Post-Truth Politics: Not new to us (US)

Do you remember a scene from the movie

'A Few Goodmen'. And specifically the conversations between Tom Cruz (Lt. Kaffee) and Jack Nicholson (Col. Jessep).
Let me remind you.
Judge Randolph: *Consider yourself in Contempt!*
Kaffee: *Colonel Jessep, did you order the Code Red?*
Judge Randolph: You *don't* have to answer that question!
Col. Jessep: I'll answer the question!
[to Kaffee]
Col. Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to.
Col. Jessep: *You want answers?*
Kaffee: *I want the truth!*
Col. Jessep: *You can't handle the truth!*
Here, Kaffee wanted to know the truth. And Jessep doubted his capabilities to handle it.
Now imagine ourselves at the place of Kaffee and our leaders at the place of Jessep. What?
Did you hear them? No?
No. Exactly. Because truth is relative. But it is relative in the private sphere only. No-one could say that in political or social sphere. Because "Truth" is imposed. It is imposed on us by the intellectuals, experts, leaders, all kinda elitists. Why do they do that?
Simple. Deconstruct the reality and motive will be more clear. (-Plato). (Do they read Plato too?🤔) (Who clamoured 'demonetisation' there?)
So are they fooling us? May be not. It could be necessity of time (or for the sake of national security?). No, believe me, you are not anti-national when you ask that.

What is Post-Truth Society?

Post-truth is nothing but the mistaken assertion. As Franscis Fukuyama says, it is the assertion of things which has no factual base. It is also known as 'Post-Fact' society/politics, where there is manipulation of facts, converts in the lies and subsequently into the Truth.

Franscis Fukuyama further analyses the process of this "Truth". After asserting this facts-less truth, some people start criticising it, but it makes no difference. Because already large chunks of people have started promoting it. Why? Reason behind this, it is motivated by personal beliefs and feeling which leader shares the same as of you and me.

For Ex. In India, there are various castes. For your political purpose (vested interests like votes, competition et.al.) you can't afford harmony between any two classes. What will you do? You will go to the first one and will convince them to come to the conclusion that the other one doesn't have good views about them. And then you will do the same with second one. Now it creates doubts. Subsequently clashes.
But the truth was they were really on good terms with each other. Lies create doubts and doubt destabilises society.

Hence, deconstruct the reality motive will be more clear.

This is how post-truth world works.
While articulating the definition of justice in dilectics of Plato, Cephalus, a character, argues 'justice is in being truthful'. Plato puts counter-argument, saying, Being truthful is a good proposition but not desirable in all situations. Sometimes it is better to conceal truth. (In case of Intelligence agencies, National Security.)
Concluding this we get two connotations of post-truth society-
1) Moral 2) Immoral.

If we talk about the immoral post-truth society, the term has been in news regarding Brexit and US presidential election. According to some analysts, Brexit and truimph of Trump are the offsprings of post-Truth politics, covering the truth under rhetoric (Kaun bola Modiji? Saala Anti-National) for political purposes.

But as some other experts say, this is not new term, it has been in our society since the formation of authorities, States and Nations. As author of the book 'Lies Incorporated' Ari Rabin-Havt says, there are no lie creators, there are lie amplifiers in today's world of politics. And creators are not new to us but the amplifiers are. Such as social networkings, facebook, whatsapp and manipulated main-stream media.

Conclusion: This is not new concept of today's world, it has just been coined again by amplifying the impact.

Bertrand Russell once said,
"Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will probably find....that your belief is going beyond what the evidences warrants."

Too Much Rhetoric, Too Little Substance

( Views are strictly personal. No offence.)

The purpose of this post is to consider to what extent the excess money (cash) flow has raised the price level, ambiguity in transactions and corruption and how current demonetization can bring about the effective solution. Before the actual analysis has been made, it is fair to tell you that no precise instrument (rather, we say procedure) has been made as yet to stop corruption and inflation by demonetization. There are several ways of demonetization. I am not going to tell all the details. Moreover excess liquidity does not stay in liquid form. More often then not, the excess liquidity, we consider, equal to the more abused term "black money" and analysis says that this black money may assume the form of real estates, stocks, bonds and gold.

The relationship between inflation and monetary policy can probably be discussed most conveniently by referring to the classical ‘equation of exchange’, developed by Irving Fisher in 1911. i.e. MV=PT. Money supply and velocity are the two main components which changes over the period of time.(or the stocks manipulation  ) According to so called "Liberal Monetarists" (Eg. Milton Friedman) money and velocity only changes the equation which in turn changes the economy. If we go with this the main reason behind increasing corruption is the money flow with more velocity i.e. excess liquidity. Some of you may argue that increases in the money supply will tend to be offset by exactly proportional declines in velocity — thus, ‘money does not matter’, the strict Keynesian view. For some, velocity remains constant. But the main problem is between that. To control the flow and velocity, many monetarists suggested to use demonetization as a tool to curb black money.

But it is not the absolute solution. There are two ways to bring about demonetization. One, demonitizing lower currencies (eg. 25 paise, 50 paise coins), two demonitizing higher currencies (500, 1000 rupees notes). First way is strictly limited to control the inflation by maintaining the money circulation and encouraging consumption(increases demand). Second one, sometimes led you to inflate the prices. Because it makes you apathetic to spend whatever you have in cash. This in turn decreses circulation (that is what our Govt wants by this new decision of demonetization) and deteriorate demands too, which is detrimental to the economy. It stimulates the prices to rise higher and higher like 'up above the world so high'. But there are no diamonds.

Nevertheless decision is a good one. RBI has to work out. let's hope for the best.