Not long ago, under the influence of Michel Foucault, one spoke of the conjunction of knowledge and power, but in this post-truth era power appears singularly uninterested in knowledge, even as the supporters of Donald Trump claim that he alone of all politicians speaks the truth. This essay proposes to examine the relations of power and knowledge under the present populist assault. This analysis begins in the work of Claude Lefort, who spoke of the separation of knowledge and power in democracy’s symbolic regime, and is then counterposed to Ernesto Laclau’s understanding of ‘populist reason’ in order to explore the present torsion of this relation to the point where power can appear not just separated from, but opposed to knowledge. It will be argued that it is less a question of post-truth than of different forms of truth with different truth claims, borne by different imperatives, and tied to different forms of representation – truth claims that can, in relation to each other, be indifferent, complementary, or conflictual. With this in mind, the essay asks: what is the relation of the people to truth? Do those who claim to represent the people seek possession of a different kind of truth? What is the relation of populism to ideology? And what is populism’s relation to ‘post-modernism’?

不久前，在米歇尔·福柯（Michel Foucault）的影响下，有人谈到了知识与权力的结合，但是在这个后真理时代，权力似乎对知识毫无兴趣，即使唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）的支持者声称他独自一人在所有政治人物中讲话真相。本文提议考察在当前民粹主义袭击下的权力与知识的关系。这项分析始于克劳德·莱福特（Claude Lefort）的工作，他谈到了民主象征性政权中知识与权力的分离，然后与埃内斯托·拉克劳（Ernesto Laclau）对“民粹主义理性”的理解背道而驰，以探索这种关系在这一点上的当前扭曲。权力的出现不仅与知识分离，而且与知识相反。将会争辩说，与其说是真相问题，不如说是具有不同真相主张的不同形式真相的问题，这些真相主张由不同的命令承担，并与不同的表示形式相关联–相对于彼此而言，真相主张可以是冷漠，互补或冲突。考虑到这一点，本文提出了一个问题：人们与真理的关系是什么？那些声称代表人民的人会寻求拥有另一种真理吗？民粹主义与意识形态有什么关系？民粹主义与“后现代主义”有什么关系？人民与真理有什么关系？那些声称代表人民的人会寻求拥有另一种真理吗？民粹主义与意识形态有什么关系？民粹主义与“后现代主义”有什么关系？人民与真理有什么关系？那些声称代表人民的人会寻求拥有另一种真理吗？民粹主义与意识形态有什么关系？民粹主义与“后现代主义”有什么关系？