Post-Truth Era and the Problem of Scientific Objectivity: A Reading of Ian McEwan’s Solar

Abstract

The fast growing technology and the accelerated knowledge explosion that followed it have directly or indirectly created a corresponding post-truth era. An incredulity toward the accepted knowledge consequently gained momentum in every formal and informal gathering. As postmodernists suggest, the present age has become an age of hyperreality, mostly characterized by faking and simulations. Similarly, post-truth era directs one’s attention toward the probable or possible truths than the ultimate truths. Thus, this era reflects a trend where lies become widely accepted truths. Among the established systems of knowledge, science remains highly objective and scientists claim this objectivity with the backing of evidence gathered through experiments. But even scientific objectivity is under scrutiny in the present scenario. Ian McEwan’s Solar, with its sarcastic portrayal of the subjective elements which drive the objectivity of scientists and further invite disaster on the future of human race, stands as a fine example of the post-truth tendencies. Focusing on these aspects, this paper examines how the scientific claim of objectivity is contradicted by the post-truth phenomenon and how literature presents this conflict through Ian McEwan’s Solar.