Slavoj Žižek, Viktor Orbán, and Understanding “Post-Truth”

“This does seem to be occurring in the academy, as the contemporary academic stars of critical theory such as Alain Badious and Slavoj Žižek tend to be hostile to the extreme skepticism of post-modern theory.”

Introduction

There is much to appreciate in Gabriel Andrade’s recent piece criticizing the notion that we live in a “post-truth” era. Andrade acknowledges that I “have a point” in my contentions about post-modern conservatism. However, Andrade contends that my position is somewhat overstated—in that things are generally getting better rather than worse. Here he invokes Steven Pinker’s well-known defense of progress in Enlightenment Now. Andrade goes on to say that if there is a cultural tendency to embrace “post-truth,” it is more prevalent on the political left than on the political right. He invokes a number of well-known radical left theorists, who embraced skeptical positions to back up this case. Here, I will quote Andrade at some length:

“Richard Rorty, Paul Feyerabend, Jacques Derrida, and many, many more held similar views. The Left—not the Right—loves these thinkers. A bow-tied young Republican is highly unlikely to quote Derrida; it is, in reality, the dreadlocks-wearing activist, who is far more likely to bid farewell to truth.

These aforementioned intellectual figures have had a more unnoticed (yet, at the same time) more profound influence on the disregard for truth in our times. They are the professors who keep telling us that objectivity does not exist because claims about the world are always mediated by power. They are the ones who advise students not to refute a particular claim but, rather, to say that because the person who makes that claim has a particular identity, then that claim cannot be taken seriously.

With such disregard for truth, we must come to admit that fake reports on Breitbart are actually the chickens coming home to roost. The fake news of right-wing media may be the leaves, but the intellectual Left is the trunk and the roots of that monstrous tree.”