Andrei Cornea, Dilema: Facts and Interpretations

One of the most characteristic – and disturbing – features of the world in which we are given to live consists in the blurring of the boundaries between fact and interpretation. We have seen recent examples, in Donald Trump's speech at Davos, but also in his posts on social media. For instance, the President of America is not satisfied with merely criticizing European allies, considering that they have not done enough over time for America and NATO, but he also severely distorts the facts, denying their role in Afghanistan. Then, faced with severe criticism, he backtracks, acknowledging, for example, the role and blood price of the British. He talks about the necessity for America to take over Greenland, but several times confuses it with Iceland. A simple gaffe? Or rather, the confusions support the principle that reality itself has extremely variable contours that the speaker shapes according to their will and interests?

Of course, the relativization of facts engulfed by interpretations is not something new in itself. Without invoking the sophists of antiquity, we know well that much of Nietzsche's philosophy intended to destroy "with the hammer" the relative autonomy and solidity of the fact – historical, natural, scientific. For William James, truth can no longer be found – as in the classical tradition – from the correct understanding between discourse and an objective reality, but manifests itself in utility. For others, only the internal coherence of discourses and cultures offers "the truth" – this is what Nelson Goodman and Richard Rorty seem to have believed, and, to a large extent, it is also the inevitable conclusion of Thomas Kuhn's famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

The problem is that what was, a few decades ago, still largely an almost exclusively academic issue, involving heated debates only among groups of theorists, but without a major impact on the course of Western liberal societies, has today perhaps become the main factor in the dissolution of these societies – as we see both in Europe, in America, and in our own country.

In truth, the difference between MAGA supporters and "progressives," or between "georgești" and others does not lie in the fact that the two antagonistic groups interpret a reality differently, even oppositely, which, broadly speaking, they would still recognize as common and describe in compatible terms. No, the two groups and, in general, the contemporary political-cultural "tribes" that manifest most frequently on social media live in different realities or worlds, or, if you will, interpretation almost entirely devours the fact as such, which can no longer be isolated and recognized. For some, Greenland is a territory that America foolishly ceded to Denmark, for others, it is a territory that has belonged to the European state for centuries. Some, following Trump, are convinced that the ICE soldiers searching for immigrants are "patriots" and those who oppose them are "criminals"; others, seeing the same images and having the same data, believe that those in ICE are "human traffickers" and that they have killed innocent and unarmed people in several rows. People look at the same images, but see different realities, believe in different realities, not just opine differently about a reality they recognize as one and the same.

Pluralism has always been considered essential to a democratic society. The fact that people have diverse opinions has been seen as normal and beneficial. Only it has been considered that people can dialogue, exchange opinions, and cooperate willingly, as long as they always keep something in common – the epistemic equivalent of social unity: an objective, unique reality, shared to a considerable extent. It would seem that this is no longer the case: if we can no longer agree on the primary data – which is immediately visible when a president of the greatest power constantly utters blatant falsehoods and continues to be supported by a multitude of followers or finds justifications among some commentators, including from our side – it means that this unique common reality has either disappeared or is no longer shared among large segments of the population. In this case, however, the unity of society – not to mention that of the human species – and its fundamental coherence are called into question. Simply put, we are beginning to no longer live in the same world, from which we will tend to no longer be all human in the same way or even – at the limit – all human.

In this case, disputes between "tribes" become without solution. You cannot dialogue, in the authentic sense of the word, if you do not have at least a common basis for dialogue. That is why so-called public political dialogues become mere propagandistic reiterations of the same themes, aiming not so much to convince some opponents, but to overwhelm some adversaries and to rally the ranks of supporters. Moreover, alongside facts, rationality and science are relativized. If the results or conclusions of one or the other do not please us, we are encouraged to invent "alternative sciences" and "post-truth" rationalities. What matters is to seem that they serve our interests or, more precisely, to give us a vague impression of psychological comfort and internal coherence – the connection with reality being suppressed, since – according to the relativist vulgate – there is no "reality."

However, if we no longer live in the same world, we will no longer have the possibility of a common project and there will be no common future. In the best case, we will ignore each other; in the worst case, we will hate each other and consider each other vicious, insane, or sold to some diabolical forces. We will want to rid ourselves of each other through violence, expulsion, and assassination, and sometimes we will even succeed, when we have the force of police and states.

Not long from now, inevitably, Donald Trump will disappear. MAGA will also disappear, as will similar currents. The question is whether, how, and when we will ever be able to talk again about a unique reality shared in common by all those who interpret it, no matter how diverse. How many decades or centuries will we have to fight for the old distinction between facts and interpretations to become essential and imprescriptible again? Or is the tribalization of man definitive?

https://www.dilema.ro/situatiunea/fapte-si-interpretari