort you could make people smart,
healthy and free of disease- and rich of course.
However, it has turned out that the more money we pour into medical science, the more sick people get.
That is because we live longer.
Well, we keep them alive, and I think you can ask the question of whether medical science has an interest in
creating diseases in order to grow?
This means that a whole host of normal conditions that used to be seen as part of everyday life are being
transformed into diseases that we diagnose.
Where do we draw the line between being sick and being poorly raised for instance?
I have seen ADHD children where really it is just the parents that have not set prober limits.
This is fluid.
My old mother said, "it takes good morals to sell rubberbands by the meter".
And defining disease within the psychiatric profession also very much deals with stretchy concepts.
So this is not fake-news but a battle to interpret where lines should be drawn.
These lines are not drawn definitively and doctors, like everyone else, have an interest in
growing their business, competing and receiving more funding.
The idea that medical researchers are scientists only interested in the truth, is false.
My uncle was a doctor, my aunt was a nurse. They want lots of diseases so they have something to fix.
Now I am a scientist so I always pay attention to what is said, and if you say that you become more sick from
having more money, then you are also saying that you become more healthy if you get less money.
I said that all professions want to grow, including medical science and it grows by expanding the area
under which it can offer treatments.
Let`s take some more questions. Many would like to ask. That`s great.
As a medicine student, I think it borders on fake-news.
If we were so occupied with getting customers to choose our practice we would not advise people
to smoke and drink and many other things.
It is true that there are special interest groups who work to bring focus on specific diseases
so the group can grow.
However I think that has more to do with bringing attention to human suffering?
Regarding psychiatry, I think it is important that these very complex scientific problems are not part of
the public debate because the public do not know what good praxis, good diagnosis and good treatment is.
This is primarily a scholarly discussion.
We think we can grasp all issues in the modern world like it was possible to in the Renaissance.
However, like I think Zetland says, we have to listen to the experts in each field.
Many experts say one thing and few experts say another, and then we have to weigh up who seems most credible.
You have talked much about what to do about the post-truth era.
Is the solution to invite the people who are only on social media and who have another version of the truth, into
the central media and thereby expose the lack of substance to their views?
Is the alternative not to ignore it and thereby give it breeding ground elsewhere?
Yes, for sure the media should invite people in and air their opinions.
The alternative is the Swedish model where they leave out people that they do not think serve the public good.
I think that is a completely wrong approach.
The consequence is that the democratic institutions do not represent the people and their opinions.
That would be terrible to have happen here.
But I think the questioner also wanted to ask you if there are not opinions that are such nonsense, and people
with such lack of knowledge, that they are not worth spending time on?
I would hope so.
Yes there are for sure.
You have given Trump a voice and we can see the effect of that?
Yes well, have we given Trump room to speak or has he taken it himself?
Does Trump perhaps represent voters for whom it is relevant to vote for him on the basis of his opinions?
And he can cope without the media, via Twitter.
Yes, to a large extent.
You ask about how we should try to cope with this.
We are talking about enlightenment. It is not something that we can just take for granted.
From the beginning of the enlightenment there has been a counter-enlightenment.
The French Revolution was followed by counter-enlightenment, and this has
continued throughout the 19th and 20th century.
Through political battles the enligthenment created new institutions:
Liberal democracy, civil rights, individual rights, rule of law.
Up until 20-30 years ago they had been strong enough to represent everyone.
But large part of the public no longer feels represented by the institutions that sustain democracy, such as
the media, and educational institutions.
In this way it makes sense when people vote for Trump, because he says something that is true:
that the establishment does not represent large parts of the electorate.
In this way it is factually meaningful for many voters to vote for Trump.
In the same way it is meaningful for many Frenchmen to vote for Le Pin because the established institutions
no longer represents them.
And then we are back to a battle of enligthenment where the counter-enlightenment has a good hand because
the institutions of the enlightenment do not represent a large portion of the voters.
Those that believe in these ideals, such as the media and politicians, have to engage in this battle, and then
we are back to Oles point, that everything is a political battle- even
the institutions that 20-30 years ago we thought of as unchangeable.
Sometimes when the depression is threatening such as in March at around four PM, you get the sense that
what we did by giving people the ability to vote, was to let in what has been feared since antiquity:
the mob
People without education who do not have a share in the normal public sphere, but who are easy to influence,
and are not so interested in facts but much more concerned with trust, ethos, and pathos, and who can
be affected with emotions and not so much with logos- arguments and reason.
Because the democratic debate is not about truth but majority you bring in the many people who are not
susceptible to arguments, and who are therefore easily persuaded by people like Hitler and Trump and
those who act like "strong-men".
They are persuaded by those who promise a clear picture of who are the true people, and who are
the foreigners that must be pushed out.
In this situation where the word "people" is up for debate who then are the enlightened "people"?
Orban will say that he represents them, just like Hitler said, and those that disagree are
the un-enlightened who must be punished, and this logic is satanic but effective at the moment.
Let`s have another question.
Someone has their hand all the way up. If it isn`t Holger Bech Nielsen (father of string theory).
Yes, it is a kind of commentary or hope.
Don´t we need a kind of labelling of the truth? Should we not label articles or sentences on the internet,
in the same way that we label products as environmentally friendly or organic, we could label them:
`Is this correct and to what degree?`
Some have no need for a label- they are too obvious. Some are a little more uncertain, and then
you can move up and at a certain level you would have to involve a local police station so that
people who felt that it was false should say if it was criminal, and someone could come and arrest you.
And perhaps you could have something higher where there is a deposit or something like that.
We have had such an arrangement. It was called censorship.
It is not like censorship because you do not need to publish using the label.
It is free to take part in, but there will be a censorship in the sense that some of us will ask Google to only look
at those above a certain level.
But who should then determine these labels?
That would be the court of law.
The courts.
I think so, or you could maybe find some other decision mechanism.
It is true that it is a problem but it can be worked out.
When someone discovers something to be untrue- you can sometimes determine this.
Those that you cannot figure out are the ones that are labelled ´uncertain`.
Couldn't the media take on this role?
That is what in Iran they call the Council of Guardians.
Yes.
It is an interesting question.
In the American election, CNN began to put up a crawler which is
a text streaming at the bottom of the screen.
It said for instance that Trump is doing a speech and he is saying xxx.
And then it said: This is not true.
You are laughing at it but they really did.
They got desperate because he said so much that was wrong.
It is easy to check if Trump lies when he claims to not have said something.
However what about the next level, when politicians here in Denmark talk nonsense?
Should we then also do this?
It would be hard would it not?
It`s a horrible thought but it would make a good novel to think of
a post post-truth society where the authorities label the truth.
Yes
Maybe it would appeal to you Bertel, now that you missed out on becoming Consul.
CNN is private. It was after all not the American state apparatus that did it.
In Denmark the risk would be that it would become a Council of Guardians.
A radio counsel like we had in the old days. We should not bring that back.
I think it illustrates well the situation we are in now where the debate is very diverse and we have
the fast communication. The space is very large and it is easy to get lost.
It is not always you can go to a media and get the right answer.
I think the way forward is to educate ourselves in other forms of communication so that it becomes
easier to navigate in this large space. It is too big and there are too many ways to go.
Can we do that?
You have articulated the problem but the solution is blowing in the wind.
Perhaps you could imagine that something similar to what happened
in the end of the 19th century would take place at some point.
The demand for real news became so intense that the new technology in the form of the daily press, began to
meet this demand.
You can see this happen already such as
with Zetland where new media are trying to uphold a high journalistic standard.
This can happen in all sorts of places, and not just in the Zetland segment.
Should we take another question?
It is more of a commentary.
We were just told that you go to university for five years in order to differentiate between
what is true and what is not true.
And also, to paraphrase, that the humanities quarrel for a living.
It sounds like we can all agree that there is a high probability that the temperature is rising on our planet.
However I also think it is worth reminding ourselves that the reason why we are here today- why we are debating
the post-truth era and its dangers and challenges- has to do with the question of
why are facts valuable?
And why do we think that it is a bad solution to truth-mark articles, for instances?
These do not seem to be questions that can be answered by natural science.
So I would like to highlight what the humanities can also be used for.
No one disagrees.
Ole, did you want to say something?
When we argue with each other within the humanities it is also different ways of life that are arguing.
I wrote an 800 page history of philosophy where these philosophers are constantly
in disagreement with each other. And that is not just because they are pathologically in disagreement, but
also because they represent different ways of life.
A person from the middle ages where they thought that God had decided your position in society full stop he
thought and lived differently from a liberalist that got his identity by way of a career.
These two viewpoints lead to vastly different philosophies that cannot just
be reconciled at the middle.
The same goes for political opinions. They cannot just be reconciled in the middle because they represent
different world views.
And this battle is vital. It is what keeps society alive and breathing.
It is not something we should try to pacify in exchange of one big unification.
We are nourished by strife: "disturbing peace rest- to will and do is best".
And each and every life form wants something with itself, and this battle is the lifeblood of democracy,
the way I see it.
Grundtvig also says this.
He wanted the church system so the strife could be maintained to the end of the world.
However the same Grundtvig was very well read.
He studied at English universities and wrote two histories of the world.
So he always respected knowledge.
If you didn't like one history you could just read the other one then.
Well, the first world history was written when he was a missionary. Then he became a
Grundvidian and had to write a new from which the Danish enlightenment and folk school idea originate.
None of us have lived in a society where you do not almost instinctively believe that
what you hear from the institutions that have power over us, is true.
And I don´t think we want to live in a society where we don´t instinctively believe
what our political institutions tell us, among these the media.
This is how large parts of humanity lives and it is absolutely horrible.
A Czech joke from the time around the fall of the wall goes:
´At first we thought that everything we were told was a lie. Now we don´t know what to believe`
Precisely.
That is also the difficulty of freedom and enlightenment. It is easier to go without knowledge and kid yourself.
I think we are about to finish what was a very interesting debate with various viewpoints to this subject, so
there is lots to debate going forward.
I am very sorry to those that did not get the opportunity to ask questions.
I hope that you can talk one to one with some of the panel afterwards.
The question about the post-truth era has drawn opposing views, but it is lovely to see that that Ole and
Bertel can sit right next to each other despite being quite in disagreement.
Should we rub noses?
"Should we rub noses?", says Ole.
Just before you get up I just want to say that we have these competitions up here with prizes, so if you
come up afterwards you can hear more about it.
Thanks a lot for participating in the event and please join me in
applauding Martin Krasnik, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, Ole Thyssen and Bertel Haarder.
Questions for panel: Henrik Schoeneberg, Christian Enghart, Stefan Herning
Video editing: Carlos Ochoa
Subtitles: Henrik Schoeneberg, edits Tara Lotus
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