by emptypockets
A 34-year-old Iranian man living in Queens calls a Michigan cell phone every Thursday between 5 and 6 p.m. Is that statement a pure truth -- proveable, demonstrable, unambiguous, unassailable -- or, given a military overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan, a budget stretched beyond its limits, a health crisis on the horizon, is that statement nothing more than a piece of utter meaningless bullshit?
That is the question with which I left a lecture this week by Harry Frankfurt, philosophy professor at Princeton and author of the essay-book "On Bullshit" (which I have not read). In his talk, Frankfurt made three basic points.
First, he defined bullshit as a statement without regard for truth made to sell something -- a commercial product, a political policy, or even the speaker himself. The key point here is that, for Frankfurt, while truthful and lying statements each recognize the existence of truth, either to express or subvert it, bullshit does not even acknowledge truth exists.
Second, he identified some of the wellsprings of bullshit today, including an advertisement-driven culture and media with pundits paid to talk, and talk, and talk. He also identified an interesting tension fundamental to democracy that may lead to bullshit: although few people have the time, talent, or desire to be students of government policies, it is expected that each citizen should hold an opinion on them in order to vote informedly.
Finally, he declared that bullshit is bad and suggested some means to stanch its seemingly-increasing flow in America today. I left the lecture troubled by these ideas, and struggling to pinpoint why they don't feel right.
Bullshit, to me, is not just self-serving dogma. As Frankfurt points out, we have words for that already: "advertising" and "propaganda." But I don't think of a mouthwash commercial as "bullshit." I was also troubled by the thought that Frankfurt's definition might include some of the activities of a lawyer advocating for her client, and that his cry to stamp out bullshit might (if everyone listened) undermine the American legal system.
I thought about what "bullshit" means to me, and on reflection found that it is not a measure of truth, falsehood, or disregard for either. It is a mesasure of pretense. Bullshit, to me, is the meaningless dressed in the clothes of the meaningful.
Thus, when the Secretary of State is preparing to go before the United Nations to present evidence that Saddam Hussein has been building weapons of mass destruction and in reviewing the draft shouts out, enraged, "I'm not reading this! This is bullshit!," to me he's not just saying "This is propaganda!" (although he could have said that); he's saying "There is no evidence here -- these are trumped-up photos and meaningless facts!"
When the President tells Congress, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," it is not a statement without regard for truth -- on the contrary, it has been minutely parsed in order to be truthful without being honest -- rather, it is a statement of meaninglessness (since the reports had already been discredited) pretending to be meaningful. It is bullshit.
This sense of "bullshit" also helps to explain two examples that befuddled Frankfurt. The first is a category of letters he got in response to "On Bullshit" suggesting that his book defines bullshit not as he intended, in words, but rather by example: that is, that he has provided a benchmark standard of bullshit against which all other bullshit can, in the future, be measured, something like the platinum bar in a Paris vault that for years defined the length of a meter. Since Frankfurt wrote the essay carefully and seriously, with highest regard for truth, this response insulted and perplexed him. But in the same talk he described his own response to the notion of repackaging the essay as a book: "But it's only about twenty-five pages!" "Don't worry," the publisher replied. "We can do things with margins, spacing, typeface." And that's just what they did -- published a twenty-five-page essay as a seventy-five-page hardcover book with lots of room to make notes. In this light, although the intent and content of the essay is honorable, one can understand that its packaging as a book might be regarded (even by its author) as bullshit.
The other response that Frankfurt couldn't explain was that of a scientist inviting Frankfurt to speak to her department. His views would be highly relevant, she wrote, since scientists are "the supreme bullshit artists." This notion put Frankfurt off his stride, he said, because he always viewed scientists as devoutly in service of the truth. It makes more sense with my definition. For what is an artist but someone who takes seemingly worthless materials and composes them to produce something of beauty and significance? And that is how scientists see themselves: the best among us take seemingly disconnected facts and apparently trivial observations, and with creativity and intuition we arrange them to a model of simplicity, harmony, and utility. We create the meaningful from the previously meaningless -- a kind of bullshit.
It becomes obvious then that not all bullshit is bad, and that in fact we may not all agree what bullshit is. If you are alone, penniless, without shelter, food or water, then the high-minded studies of a scientist or philosopher really are meaningless bullshit. On the other hand, if you are a dreamer concerned with how so many billions of people around the globe will live in happiness and prosperity over the next 100 years, then the misery of one individual today might seem like bullshit. What is the real source of meaning: the political fight of the French Resistance or the true love of Rick and Ilsa? Which is the hill of beans -- which is the pile of bullshit?
Bullshit need not be propagandistic, and propaganda need not be bullshit. The kinopravda documentary style of Dziga Vertov, for example, splices images out of context and mixes the real with the staged, manipulating the surfaces of reality in an attempt to expose underlying truth. Much of it is outright propaganda for communist Russia, but it is all beautiful and imbued with meaning. I would not call it bullshit.
Likewise, the truth of a statement does not immunize it against being bullshit. Undeniable facts -- phone calls made by an Iranian family, for example -- may be stark realities. But when I think of them I do not feel the "stubborn love for the truth" that Frankfurt professes. And when I think of the federal government listening in on those calls with no cause for suspicion, with no warrant, I do not respect their information-gathering as a zealous pursuit of truth. Instead I see nothing more than a putrid pile of meaningless bullshit.
This idea is by no means new, any more than the idea that bullshit is on the rise is new. I recently happened to come across a delightful short essay called "Clocks" by Jerome K. Jerome. I recommend taking a minute to read it in its entirety. It says, in part,
That rant was written in 1891, and very little of it has lost its relevance (ok, maybe the cheesemonger thing). The word "bullshit" may be an American invention of World War I, but clearly the spread of bullshit (as I define it) is timeless.
Posted by: emptypockets | March 26, 2006 at 13:20
I am so confused. After reading this, I am afraid anything I say could be construed as Bullshit.
Posted by: Alvord | March 26, 2006 at 13:24
We in the reality-based community have had nothing but scorn for the Bushevik who claimed that they made reality to suit their aims and the rest of us poor schlumps just had to try to keep up. Recently, we've all been feeling extreme schadenfreude as reality has begun to bite the reality-creators right hard in the butt. It seems to me that your definition of bullshit is another way to describe this reality-creation, and that a lot of the discussion on the leftward blogs for the past several years has circled around whether the Busheviks knew that their contrived reality was bullshit, or if they actually believed it. Is the belief in one's own bullshit a special kind of pathology that particularly affects the current crooks in charge, or are they simply master propagandists? If the former, is this why reality has had such a hard time getting a handhold even when the Bush-fabricated reality has been 100% disproved?I am thinking especially of the refusal of establishment Dems to recognize the astonishing lurch toward totalitarianism taken by the administration without much resistance at all.
Posted by: mamayaga | March 26, 2006 at 13:57
I agree. Frankfurt’s “bullshit” philosophy is much too simplistic for human society. My high school English teacher had a somewhat more nuanced scatological philosophy (yes, high school – it was the 70s, after all). He divided dishonest discourse into three strata: bullshit, horseshit and elephant shit.
Approximately (it was the 70s, after all ;-), bullshit could be described, as you suggest, by deceptive advertising or an entertaining (yet untrue) yarn. Horseshit is more elevated in seriousness and harm, such as the lie designed to hurt the feelings of another.
Elephant shit (no I don’t know for sure that his theory specifically referenced the GOP) was the most egregious form of deception. Generally, public lies that do great harm. A monumental steaming pile such as the Swiftvet lies or (practically) everything Republicans say to get elected. Elephant shit indeed.
Obviously, he was trying to teach us about rhetoric and how to be discerning consumers of...well, you get the idea.
Posted by: shep | March 26, 2006 at 14:07
I am so confused. After reading this, I am afraid anything I say could be construed as Bullshit.
Alvord, don't worry -- I have never studied any philosophy, and just posted a critique of a book by one of its distinguished luminaries... a book I haven't even read. This entire post would therefore, I believe, be bullshit by Frankfurt's definition -- though not, conveniently, by my own!
Posted by: emptypockets | March 26, 2006 at 14:13
So when does bullshit transform itself into a lie?? I read your diary and bullshit seems to be both the truth and a lie..or simply words with no integrity. A little confused by your diary..it makes one think a lot.
Posted by: americanforliberty | March 26, 2006 at 15:04
americanforliberty, thanks for your comment -- I think your question points out something I may have skipped over too quickly. In my view, whether something is bullshit is not related to whether it is a lie. Some lies are bullshit (say, claiming you have a degree you do not have -- it is a lie because it is false, and it is bullshit because it is inflating your own value unrealistically). Some lies are not at all bullshit (say, any great work of fiction. It is a lie because it is not true, but it is not bullshit because it does not pretend to be something it is not).
Does that make it any clearer? I would be very interested to hear if readers' sense of what is bullshit jibes with Frankfurt's, my own, or is completely different.
Posted by: emptypockets | March 26, 2006 at 15:11
"Bullshit makes the flowers grow. And that's beautiful."
I think I agree more with emptypocket's definition than with Frankfirt's, although I agree with both to a degree, and disagree with both to a degree. This statement is, itself, bullshit -- because it actually tells you nothing while insinuating that 1) I, like everyone, must have a one-way-or-the-other opinion and 2) that my opinion is of suffucient importance that you will derive value from hearing it.
As a programmer, I know the truth of the 80-20 rule (80% of your time will be spent on 20% of program, 80% of the work is done be 20% of the code, etc.) This can be generalized into the rule: 80% of everything is bullshit.
That's a statement I agree with.
Posted by: seepeesate | March 26, 2006 at 15:51
I think of bullshit as the anti-parable. Throughout the ages, teachers have used the parable, a short fiction, to show us truth. To be effective, a parable has to have a hook to lead us from the known and comfortable to something new and challenging. The fiction allows the teacher to put a sharper focus on the point at hand. Above all, parables challenge the listener to think about a new way of looking at the world around them.
Now, let's compare that to bullshit. The whole point of bullshit is to keep people from thinking and questioning the speaker's point of view. The key difference is the lack of respect for the audience. The bullshitter is counting on the fact that the audience is passive. The bullshitter has to identify the audience's mental weaknesses and exploit them. The parabolist is counting on the audience to question their own assumptions. The parabolist depends the audience's ability to reason for themselves.
From your description (and from his appearance on The Daily Show, which I saw), I think Frankfurt misses a bit about the technique of bullshit. Yes, it is designed to sell us something. Yes, the truth of a statement is irrelevant to the bullshitter. But what really makes bullshit bullshit is the exploitation of the audience's willful ignorance, laziness, and preconceived notions.
Posted by: William Ockham | March 26, 2006 at 17:52
Maybe bullshit is limited to the person speaking:
As a six-year-old daughter says, after opening her birthday card says: "I like money" it is cute.
However, when her mother says: "I like money" after cashing her husbands check..well that leads to...
Posted by: americanforliberty | March 26, 2006 at 18:50
First, it looks to me as though bullshit exclusively qualifies arguments cited in support of some claim or position. Secondly, I think there's a difference between bullshit as in "BS" and bullshit as in "You trying to bullshit me?" To call an argument BS is to call it, not a lie or even manipulative, but simply silly. BS can (but need not) be innocent. In contrast, bullshit as in the verb is always intentional. Bullshit in that sense is an attempt to evade and obfuscate. For example, the argument that we're in Iraq to fight the "terrists" there so we don't have to fight them here is classical bullshitting by those who know that there weren't any terrorists in Iraq before the war, whereas it's merely BS when parroted by a security mom who doesn't even know what continent Iraq is on. Third, bullshit isn't exactly in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, but isn't quite so easily judged objectively either. To call an argument BS implies at a minimum that the proponent wasn't exercising their reasoning faculties particularly well. To call an argument bullshit in the intentional sense is to imply that the proponent intends to evade and obfuscate. Either one is hard to prove.
Posted by: brainwave | March 27, 2006 at 00:11
You should read the book. It is great, and because it is more of an essay than a book, you fly through it. It won't take you very long.
Posted by: Tug | March 27, 2006 at 00:59
And may I add, your post here is more evidence of the greatness of open source media - I thought the book "On Bullshit" was great, but you make very good points. You improved the overall conceit of the thing.
Posted by: Tug | March 27, 2006 at 01:03
..while truthful and lying statements each recognize the existence of truth, either to express or subvert it, bullshit does not even acknowledge truth exists.
This is not quite right. I haven't read the essay in a while (it used to be free online). But I think Frankfort's definition is a little more subtle: the bullshitter may or may not know he's lying, may or may not acknowledge that truth exsists, but the bottom line is that, regardless, he doesn't care one way or another. Bullshit is dangerous because it is essentially arbitrary, disconnected, fatuous. Bullshit is a big Nothing. It is a blithe disregard not for the exsistence of truth, but for the importance thereof.
Thanks for the 'Clocks' passage!
Posted by: jonnybutter | March 27, 2006 at 10:32
I'd also make a distinction between the kind of bullshit Frankfort is talking about and what might be called 'pure' bullshit. 'Pure' (or 'absolute') bullshit, being pure, does have a value, and approaches the realm of art - bad art, maybe, but still; think of certain theoretical texts, or of some mathematically integral but ugly and pointless pieces of modern music you might have heard. Pure bullshit can actually reveal truth, albeit in a negative way - anyway, it has respect for truth and knows what it's trying to do. The kind of bullshit Frankfort is talking about, however, is never pure. It's always a promiscuous mixture of truth and lies, and doesn't care which is which. It's not so much anti-truth as anti-fastidious.
And it's generally in the service of some short-term goal. Just as a corporation might serve the goal of pumping up quarterly earnings reports to the detriment of the firm's long term health, the bullshiter will say anything to win the next election, the next vote, the next news cycle etc. The Bullshitter doesn't even consider whether or not the candle is worth the game.
Posted by: jonnybutter | March 27, 2006 at 11:09
With all due, respect, read the essay. Based on his appearance on the Daily Show, I think Frankfurt is considerably more muddled as a speaker than as a writer, and doesn't think on his feet very well. I found it very illuminating in understanding why Bushies so often tell obvious lies even when there is no reason to. (At the time I read it, there was one particular instance where Bush had actually cut his vacation short to deal with some political storm brewing in DC, and Scott McClellan adamantly insisted that he had always intended to come back then, even though it was a matter of public record that he hadn't.)
It's also a useful concept to avoid getting bogged down in useless debates with GOP cultists -- if their allegations are bullshit, you'll never win by tracking them down and refuting them, because that's a lot of work, but since it takes no effort at all for them to spin a new line of BS, they can keep you at it forever.
I'd be interested to know what activities of lawyers you're concerned about. It seems to me that actions to establish the important legal truth (guilt or innocence) even by obscuring lesser individual facts that may undermine the client's case are by definition not bullshit.
Posted by: Redshift | March 27, 2006 at 11:30
It seems to me that actions to establish the important legal truth (guilt or innocence) even by obscuring lesser individual facts that may undermine the client's case are by definition not bullshit.
I am not confident, just concerned, that legal responsibilities might include bullshit. In response to your point, I'd say that "actions to establish the important legal truth" are not what I think of lawyers as doing. I think of lawyers as, first, committing to proving guilt or innocence regardless of truth; and second, arguing their case which sometimes involves "obscuring lesser individual facts." My understanding of a lawyer's job is, in fact, to cherry-pick information to persuade his audience -- which hews close to Frankfurt's sense of "bullshit," although a lawyer is obligated to be truthful, which may be his saving grace. (How one fulfills that obligation is another matter!)
Posted by: emptypockets | March 27, 2006 at 11:56
I read the entire essay online before it was published and I didn't get the same impression of Bullshit as a school of thought or social phenomenon as much as a simple definition. Bullshit is saying something with no regard to it being true or false, only that it serves some self interest.
For example, just days before the Iraq War President Bush said, "This weekend marks a bitter anniversary for the people of Iraq. Fifteen years ago, Saddam Hussein's regime ordered a chemical weapons attack on a village in Iraq called Halabja. With that single order, the regime killed thousands of Iraq's Kurdish citizens."
This is both true and bullshit at the same time. This is factually correct but Bush has no regard for that detail, he says it for the same reasons he repeated false stories about Iraqi UAVs attacking the US or Iraq purchasing uranium from Niger - because it served his interests. Certainly George W. Bush has not been consumed with the events of Halabja in the intervening 15 years, or countless other atrocities of this scale that have occured. Restating the incident at Halabja serves his purpose, not the truth. Bush wants war and ginning up support (or suppressing dissent) is his game. If Halabja didn't exist they may have made that up - just as they made up Iraqi throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. That is the definition of bullshit - a statement with no regard for truth or falsehood, only a concern for the self-interests of the speaker.
One of the examples Frankfurt gives in the essay is John Kerry's focus on his own military service during the '04 campaign. Kerry is a smart man who could cite several excellent Presidents with no military service, had defended Bill Clinton against charges he was unfit because he had NOT served, and here he was showing how his own military service made him more fit to serve than George W. Bush. That, said Frankfurt, was bullshit. Kerry's service was placed front and center for political reasons, not because it had any bearing on his qualifications for President. Frankfurt was not talking about Bush's record or their relative merits, only Kerry's presentation and the record of his own beliefs.
The essay used to be available free online prior to publishing so I'm not sure what the copyright status of reading it online may be but the entire essay is available at the link below.
http://my.opera.com/Jaybro/homes/blog/On%20Bullshit.pdf
Posted by: joejoejoe | March 27, 2006 at 14:06
joejoejoe, thanksthanksthanks. that is also how I understood Frankfurt's definition. Does it jibe with your personal sense of what bullshit is? I think of Kerry's statements for example as just "advertising," and I reserve the term "bullshit" for something else that I tried to articulate here.
Your wording of Frankfurt's sense of bullshit fits exactly with my understanding of his definition, but not with my own use of the word. (Also, it seems redundant with vocabulary we already have.)
Posted by: emptypockets | March 27, 2006 at 15:14
I think Kerry highlighting his service as biography isn't bullshit but using it as a political bludgeon IS bullshit. I doubt Kerry truly believes his service record uniquely qualifies him for the Presidency anymore than Duke Cunningham's record makes him ethical or John McCain's service makes him particularly prescient in foreign policy.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with Kerry's decision to highlight his service. Bullshit is part of politics and all other things being equal Kerry's 'Reporting for Duty' is a lot more palatable than Bush's Straight Shooter schtick. Both presentations had little to do with speaking the truth and everything to do with self interest - winning the Presidency. So while it's true that Kerry was brave in Vietnam, it's bullshit that that fact qualified him to be President.
Posted by: joejoejoe | March 27, 2006 at 18:16