People will believe what makes them feel, in spite of themselves, like they either already correspond to their ideal self-picture or that they have an opportunity for advancing towards doing so.
Could this be the most profound secret about human nature? The torsion of HAELEGEN: crucifed by language, I am split into an alien ideal, the source of which is obscure to me, and an equally fantasmatic "real" private, wretched me who seemingly forever fails to live up to this ideal.
The practical consequences of this near-universal fact are enormous. Because it means that honesty, sincerity and clear communication are in some ways superficial. The best of intentions cannot change the reality that most humans will literally believe to be true facts that appear to them, unconsciously, to be either flattering or to present opportunities for advancement.
I take it as a duty to, as often as possible, recognize that I myself am governed by these laws, and so are those around me. Our core convictions - those beliefs that we see as precisely not in need of justification or explanation - have no basis in discursive reason or justice.
That holds for basic presuppositions all across the political spectrum. We on the left have to remember that even convictions about egalitarianism are shot through with historicity and power.
Nevertheless, politics is not simply a value-neutral power struggle. The left has science, practical reason and God on its side. But this can only be established and re-established as Ark Work - historically situated, prophetic struggle, a contingency in the name of the absolute