Catherine Koekoek co-edits special issue of 'Philosophy & Social Criticism'

Feminist Takes on Post-Truth

Catherine Koekoek, PhD Candidate in democratic theory, co-edited a special issue of the journal Philosophy & Social Criticism on ‘Feminist Takes on Post-Truth.’ Along with prof. dr. Emily Zakin (Miami University), she brought together 9 essays approaching post-truth from various feminist perspectives – including one by our colleague, Maren Wehrle – and wrote an introductory essay.

After meeting Emily Zakin at a conference on post-truth at KU Leuven in January 2020, they worked together to develop a Call for Abstracts inviting scholars to submit their feminist perspectives on post-truth politics. With this call for abstracts, they approached the journal, where the editors were open to the idea of turning it into a special issue. Philosophy & Social Criticism is an international peer-reviewed journal committed to the latest developments in social and political thought, and has a focus on contributions of continental scholarship. The call for abstracts was published in early 2021 and attracted some 30 proposals, out of which 9 were selected to develop the abstract into a full article.
 

Why feminism?

Post-truth politics poses a specific problem for feminists committed to democracy: it undermines the sense that we share a common world, and thereby subverts the possibilities for democracy. Whether through overt lying, deliberate or dispersed disorientation, or ‘flooding the senses,’ post-truth destabilizes and interferes with practices of trust and solidarity, fragmenting public reality – it is what Bonnie Honig (another contributor to the special issue) calls a form of ‘shock politics.’ The extreme right is able to simultaneously appropriate emancipatory and democratic ideals as its own while working (often successfully) to undermine democracy and the institutions that undergird it.

The most common response to the disorientation and desensitization of post-truth’s shock politics has, however, come from those who call for reinstating truth and rationality, with special emphasis on returning to the facts and fact-checking. From a feminist perspective, this approach is worrisome as it risks idealizing the connection between democracy and truth. Under the guise of reason or facts, it is easy to hold purported irrationality responsible for our current political and epistemic crises. From feminist and radical democratic perspectives, we might hope instead that democratic promise lies precisely in the possibility of challenging existing orders and enacting alternative ones (even ones that might be deemed scandalous or unintelligible within current norms).

The post-truth moment is highlighted by too much and too little politicization. There is too much contestation (of the post-truth variety, which loses touch with the shared reality out of which it emerged); there is too much depoliticization (of the technocratic or rationalist variety in responses that understand post-truth as emotional or irrational). This binary appears to effectively limit the space within which critiques of post-truth can meaningfully intervene.

Feminist takes on post-truth must take seriously this dual challenge at the crossroads of depoliticization and hyper-politicization, acknowledging the anti-democratic dangers of post-truth while keeping open the possibility and necessity of contestation. This volume is an attempt to open new, and emphasize existing, feminist modes of response that might break this deadlock in the post-truth discourse – more broadly, it is an attempt to help center the potential of feminist approaches in democratic theory.
 

Between optimism, coping & despair, from the tragic to the comedic

The articles in the volume are ordered in an arc that moves from the tragic to the comedic. Each proposes different analyses, judgements, and strategies for dealing with the theoretical and political challenges of post-truth. Is there an opportunity for reparation or restoration of a shared world? Or must we find ways to cope with irreparable fractures?

Three theoretical threads are woven throughout the perspectives included in the volume: first, an exploration of how we attain (and lose) a shared sense of normality (Marder, Wehrle, Yazıcıoğlu, Harris), borrowing from diverse philosophical currents including Foucault, Arendt, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis; second, a turn to affect in its experienced and performative complexity and as a potentially restorative, and not only disruptive force (Harris, Woodford, McAuliffe, Honig, Rotem); and third, a turn to particular worldly things and practices, in particular the practice of contestation (Rotem, Gebhardt, Honig).
 

Interrupted normality

Maren Wehrle starts her analysis of post-truth experiences from a widely shared longing for normality. Situated in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic that interrupted and perhaps reshaped our understanding of what is ‘normal’, she takes a phenomenological approach to argue that normality is ‘a necessary criterion for every possible experience’. Only in light of our plans and expectations, and in relation to people around us can we make sense of our sometimes frictional experiences of the world. Of course, not everyone has a similarly frictional or smooth experience of the world: Wehrle adds to her phenomenological approach a genealogical analysis of represented normality to show that societal norms ease the experiences of dominant societal groups, while blocking those of marginalized communities. Faced with frictions in our experience of the normal, Wehrle highlights two disparate strategies: the post-truth strategy of Covid deniers who try to retain their old sense of normality – struggling ‘against a changing and contingent reality’ and the struggle of marginalized groups for a reality that includes ever more experiences and perspectives.