 |
Bullshit. We know it when we hear it and we can sometimes sense that we're about to be hit upside the head with it. Sometimes we even offer up some bullshit ourselves just to pass the time or exit out of a bullshit conversation we no longer want to be part of. Oftentimes we regurgitate bullshit without even knowing it (like saying deregulation is bad for the economy) & every now & then, we find ourselves in a loop when we realize we can't bullshit a bullshitter & things just fall apart (stalemate). It's all part of the human experience, I guess. There is a form a bullshit, however, that one has to be careful of : the odorless & invisible bullshit that destroys families & brings down entire nations.
With all this bullshit in mind, I stumbled upon a classic work by moral philosopher Harry Frankfurt entitled "On Bullshit" which echoes much of what most of us already know. Here are some choice quotes from this 67-page gem:
- "Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstance require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about."
- "It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction."
- "For the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that is phony. In order to appreciate this distinction, one must recognize that a fake or a phony need not be in any respect (apart from authenticity itself) inferior to the real thing. What is not genuine need not also be defective in some other way. It may be, after all, an exact copy. What is wrong with a counterfeit is not what it is like, but how it was made. This points to a similar and fundamental aspect of the essential nature of bullshit: although it is produced without concern with the truth, it need not be false. The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong."
- "Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, of the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the responses of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are".
- "Moreover, there is nothing in theory, and certainly nothing in experience, to support the extraordinary judgment that it is the truth about himself that is the easiest for a person to know. Facts about ourselves are not peculiarly solid and resistant to skeptical dissolution. Our natures, are indeed, elusively insubstantial — notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as
We will forever be surrounded by bullshit & it's almost impossible to get rid of it as it is ingrained in our culture. According to the author, "to combat bullshit is to make it clear that you recognise it and then to ridicule it.Make the bullshitter feel humiliated, not simply because of his failure to hoodwink you but also because of the silliness of what he says. We might not be able to stamp it out altogether, but we would certainly be able to reduce the stench".
Gotta love it!
:::MME:::
