In the marketplace of ideas, you need buyers and sellers – that’s how you find the price of the truth.How catchy. And as we are constantly reminded, Caldwell the Younger, with his British graduate credentials, is to be taken very seriously. So let's think about what this means.
It certainly sounds deep. The first clause suggests that ideas are things bought and sold in a market. That would seem to suggest that those ideas that prosper are those that people are willing to spend the most on. So far, so good. And of course it follows (Theo clearly completed his logic and reasoning course) that the interaction of buyers and sellers will arrive at a price for these ideas -- what he refers to as a price for truth.
Truth, therefore, does not have intrinsic value, but rather a price. And since Mr. Caldwell is obviously a purveyor of such ideas (and hence a negotiable conception of truth) it follows that he is selling to a buyer. Presumably, this would be Sun Media, and of course, their advertisers. So Caldwell is willing to provide a negotiable truth to a buyer with sufficiently deep pockets, and vigorously defend that truth, for a price.
One can only conclude that when Theo tells you something is true, unless you are Sun Media or one of its advertisers, you may want to be somewhat sceptical. And even if you are Sun Media or one of its entourage, you might suspect that your public nakedness is being described as serious wardrobe savvy for purely commercial reasons.
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