Nietzsche, Trump, and the Social Practices of Valuing Truth

IF 0.2 4区哲学 0 PHILOSOPHY

Pluralist Pub Date : 2022-10-01 DOI:10.5406/19446489.17.3.01

Daniel I. Harris

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Abstract

tHe slogans of soCial movements are often put forward as simple truths, so that advocacy has consisted in changing social conditions such that these new truth claims are accepted as true: that women’s rights are human rights, that black lives matter. Social movements critical of the political ascendance of Donald Trump, however, have been concerned not merely with this or that truth claim, but with the status—epistemological, social, and political—of truth itself. Those examining this post-truth moment have often turned to Friedrich Nietzsche, who for many is synonymous with the kind of postmodern conception of truth at the center of post-truth politics. However, while it is true that Nietzsche offers valuable resources for thinking about Trump and post-truth, this is not because Nietzsche gives up on truth but because he is prescient in realizing what is at stake in our esteem for it. Nietzsche’s investigation of our pursuit of truth shows neither that there is no truth, nor that truth is not valuable, but that the unconditional character of the value we attribute to truth raises the specter of nihilism. Trump is a harbinger of this nihilism because he so brazenly flaunts our shared social practices of valuing truth. Since Nietzsche was so vexed by the issues concerning truth, which are now presented by Trump, Nietzsche’s responses to these issues are a vital starting point in thinking through the challenges of the present political moment. While Trump lost his bid for re-election in 2020, the election results hardly represented a damning indictment of Trumpism, and Trump, his children, or an acolyte may run in future elections. Trump-ism and the issues it raises about truth are here to stay. The argument of this paper proceeds in four parts. In Part 1, after defin-ing post-truth, I question the claims underpinning common connections between Nietzsche and post-truth, namely, that postmodernism brought about post-truth and that Nietzsche himself was postmodern. Although I

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尼采、特朗普和重视真理的社会实践

社会运动的口号常常被当作简单的真理提出，因此，倡导活动包括改变社会条件，使这些新的真理主张被接受为真理:妇女的权利是人权，黑人的生命也很重要。然而，对唐纳德·特朗普的政治优势持批评态度的社会运动不仅关注这样或那样的真理主张，还关注真理本身的认识论、社会和政治地位。那些审视这个后真相时刻的人经常求助于弗里德里希·尼采(Friedrich Nietzsche)，对许多人来说，他是后现代真理概念的代名词，处于后真相政治的中心。然而，虽然尼采确实为思考特朗普和后真理提供了宝贵的资源，但这并不是因为尼采放弃了真理，而是因为他有先见之明，意识到我们对真理的尊重面临着什么风险。尼采对我们对真理的追求的调查，既没有显示出真理是虚无的，也没有显示出真理是没有价值的，而是我们赋予真理的无条件的价值特征，引发了虚无主义的幽灵。特朗普是这种虚无主义的先驱者，因为他如此肆无忌惮地炫耀我们珍视真理的共同社会实践。既然尼采对特朗普现在提出的关于真理的问题如此烦恼，尼采对这些问题的回应是思考当前政治时刻挑战的重要起点。虽然特朗普在2020年竞选连任失败，但选举结果并不代表对特朗普主义的谴责，特朗普、他的子女或助手可能会参加未来的选举。特朗普主义及其引发的关于真相的问题将继续存在。本文的论述分为四个部分。在第一部分中，在定义了后真理之后，我对尼采与后真理之间的共同联系提出了质疑，即后现代主义带来了后真理，尼采本人就是后现代主义者。虽然我

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Pluralist PHILOSOPHY-

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