Writing Facts

Abstract

Everybody is talking about facts. They are not only a fixture in research and in law. Facts are increasingly becoming a major topic in politics, the (social) media, and everyday life. This produces certain linguistic formations that often contradict established meanings of the notion. The embarrassing creation of "alternative facts" 1 is just one example of such paradoxical constructions targeting at open replacements of the understanding of truth. It is opinions and affects, hearsay, algorithms, and outright lies expressed by populist leaders and self-marketing influencers that can stand for truth. Since the Trump era, borders between lies, fiction, and facts is well underway in new forms. As a reaction, critical voices in research, journalism, and the arts often reinvigorate old dichotomies and antagonisms such as fact in the sense of truth or reality as an opposition to fake, lies, and fiction. 2 This often leads to initiatives 8Holland 2016 : 34. 9 "Tout acte matériel d'une personne, tout événement extérieur pouvant avoir un effet juridique." A fact is also an infraction, a crime, and the result of an effective act ("In-24 Ibid. 25 Cf.