STREAM
BEING HUMAN Conversation
DATE & TIME
8 SEPTEMBER 2018
1-2.30PM
LOCATION
VEOLIA LECTURE THEATRE,
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART,
140 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney
If truth no longer matters, who’s responsible?
New terms like “post-truth”, “alternative facts”, and “fake news” suggest truth has fallen in rank. But who’s to blame? Crafty politicians trying to shape the world to their benefit? Or our own fallible minds and memories?
As part of the MCA Conversation Starters series coinciding with Chinese artist Sun Xun’s first Sydney exhibition, immerse yourself in this experiential program that brings together psychology, philosophy and linguistics to reveal to us the role we’ve played in creating a post-truth world.
Explore attitudes to truth across the ages and have your position on truth revealed to you through a thought experiment led by ethicist Dr Simon Longstaff. Learn what can be done about our post-truth world with professor of linguistics Nick Enfield. And see the fallibility of our own perceptions with memory researcher Celine Van Golde.
Speakers
Simon Longstaff
Dr Simon Longstaff is a philosopher, executive director of The Ethics Centre and co-creator of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas. He has been working closely with people of greatly diverse thinking, ethical viewpoints and different interpretations of truth for decades and has been made an officer of the Order of Australia.
Nick Enfield
Nick is Professor of linguistics and head of the University of Sydney’s Post-Truth Initiative, a multidisciplinary unit that “examines fake news, alternative facts, lies, bullshit and propaganda with the aim to understand them, and to advise on how the truth might survive this climate”.
Celine Van Golde
Dr Celine Van Golde is a memory researcher and lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Sydney. She is the founding director of Not Guilty: The Sydney Exoneration Project, a psychology and law program that reviews possible wrongful convictions.
Kym Middleton
Host Kym Middleton is head of editorial and events at The Ethics Centre. She began her career as a news and current affairs journalist producing long form television programs, news coverage and multimedia documentaries. Uncovering truth, fact, and bias have long been a part of her work.
Who is it for?
- THE ACTIVIST
- THE CURIOUS
- THE FUTURIST
What you'll take away
- 01A BRAIN-TEASING THOUGHT EXPERIMENT
- 02A KEENER EYE FOR POST-TRUTH POLITICS
- 03AN INSIGHT INTO THE FALLIBILITY OF YOUR MEMORY
