Submitted by Dr. Donovan on
Image by Christian Dorn from Pixabay
“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” - Harry Franfurt, emeritus professor of philosophy at Princeton
Those of us who with relatively educated and well-ordered minds know the pain we experience when forced to listen to the nonsense spewed by so many politicians, generals, clergy, and uninformed citizens.
But what is bullshitting and in what ways it is similar to, and different from, lying? Here are the basics as Frankfurt sees them:
Main Similarities –
1) Both liars and bullshitters (bsers) want you to believe that they are telling the truth.
2) And both want to get away with something.
Major Differences
Liars –
1) Liars engage in a conscious act of deception.
2) Liars know the truth, but attempt to hide it.
3) Liars spread untruths, but they still accept the distinction between the truth and false.
Bsers
1) Bsers don’t consciously deceive.
2) Bsers just don’t know or care about the truth.
3) Bsers ignore or reject the distinction between truth and falsity altogether.
(Note that what the liar says is necessarily false. If I know that Jupiter is a gaseous planet and claim otherwise, then what I’m saying is false. But if I don’t know anything about Jupiter and then make some claim about it, my bullshit might turn out to be correct.)
To reiterate the main point. Liars know the truth and try to hide it; bsers don’t know or care about the truth and try to hide their lack of commitment to it. Thus bullshitting is more like bluffing or faking. Surprisingly, Frankfurt thinks bullshit is more dangerous than lies because it erodes the very idea of truth. As he puts it:
It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth … Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all bets are off … 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 truth than lies are.
As to the cause of so much bullshit, Frankfurt argues:
Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about. Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic are more excessive than his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic.
Brief reflections – I accept the basic distinction between knowing the truth and lying about it; and not knowing or caring about the truth, and then trying to impress people by talking about things you know nothing about.
I’m less convinced that bullshitting is worse than lying. To clarify, consider the following:
1) I am scientifically literate. Therefore I know that biological evolution is true beyond any reasonable doubt. If I lie about this—say because I think that it will make you more likely to contribute to my political or religious cause—then I subvert the truth.
2) I am scientifically illiterate. Thus I don’t know if evolutionary theory is true or false. If I bullshit about this—say because I want you to think that I know what I’m talking about—then I ignore the truth.
In these two cases, I think lying is worse than bullshitting because the liar always subverts the truth whereas the bser might inadvertently tell the truth.
But if the bser not only doesn’t know or care about the truth but rejects the very distinction between the two, if the bullshitter believes that there is no truth, then bullshitting is worse. A world that denies the existence of truth is far worse than one that still accepts the difference between truth and falsity.
What I think is more important than the distinction between lying and bullshitting is the one between truth and falsity. As Frankfurt states: “How could a society which cared too little for truth make sufficiently well-informed decisions concerning the most suitable disposition of its public business?” I think this is correct, but I think there’s a lot more to it. *
"Lying can be confronted by providing evidence to demonstrate falsity and leave the liar exposed and humiliated. But this is not so easy when it comes to bullshit. Bullshit artists choose their language in ways that contest the boundary between the truth and untruth. Bolstered by fantastical forms, such as nostalgia or conspiracies, bullshit works because it fits with an assemblage of existing lies and prejudices." - Hamid Foroughi, Marianna Fotaki, Yiannas Gabriel
ALL American Presidents Lie ...
Every president lies—at some point. It’s the nature of politics and diplomacy. Sometimes, a president might convince himself that a lie is in the national interest. A president might lie to shield the public from damaging information that could undermine sensitive missions. A lie could be a way to protect intelligence vital to national security. Or a presidential falsehood could be inadvertent, the result of sloppy staff work or wishful thinking.
In the past ...
Not every lie is equal. There is the daily fluff of campaigning— marketing embellishments meant to secure political support, such as Barack Obama’s “If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan.” There are lies to prevent embarrassment, such as John F. Kennedy’s denial that he had Addison’s disease or Bill Clinton’s denial that he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. There are lies to protect national security, such as Kennedy faking a cold to cancel a campaign tour so he could meet with top aides about the still-secret Cuban Missile Crisis.
And at the top of the scale, there are lies to cover up important crimes—such as the Watergate scandal—and lies of policy deception: Lyndon B. Johnson minimizing the war in Vietnam, Richard Nixon hiding the secret bombing of Cambodia, and Ronald Reagan denying the Iran-Contra scandal.
Dwight Eisenhower, now ranked by many historians as one of the greatest presidents, approved a series of statements designed to cover up secret overflights of the Soviet Union by American U-2 spy planes. The president’s misleading comments were based on the mistaken belief that the pilot of a missing U.S. “weather plane” was dead and his aircraft had been destroyed. But the pilot, Gary Powers, had miraculously survived after being shot down by Russian surface-to-air missiles. Eisenhower’s error proved to be a propaganda bonanza for Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, as the Soviets could disprove US claims with both a live pilot and the plane’s wreckage. Years later, Eisenhower was asked what his “greatest regret” as president was. “The lie we told,” he said. “I didn’t realize how high a price we were going to pay for that lie.”
Donald Trump and Joe Biden are not exempt either -
Facts and figures are a critical part of most politicians’ arsenals. But whether people actually care if those facts are correct is open to question. Supporting a “blue” or “red” candidate increasingly is an important part of Americans’ identity. Social science research shows that people are receptive to information that confirms their preconceived notions, especially when it comes to politics. One study quizzed participants on data measuring the effectiveness of a skin-cream product; people with good math skills could interpret the data correctly. But when the same survey participants were shown similar numbers on whether gun control increased or decreased crime, liberals and conservatives who were good at math misinterpreted the results to conform to their political leanings. In other words, once politics was introduced, people could not accept a finding that conflicted with their beliefs.
Fact Checker ...
The Washington Post launched The Fact Checker in 2007, coincidentally at the same time that PolitiFact, another early fact-checking organization, was founded. Both projects were born out of journalistic frustration. Editors and reporters concluded that they had not consistently vetted the claims of politicians and advocacy groups, and they had failed to expose the shaky intelligence on weapons of mass destruction that was used to justify George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Campaign controversies such as the “swift boat” attacks on 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the release of fabricated documents concerning Bush’s National Guard service also demonstrated the need for a dedicated fact-checking team.
In politics, you only succeed if you win. There is little difference between the two parties on this basic fact: They will both stretch the truth if they believe it will give them a political advantage. **
My advice - check and confirm your facts, Just realize that there are discrepencies also among Fact Checkers. Large shares of people in both political parties have news fatigue and lack of trust in the media.
Maybe in the end using your gut feeling and going fishing is the best way out.
* https://reasonandmeaning.com/2020/10/29/lying-vs-bullshit/
**http://https://lithub.com/a-hierarchy-of-american-presidential-lies/
- 830 reads