Power and Truth

We are living in an unsettling time, one key feature of which is epistemic closure: the refusal of large parts of the population to accept traditional ways of overcoming political differences through compromise, embracing an absolute kind of tribalism instead. The great social theorist and intellectual historian Steven Lukes addresses this situation in conversation with The Point’s Jon Baskin, harkening back to Hannah Arendt’s suggestion that “truth and politics are on very bad terms with each other.” Observing developments in the United States and elsewhere, he contemplates her radical conclusion that the essence of truth is impotence, the essence of power deceit.