The Art of Bullshit
It seems the only thing certain these days is death, taxes, and bullshit. We’re knee-deep in it. We wallow in it. Even elections — like the present one — are largely determined by whose bullshit we believe.
And it has always been around. Maybe bullshit was always present in the affairs of humankind and was only lacking in volume and sufficient outlets for its spread. The Internet took care of that.
Despite its ubiquity, its presence in politics, social movements, even in determining our destiny as a species, bullshit lacks a precise definition. Most people are good at sniffing out bullshit, at least subconsciously, but ask them what it exactly is and they begin to flounder. In the absence of a technical, or at least socially accepted definition, we turn to the abstract:
I know it when I see it.
What is bullshit?
As a result of this confusion, bullshit has come to mean many things, most commonly nonsense or outright lies. But it is neither of these. First, nonsense by definition is something that doesn’t make sense, so incomprehensibility is not a default simply because there’s no way of knowing what is being conveyed by a bullshitter.
The other definition of bullshit — that it is a lie — too doesn’t do it justice. A lie is a lie, and there’s no better way to call it. The difference between bullshit and falsehoods is why a popular myth-busting show was named Bullshit! and not Lies!. According to Penn Jillete, one of the hosts of the show …
“…if one calls people liars one can be sued…but ‘bullshit’, oddly, is safe.”
This is so because bullshit is a strange animal: not a lie, per se, but also not quite the truth. It has an unmistakable whiff, much like food just at the edge of spoiling but is not yet toxic enough to make you sick.
We might better understand what bullshit is by studying why and when people indulge in it.
Why do we bullshit?
In a delightful book called On Bullshit, Princeton University philosopher Harry Frankfurt dissects the phenomenon of bullshit to reveal certain powerful ideas.
According to Frankfurt, bullshit is deployed for a simple reason … to convey a certain image of the speaker, or to get away with something. In other words, bullshit is to gain an advantage without deceiving others about facts.
This is why politicians are considered bullshitters par excellence, because everything they say is in service of their public image. They say things that aren’t objectively true … but it could be … or might happen … or conceivably could happen … so they absolve themselves from being guilty of prevarication.
Frankfurt’s theory is that the bullshitter isn’t exactly telling a lie, because he is not actively rejecting the truth, he’s simply indifferent about what the truth is. This way, bullshitting is closer to bluffing than to lying. As poker players know, a bluff in poker is not technically a lie, but just a fake stance taken to gain an edge.
That’s what the bullshitter is doing — faking it, without actually lying.
Why is there so much bullshit?
So why is there so much bullshit today that we are drowning in it? As Frankfurt explains:
Bullshit arises when … “the obligations and opportunities to speak on a topic exceed knowledge.”
The Internet has democratized bullshit. Anyone with an opinion can now effortlessly project it to the world, not because they have something worthwhile to say, or to add to the conversation, but just because they can. A voice in the dark which might otherwise not be heard. Conversely, these billions of connected devices need to be fed with information which means that both experts and frauds have to step up to meet the demand.
Anyone with an opinion can now effortlessly project it to the world, not because they have something worthwhile to say, nor to add to the conversation, but just because they can.
And when quantity takes precedence over quality, bullshit is inevitable.
What makes it worse is that we seem to be living in a ‘post-truth’ world, where only your personal interpretation, or “life experience” of the truth matters, not what is objectively true. Those who talk with the most conviction can create an alternate universe where reality is obscured and abstraction and illusion are mistaken for truth. With so much information available and so little time to decipher it all, we settle for this abridged version of the truth.
Type if Bullshit
Institutional Bullshit
The most apt example of misrepresentation without actually lying is advertising. You can accuse ads of being misleading, but you can never really prove they are propagating falsehoods. That is what can be termed Institutional Bullshit.
“Our clothes are cleaner … your teeth are whiter … our wings are wing-ier … “
Braggart Bullshit
The loudmouth is a most repugnant fellow. The isn’t anything he can’t do, and do it better than you. It may take a minute, but generally, a bullshitter can be whiffed out by his sheer level of false bravado.
The Trump “Weave”
The Joe Rogan Experience gave America its first look at what Presidential candidate Donald Trump refers to as “The Weave.”
Rogan is the most popular host in podcasting with 18 million YouTube subscribers and the No. 1 streamed show on Spotify. He has heard his share of bullshit. During Friday’s interview, Rogan got a first-hand look at what The Weave” looked like. Trump says “The Weave” is intended to make stories more interesting, more real and dynamic. What it does, however, is take the listener on a trip of verbal pinball, hitting every bumper until he “TILTS” from information overload.
But at least it is funny.
Rogan’s first question was simple: What was it like the first time you walked into the White House? His answer was mind-numbing …'
“It was surreal … you know … I remember coming down Pennsylvania Avenue … and I told Melania (comment about beautiful Melania looked) and Barron (comment at how tall his son Barron is) … and we pulled up to the White House (comment on how green the grass is … (another aside on the size of the WH hallways) … Kamala? Very bad … the Lincoln bedroom is amazing … Lincoln was very tall (aside on Lincoln’s oversized bed) … the Gettysburg Address on the wall, you know … how great was General Robert E. Lee … (another aside about Lee) … we had some great generals, the ones who beat ISIS … “
TILT!
Call it a stream-of-consciousness bullshit.
Word Salad
If there is a queen of cow excrement, one needs to look no further than the current V-P and presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She has perfected the art of talking a lot while saying nothing, sometimes known as word salad.
Usually, it starts as a question, something like “What about the economy?” Her answers are baffling. Her answer begins with a non-sequitur (“I was born into a middle-class family …”) followed by a long, confounding, brain-bending rejoinder that has absolutely no relation to the question. In the recent town hall hosted by a flummoxed but very patient Anderson Cooper, her evasion lasted 7 minutes.
And she does it over and over and over again.
Then there’s these nuggets of wisdom …
“I love Venn diagrams. I really do, I love Venn diagrams. It’s just something about those three circles and the analysis about where there is the intersection, right?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people, you think you just fell out of a coconut tree.” (((wild cackle))). “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what you came before you.”
“So, I think it’s very important, as you have heard from so many incredible leaders, for us at every moment in time — and certainly this one — to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past but the future.”
Of course, there is the tour-de-force verbal WTF that has been repeated by my count 62 times in speeches ….
“I can imagine what can be, and be unburdened by what has been.”
Now that is some first-class bullshit.
Lying is a craft, bullshitting is an art
Frankfurt finally nails down the difference between lying and bullshitting by comparing the former to craftsmanship, and the latter to art.
Craftsmanship is all about precision and being aware of your constraints. Lying requires you to know — or at least attempt to know — what the truth is and where it resides. Once you know this, lying is about replacing the truth cleanly with the lie.
Bullshitting, on the other hand, is more like art because it has fewer constraints on it. Since it is less about a specific truth, bullshitting has a wider canvas to play with. There is more scope for imagination, flair and improvisation. If he does it masterfully, it can be virtually impossible to separate truth from folly. That’s why, as Frankfurt reckons, the concept of the ‘bullshit artist’ exists.
Why bullshit is more harmful than lies
Ultimately, both liars and bullshitters are hiding something, but there’s a crucial difference.
The liar hides the fact that he wants us to believe something he knows to be false. The bullshitter, meanwhile, hides the fact that he is indifferent to the truth or falsity of his statements. Truth and lies are two sides of the same coin since they both require an accurate understanding of reality. The only point at which they part is how to describe that reality to others.
Compared to a liar, the bullshitter is almost like a nihilist — he doesn’t care whether his words describe reality or not. His only concern is himself and his message. By not paying any attention to the way things are, the bullshitter devalues reality itself and begins to lose the ability to see the world as it truly is.
Compared to a liar, the bullshitter is almost like a nihilist — he doesn’t care whether his words describe reality or not. His only concern is himself and his message. By not paying any attention to the way things are, the bullshitter devalues reality itself and begins to lose the ability to see the world as it truly is.
This apathy towards the truth is what makes bullshit so harmful. Because when we can’t even agree on what is real, how do we ever find common ground?
Don’t confuse BS with other types of shit
Shit is a highly versatile word. When combined with other words to make a compound word, it takes on a whole spectrum of other colorful meanings.
Just to keep it all straight …
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Jim Geschke was inducted into the Marquis Who’s Who Registry in 2021.
Finally, somebody who truly understands me.....
My journalism professor had a "bullshit" stamp. It was red. Our papers were stamped with this red thing and we knew we were getting better as their number diminished over time. Most of the stamps were used on sections of an essay or press release which were bloviating or unnecessary verbiage. Basically, when we would overwrite. You got the message as you read what was labeled bullshit. No verbal explanation from the professor would have communicated it as well.