This is really interesting. I guess we all have compatible/incompatible versions of what is true/false depending on what we choose to believe in the first instance.
A very interesting essay. What struck me while reading it is how closely this problem of legitimacy and public truth echoes an older tragic structure.
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus becomes legitimate in Thebes because he gives the functionally correct answer to the Sphinx. The city accepts him as its saviour before the deeper question of who he is has been answered. In that sense, his public role is stabilised before his origin is known.
This seems close to the modern situation described here: institutions and platforms often do not simply ask what happened, but who has the authority to make an event publicly legible. The ancient tragedy may therefore already contain a version of our contemporary problem: function becomes visible before origin, and legitimacy can arrive before truth.
This is really interesting. I guess we all have compatible/incompatible versions of what is true/false depending on what we choose to believe in the first instance.
A very interesting essay. What struck me while reading it is how closely this problem of legitimacy and public truth echoes an older tragic structure.
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus becomes legitimate in Thebes because he gives the functionally correct answer to the Sphinx. The city accepts him as its saviour before the deeper question of who he is has been answered. In that sense, his public role is stabilised before his origin is known.
This seems close to the modern situation described here: institutions and platforms often do not simply ask what happened, but who has the authority to make an event publicly legible. The ancient tragedy may therefore already contain a version of our contemporary problem: function becomes visible before origin, and legitimacy can arrive before truth.
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The framing around epistemic authority is exactly what's missing from most discussions on this. Timely and important.
This was great, thanks.