Book review: ‘The Future of Truth’ by Werner Herzog

As you might expect, coming from the pen of Werner Herzog, The Future of Truth is an entertaining book with an idiosyncratic slant. Herzog explores what we mean when we talk of ‘truth’ and how to cope in our post-truth era of billionaire social-media moguls, deep-fake videos, and so-called ‘AI’ hallucination.

More than once, Herzog refers to an idea he calls ‘ecstatic truth’: a supposedly higher form of truth based on more than mere facts:

I have always insisted that you need stylization, invention, poetry, and imagination to locate a deeper layer of truth, one that can access a distant echo of something that can illuminate us, far beyond the reach of fact. My term for this is ‘ecstatic truth’.

This seems not too far from the perilous idea expressed by Albert Camus and others that ‘fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth’. I have a huge problem with this claim—by which, I mean I think it’s dangerous bullshit. That said, I enjoyed reading Herzog’s thoughts in this vein. He even describes some “interventions of mine into the realm of factuality”—including certain embellishments he made in his documentary films, supposedly to reveal some deeper layer of truth. I would argue such ‘interventions’ might be more accurately described as ‘inventions’. In fairness to Herzog, however, he does make it clear these embellishments should be made clear or should be patently obvious, and there are occasions when such in(ter)ventions are unacceptable.

Towards the end of this short book, Herzog offers a few thoughts on how to circumvent the mass of misinformation and lies now assaulting us. He has no sure-fire answers, but encourages us to read more books and to get out into the real world more, rather than doom-scrolling on our screens. Amen to that!