Telos 192 (Fall 2020): Truth and Power is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.
There is a strong temptation to oppose the idealism of truth to the realism of power in order to criticize and turn away from politics as a base pursuit. Science, facts, and ideals are cited as the objective truths that so often are ignored in favor of ideology, lies, and self-interest by those who wield power. Yet this opposition between truth and power can itself become a dubious tactic, as it is often the speaker who seeks to define an opinion as truth. This situation is complicated by the circumstance that there are three forms of truth that are often merged in such discussions.
First, there are natural scientific truths that even autocrats and totalitarians do not seek to deny, as they are the source of the technological tools that can support any attempt to maintain power. Here, there is certainly no conflict between truth and power. Not only does political power depend on technological achievement, but natural scientific facts cannot be covered up by lies and ideology for long. Consequently, political actors must pay attention to natural scientific and technical knowledge, even if they then instrumentalize it in different ways.
Historical facts are another matter, however, and the replacement of such facts with lies is a common method of authoritarian and totalitarian rulers. It is here that one might most appropriately speak of the way in which truth can “speak to power.” That is, when those in power seek to deny or cover up historical facts, such as when the Chinese Communist Party attempts to suppress knowledge of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre or the detention camps in Xinjiang, the exposure of the truth of these facts becomes a political act. Yet such an availability of truth as a counter to power depends on the extent to which historical facts are indeed being actively suppressed rather than simply ignored, as is the case in most liberal democracies. In the latter case, the naming of historical facts becomes part of the expression of public opinions about which facts are most significant at the present moment. In this context, lies about the historical record also have a different political meaning when they are not part of an active suppression of the truth. Because such lies can be openly refuted, they do not suppress the truth so much as blur the distinction between a historical fact and the perspective that a particular reading of that fact (or lie) might support.[1]
It is this issue of perspective that defines the final way in which truth relates to power. Ideals that derive from a theological, philosophical, or scientific perspective also claim a truth value that is linked to power to the extent that such ideals are meant to structure our relationship to the world. Every form of power is in fact the expression of a set of ideals with a claim to truth. Citing James Madison’s dictum that “all governments rest on opinion,” Hannah Arendt affirms that “not even the most autocratic ruler or tyrant could ever rise to power, let along keep it, without the support of those who are like-minded,”[2] and the maintenance of this support depends on the ability of the rulers to preserve the legitimacy of their ideals. Truth and power always coincide in this sense. Even the Nazis maintained their power through reference to an ideal of racial purity, as noxious as it was to those who were persecuted by it.
But because every such ideal comes into conflict with various other competing “truths,” the relationship to power is constantly in doubt and subject to revision. While each ideal claims an absolute ability to interpret the world and structure our relationship to it, the variety of such ideals prevents any single one from claiming universal validity. Even the ideals expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights must establish themselves in competition with conflicting visions of world order. This issue of Telos focuses on the complexity of this relationship of truth to power, particularly in the case of theological and philosophical perspectives.
The issue begins with essays from a conference on “Asymmetricality, the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, and Abrahamic Peace,” organized in 2018 by the University of Haifa, Al-Qasemi College, and the Telos-Paul Piccone Institute. In his contribution, Aryeh Botwinick suggests a way out of the quandary of competing truths for political life by arguing that negative theology can provide a model for understanding the relationship of truth to power. By linking Moses Maimonides with Machiavelli, Botwinick shows how negative theology avoids any definitive statements about the divine in order to focus on worldly developments as they relate to each other. The effects of power are as unpredictable as positive truths about God are impossible, leaving only the possibility of making conjectures about possible outcomes of certain actions. Since negative theology must remain on the level of the possible in making determinations, it is also inherently linked to power. At the same time, power cannot be separated from theology to the extent that the use of power involves a conceptual dynamic in which an asymmetry can lead to vulnerabilities in the stronger as well as the weaker party. Botwinick applies these insights to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict by indicating that a resolution can only come about if the parties are able to establish a kind of theological symmetry that would be the basis for a lasting peace. In order to do this, they must become more like each other in a way that would also break down power imbalances.
Menachem Fisch develops the argument about theology by showing that a theological problem has prevented the development of an Israeli national identity. In order to maintain a liberal democracy, Israel must develop an understanding of its national identity that can include both Jewish and non-Jewish communities. Not only would this understanding provide the basis for a unified national identity internally, but it would also allow Israel to become a reliable partner in its dealings with other nations. Yet as Fisch points out, the establishment of an Israeli national identity that would better include, for example, Arab Israelis has been prevented by a Jewish theology that has been centered around an anti-political and racially purist vision of community based on Ezra’s and Nehemiah’s return to Zion. The key to transforming the possibilities of Israeli politics lies in revising its theology to orient its identity around the Chronicles version of Solomon and his style of inclusive political rule.
In order to establish a kind of truth based on human rights that could transcend the inconsistencies of existing law, Jon Simons interprets Benjamin’s idea of divine violence as the basis for a notion of justice that is detached from law. When it is not equated with law, the idea of justice can motivate nonviolent direct action as a way of supporting human rights by opposing legally sanctioned forms of violence and injustice. Simons describes how Rabbis for Human Rights carry out such actions through, on the one hand, scriptural interpretation that attempts to reconcile international human rights standards with Jewish theology and, on the other hand, legal and extralegal actions designed to improve Jewish relations with Palestinians.
Annabel Herzog considers the conflict between truth and politics as one between Hannah Arendt’s understanding of her Jewishness as a natural identity, into which one is born, and as a political identity, which arises through action in the world. Because Arendt links natural identity to the dismal state of one’s bare humanity, Jewishness poses a particular problem because she treats it as a natural identity, even though it has political consequences. It may be that the distinction that Arendt makes between natural identity and political action eventually dissolves because the definition of what a person “naturally is” arises out of a political act.
Lenka Ucnik recounts how Arendt reacted to the atrocities of Nazism by attempting to establish a philosophical truth that can place moral limits on our actions, preventing us from committing crimes. Arendt argues that thought can lead a person to see contradictions between what one thinks and what one does, leading one to want to resolve the contradiction and create unity within oneself. Ucnik points out that this approach relies on the tension between a particular action and a universal principle in order to prevent immoral acts. But Arendt also recognizes that moral and political judgments concern situations that need to be considered as unique and therefore cannot immediately be understood as an example of a general rule. The point of political action is to influence collective decision-making even when there are many different opinions and thus no clear-cut answer. Consequently, Ucnik argues that critical thinking is useful not as a way to lead every particular situation back to a universal principle but as a way to allow each situation to be approached in its uniqueness within a continual search for meaning.
In his analysis of political language during the Trump era, Mark Kelly argues that Donald Trump, far from being the fascist that his left-liberal opponents make him out to be, has overseen a continued weakening of state power in the face of a rising neoliberal techno-capitalism. Looked at closely, Trump’s policies, such as the enforcement and tightening of immigration laws, have not actually deviated significantly from those of prior administrations, even if the anti-immigrant rhetoric has been ramped up. The more serious threats to liberal principles such as freedom of expression have come from the social media companies that have colluded to banish right-wing populist messages from the internet. Kelly concludes that Trump’s opponents are fighting the battles against fascism, racism, and sexism of a bygone era when today’s true dangers lie with the neoliberal shift of power away from the state and toward the corporations that now increasingly control both state policy and the public sphere itself.
Justin Neville Kaushall delves into the structure of subjectivity in order to discover a kind of truth that can only reveal itself when the subject encounters its own limits. He describes the way in which Adorno’s idea of the shudder presents a way of relating to nature that avoids instrumentalization. The shudder of fear that one feels when facing threats from nature corresponds to the shudder that one can experience in the work of art. In art, the shudder is the result not simply of fear but of a recognition of what we lose when we try and control nature. If we seek total domination of nature, then we lose the capacity to experience something outside of ourselves. The shudder reminds us of this uncontrollable aspect of reality, and the experience of the shudder can lead us to relate to ourselves differently in order to discover non-exploitative ways of relating to nature.
The idea of universal human rights has formed the basis of a worldwide consensus on the truth of politics, and this issue includes contributions by several authors, including four commissioners and the rapporteur, concerning the recently released Report of the Commission on Unalienable Rights.
Russell Berman insists on the pre-political aspect of human rights principles, which would lose their universal validity if they could not claim some basis outside of the state for their authority, such as natural law, natural right, or human nature. While human rights are universal in that they must be distinguished from states and laws, nation-state sovereignty will also be required in order to protect those rights in practice. Accordingly, each nation will meet human rights obligations in different ways and will have its own emphases in their foreign policy, and it is at this level that the tough decisions about competing foreign policy demands will have to be made. The discretion that nation-states have in their internal and external affairs corresponds to a responsibility to maintain a human rights perspective in all their domestic and international policy considerations.
Against the idea that the affirmation of national traditions might lead to a suppression of universal principles, Peter Berkowitz argues that both the Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are structured around the idea that nation-states are the primary political unit for defending human rights. Instead of trying to establish a single overarching transnational government, the Universal Declaration relies on individual nations to take responsibility for honoring human rights principles based on their own traditions. Just as the United States can refer to its history in order to affirm those universal principles, Chung-Shu Lo describes the sources for human rights in the Chinese tradition. By arriving at a respect for human rights through its own tradition, each nation is able to build a strong foundation for such rights in its own context.
Ruth Starkman argues that the commission report provides the basis for a renewed public discussion of the importance of human rights principles for U.S. national identity. In contrast to specialized discussions of human rights, the report provides an accessible document that nevertheless thematizes key debates, such as the contradictions between equality and slavery in the U.S. tradition, the conflict between universal rights and nation-state sovereignty, and the relationship between human rights and positive law. If respect for human rights must filter down to everyday contexts and people in order to have real meaning, then the report provides an important resource in this endeavor to expand the discussion to a wider audience.
In his discussion of the nature, scope, and sources of human rights, Christopher Tollefsen addresses the question of the truth of human rights by emphasizing that the dignity that human rights protects involves “flourishing in community” rather than a focus on individual autonomy. Human rights should not refer to everything that an individual desires if such desires are not truly of benefit to the individual. Suggesting that human dignity must have a transcendent, divine origin, rather than merely arise out of natural or human history, he argues that the report is too sanguine about the ability of a cultural tradition to establish the importance of human dignity without reference to such a divine source.
F. Cartwright Weiland points out that the commission and its report appeared at an opportune moment in U.S. history, when questions about human rights and U.S. national identity arose in relation to the New York Times‘s 1619 Project, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the toppling of statues and monuments. He provides an in-depth account of the establishment of the commission and its detractors, as well as details about its proceedings and the contributions of individual commissioners.
My own essay argues that the struggle against racism in the United States could not have been successful without the ability to refer to equality as a founding principle. At the same time, the mere enunciation of this principle would have been insufficient without the political struggles that established it against the idea of different classes of humanity. Variations on this latter idea continue to provide the ideological basis for human rights abuses. Consequently, the promotion of human rights cannot depend on international organizations predicated on consensus but rather on the nation-state actors who can engage in the rhetorical and political struggles necessary for each individual tradition to be able to embrace human rights ideals and practices.
The issue concludes with a pair of book reviews. In her review of Lucy Jane Ward’s book on Ágnes Heller, Lilla Balint describes how Heller engaged with the work of Karl Marx in order to show how capitalist alienation makes possible forms of freedom and self-realization in the modern world. Maxwell Kennel’s review of a collection of essays by Jacob Taubes highlights his arguments for how the voice of God coincides with the voice of the people, religion thereby linking with the moral aspect of sovereignty.
Notes
1. For an account of this relationship between truth and lie in politics, see Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Viking Press, 1968), pp. 249–59.
2. Ibid., p. 233.
