Unaffirmed assertions can express truths incommensurable with dominant discourse
Evidence
Affirmation: for Le Bon, this is an illegitimate operation whose only function is to break the link between what is affirmed and any reasoning that would support it. For him, to assert something beyond the possibility of rational proof can only be some form of lying. Is this so, however? Should we conceive of social interaction as a terrain on which there are no affirmations that are not grounded? What if an affirmation is the appeal to recognize something which is present in everybody’s experience, but cannot be formalized within the existing dominant social languages? Can such an affirmation – which would be, as in Saint Paul, ‘madness for the Greeks and scandal for the Heathen’ – be reduced to a lie because it is incommensurable with the existing forms of social rationality? Patently not. To assert something beyond any proof could be a first stage in the emergence of a truth which can be affirmed only by breaking with the coherence of the existing discourses. — Ernesto Laclau, On Populist Reason, 82
Categorization
- SEED: Could yield an essay on how dogmatic-sounding political demands may encode emergent truths the dominant language cannot yet formalize.
- XREF: Saint Paul’s ‘madness to the Greeks’ resonates with the Frankfurt School account of claims that can’t be formalized in current social rationality. — connects to: Subordinated regimes of truth sustain plausibility for oppressed subjects; The West-and-Rest discourse functions as a system of representation and regime of truth — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 687; Unchallenged assertions gain credibility with passive audiences — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 263 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Subordinated regimes of truth sustain plausibility for oppressed subjects
#corroborates(0.85) - Discourse constrains but does not fully determine what can be said
#expands(0.85) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 55 - Low integrative-complexity speakers present single-category judgments as self-evident truth
#exemplifies(0.82) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2302 - Unchallenged assertions gain credibility with passive audiences
#exemplifies(0.80) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 263 - Free indirect discourse fused with omniscience can produce a closed self-justifying worldview
#exemplifies(0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 104 - Recovering subjugated knowledges risks rebuilding a unitary discourse
#qualifies(0.80) - The West-and-Rest discourse functions as a system of representation and regime of truth
#corroborates(0.78) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 687 - Deconstruction questions truth-privileging without denying truth exists
#corroborates(0.78) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 243 - Discourse produces knowledge that shapes perceptions and enacts power
#qualifies(0.75) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 687