Sins of the Fathers

We hear much talk today about post-truth. Journalists and intellectuals describe it as a shocking new phenomenon caused by recent electoral campaigns. They point to contemporary political statements as horrendous post-truths. Nothing is more misleading. ''Historical engineering'' is not a new phenomenon. Nor are the events to which journalists point as exemplary instances of ''post-truth'' particularly poignant. ''Historical engineering'' is the intellectual twin of ''social engineering'' and has been taking place on increasingly large scales since the dawn of the modern world. It is a consequence of the premises, methods, and ambitions of modern philosophy. This book is the first part of a trilogy - The Betrayal of Philosophy - that concerns the roots of the post-truth phenomenon. Its intent is to provide the philosophical world with a phantasm in which it can see not just the what of ''historical engineering,'' but the why: to show the flaws of modern philosophy itself. The phantasm regards the most successful modern project of historical and social engineering: the Armenian Genocide. It includes both Turkey''s ''historical engineering'' - its official policy of genocide negation - and the massive late Ottoman project of social and territorial engineering which led to the murder of the first Christian nation: Armenia.