The entire thrust of postmodernism, inspired by Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, is to develop a “hermeneutics of suspicion” in which there is no truth, only victory. Every argument is a (concealed) exercise of power, an attempt to establish a “hegemonic discourse.” Judaism rejects this idea, not because it is never true—in the case of an argument not for the sake of heaven, it is—but because we can tell when it is and when it isn’t. There is such a thing as truth, and collaborative argument in pursuit of it. That is the basis of trust on which all genuine communication depends.
