Post-truth as the face of a new inquisition

Abstract

The paper originates from the vertical organization of thought characterising the development of knowledge up to some decades ago, whose origin could be identified in its theological foundation and in the resulting propensity to reducing the manifold to units. This way of advancing had also consented to distinguish indefectibly good from evil, stigmatising the deviations from orthodoxy. From this presumption originates the Inquisition and the establishment of the Index of prohibited books – not rarely given sanctuary within the friendly walls of libraries. During the process of secularisation, science tends to replacing religion and to defending in its turn the truth by means of processes of validation and assessment promoted by the community of the researchers. The hungry dominion of technology upsets the balance and introduces a horizontal organisation of thought. In its progress, the latter is sustained by a huge power of calculus which exponentially increases both the amount of information available and the possibility for each individual to make use of it – on the contrary, to have much more available of it than the individual can perceive. The theatre where this revolution takes place is the Web: and the main emerging player is artificial intelligence (AI), which is not just involved into the cognitive, but also in the popularization process. This is the precisely the ideal context for germination and prosperity of fake news which nourish books and mass-media systems generated by a network which is increasingly sophisticated and difficult to unveil, where not even the classic semiotics can help us interpret a text. In this Babel, where everyone is free to believe everything and its opposite, a pensée unique may win, one tending to a planetary organisation of resources and intelligences. It takes on the aspect of a repressive tolerance, of a reversed inquisition which, because it tolerates and uniforms everything, in effect forces out every element of difference. In this perspective, no possible institutional action can help us out: an endeavour at personal responsibility and the hunt for some principles are the tools that we can use. In this perspective, Grotius and the Natural Law, losers from an historical perspective, can still show us the way.