Carter Kaplan on Truth and Free Speech

Attentive Audience

In a talk at the WAH Center on John Milton, Carter Kaplan discusses such things as truth, free speech, freedom of the press, rationality, and the like, then segues into a paragraph on the conflict between, ultimately, modernity and postmodernity:

Countering these [modern] views are the assertions of the German idealists, who, for various historical and political reasons, have managed to transplant their influence to Britain and North America. In brief, we can collectively call this influence "postmodernism", but more specifically we can construe this phenomenon along the lines of Hobbes, Berkeley, Rousseau, and the German idealists; and I suggest two data points neatly describe the phenomenon: First, Nietzsche advances a perspective theory of truth: Truth, like morality, is a relative affair: there are no facts, only interpretations. Nietzsche says, "Language falsifies reality, and therefore we will not be rid of God [that is, 'truth'] until we are rid of grammar." Second, and following along these lines, is the Marxist view. Far from being a philosophy of revolution and social justice, I take Marxism to be an ideology of power. Thus the Marxists say "truth" is a "bourgeois" value, and the "Revolution" must overcome the truth and the idea that stands behind it. Although I view the postmodern position as little more than the propaganda of the authoritarian corporate-statists, the idea is strong currency among intellectuals who see themselves ushering in a world government. I should remark that criticizing this project can be unpopular.

I'm finally beginning to understand what's meant by "cultural Marxism" - it's Marx minus his rational critique of capitalism (e.g., the quantified, if illusory, labor theory of value) - and as the Left with its 'leftover' Marxism distances itself from truth and reason, it naturally gravitates toward violence to settle issues, whether external or internal.

Hence leftist groups like Antifa . . .