What the 444's little brother, the Litmus, is doing can certainly not be considered fact-checking.
Fact-checking is a difficult thing, so how difficult is the task of fact-checkers. After all, what a fact is can be a matter of debate. So much so that we have to directly chase the facts if we want to verify them. Because in the narrowest sense, a fact is a combination of given empirical characteristics, for example, that: "The sun rises in the east." This is a fact, but as such, it is easy to verify, anyone can do it, so it has no great sporting value.
Following this line, for example, an educational series became famous, the express purpose of which was to refute or perhaps prove known "myths". In one episode, for example, they investigated whether the method by which Archimedes set fire to the ships attacking Syracuse from a distance, using mirrors, could have worked. Based on the descriptions, the structure of the former inventor was reconstructed and it was determined that it must not have worked, it could have been something else originally. However, even in this case, the question may arise as to whether the structure was built correctly, but seeing the invested energy and thoroughness, we tend to believe the end result.
Compared to the example above
the situation is much more bleak if a fact checker aims to check constructions and concepts created by people rather than natural facts.
Human constructions are not as closed and delimitable as a natural phenomenon. Their content changes from age to age, they can be interpreted in various ways, and it is not even possible to necessarily say that one interpretation necessarily invalidates another. There is really no room for control here, if someone wants to act carefully, they can perhaps compare the persuasiveness of each explanation, show how the concept developed in its history, etc., thus giving a comprehensive and well-founded picture of a complicated issue.
The fact-checkers of 444, the authors of the Lakmusz blog, did the exact opposite when they declared that in his speech at CPAC, the Hungarian Prime Minister "made concessions" to historical facts, since nations were only created in the 19th century. As they put it, the concept of the nation is "a product of the long 19th century".
All of these statements are only true if, in all respects and strictly demarcated (quasi-dologising that which is not a thing), we mean by the concept of the nation what we mean by it today. But can we seriously think that when the idea of the nation appeared, it did not have any antecedents? This is, of course, impossible, since all human constructions, including the idea of the nation, are adapted to the given age, and their meaning is constantly changing.The so-called impact history and/or concept history studies reflect on this very circumstance and try to explain what a given concept meant in a given era and how that concept or idea relates to its meaning today. Based on these, it is not surprising that
there is a scientific trend that dates the idea of the nation much earlier.
There is, for example, perennialism or primordialism. This approach asserts that nations are timeless entities. The nation is a form of community that already existed in the Middle Ages, or even earlier, in antiquity. One of the representatives of this school of thought, the renowned British researcher Anthony D. Smith, for example, rejects the thesis on the modern origin of nations, also preferred by Litmus, based on elaborate arguments. The left-wing "fact blog" also deals with the history of the blood pact.
However, according to perennialist theories, the symbolic expression of blood ties means the birth of a nation. And did a symbolic act take place? Regarding this, Ferenc Eckhart writes: "In the fact of mixing blood, however, Anonymus must have perpetuated a tradition based on historical reality." Of course, we weren't there, checking the facts is literally impossible.
All of this is interesting not only because fact-checking has become so fashionable in the left-wing media, despite the fact that in most cases it makes no sense beyond political give-and-take. But this example also shows something about the nature of facts, man-made concepts, and your scientific theories.
Empirical facts have well-defined characteristics, as opposed to man-made concepts whose meaning can and does change from time to time.
Natural science and social science, on the other hand, do not produce facts or refute facts (this is meaningless in principle), but theories explaining facts compete with each other in the world of science. They have different explanatory power, but one thing is certain: Theories can be disproved by facts, but theories cannot be disproved by facts.
So what Litmus does, i.e. presenting a theory as a fact, and trying to refute a rival theory based on this blurring, without otherwise taking any notice of the arguments and facts in favor of it, is both a conceptually and methodologically flawed procedure. It seems more like the pursuit of facts.A persecution that is not driven by the desire to know, but by the desire to erase them. Therefore, it certainly cannot be considered fact-checking. Whatever that word means.
Featured Image: MH
