From pluralism of values to relativism of facts?

We all remember that famous Weberian distinction between facts and values which, although sometimes questioned, is still part of our common logical sense: facts are descriptions of the way things are, they are always verifiable and therefore 'objective'; values, on the other hand, represent our judgements on how things should be, they are not objectively verifiable but the expression of our subjective views. The language of facts is descriptive, it analyses how things are as they are, it is the language of science, wertfrei, neutral with respect to values; the language of values, on the other hand, is prescriptive, it concerns things as they should be, and here we enter the realm of law, morals, politics, and opinions can also be very different.

The resulting inevitable 'pluralism of values' can, of course, be looked at from different perspectives: some - like the liberal Isaiah Berlin - saw in it the very prerequisite for freedom and mutual respect between people, while others - like the conservative Carl Schmitt - saw it as the antechamber for a new form of tyranny, the 'tyranny of values'. If today's world can teach us anything, it is that perhaps the conflict between our values is always first and foremost a conflict that tears our societies apart from the inside, rather than the condition for tolerant coexistence. Conflict means that, between two values, one always wants to prevail over the other, annihilating it. It is the opposite of what jurists have called 'balancing', which has often turned out to be an illusion. Politics, or rather 'the politician', the founding criterion that in principle governs it, does not accept balancing, but only conflict, which it then resolves through the use of force. This is the reality. Life is sacred, certainly, but if there is a war, you must die for your country. And if then 'value of life' and 'value of country' come into conflict, there is no possible third way: either you die for your country, or we shoot you for desertion.

In short, pluralism is certainly a good idea, and I would say especially insofar as it is able to 'unmask' those values that pretend to disguise themselves as facts, that is, that tend to present themselves as facts, and therefore as 'objectively' true and not debatable. Let us take an example. The proposition 'All men are equal' tends to present itself as expressing a fact, but in reality it is a value judgement: as a description of a fact, it is simply false (men are not all equal, indeed they are all different), while as a value it expresses, differently, the rightful requirement to recognise all men as having equal dignity and rights. That is, it expresses a norm that prescribes treating all men as equal. In this case, of course, the false presentation of a value judgement as a factual judgement is a sign of civilisation. But it is not always so. "Blacks are an inferior race" thus tends to present as fact what is merely an interest of slave owners, presented as a traditional and social value to be defended. And in this case, at least for us, it is not a sign of civilisation, because no one today would want to place a value on slavery. Chasing values that disguise themselves as facts is one of the weak meanings of what in the Marxian sense was once called 'critique of ideology', and it allowed the distinction to be re-established: facts on one side, values on the other.

But today we have new problems, which no longer concern values disguised as facts, but rather the facts themselves. The conflict, in short, is directly about 'bare facts'. Someone notes that it is raining outside, and immediately another replies that it is sunny instead. Someone notes that we are at war, but another says that we are at peace instead. Am I exaggerating? Yes, of course, but here are a couple of examples to make my point. Buča massacre, 2022: for the Ukrainians, irrefutable proof of war crimes committed by the Russians, for the Russians, a fabrication staged by Ukrainian special services. Gaza 2025: a genocide, for Palestinian defenders, a defensive war operation for Jewish supporters. Vaccines: for some, what saved us from the Covid pandemic and protected our health, for others, poisons that are making a lot of young people sick or die a sudden death. Global warming for many exists, for others it is questionable, for many it is the result of human activities, for others man has little or nothing to do with it. Everything and the opposite of everything and everyone is convinced that they are factually right. What do I want to say? Where am I going with this?

What I mean is that today the problem is facts and the skill lies in manipulating them. Because nobody cares about values, apart from those on the stock exchange, any more. This is the age of fake news. Let's be clear: 'fake' news has always existed, and it has always been used to divert, confuse the adversary, cause panic in the population, and so on. But their capillary diffusion has ended up, today, in making what counts, in politics, no longer the values one defends, but the facts of whose existence or non-existence one manages to convince the public.