Oh fun! I bought a copy of this book years ago, it was cathartic after "serving" under a boss who was particularly conflicted with the gift of being a bullshitter.
I eventually used the book as a shim - a sort of layer of protection for my desk from the clamp of a microphone boom that I had to clamp down on the desk very tightly. It would threaten to fall off constantly, and On Bullshit was the perfect protection - small and thin but, most importantly, also hard-covered. It acted as a shim between the clamp and the desk I was protecting.
Eventually I got a better mic arm (low profile one from Elagato). Since then the book was somewhere around my messy office at all times, lost in the shuffle.
My 5 year old son just found it the other week and asked me to read it to him. Luckily he can't yet read, so the big glaring letters ON BULLSHIT on the cover weren't interpreted.
I was failing to come up with good excuse as to why I couldn't read this to him, even starting to sweat a little. He's a persistent one, so I had to word my response carefully, else risk a drawn out argument. Yes, an argument with a 5 year old.
Finally I blurted out "it doesn't have any pictures!" and that...worked?! "Oh, it's an adult book?" ... "uhhh yes that's it, an adult book!"
You are such a shitty parent! Is it really such a blessing that your child didn't learn to read, having twice as long as it takes some other children to master this skill?
Harry Frankfurt wrote more than just On Bullshit. On Love is also good, for example. If you like this you’ll likely enjoy his other work. Their titles aren’t as flashy, though.
I’m not sure this works. What do we mean when we say “bullshit” — the necessary and sufficient conditions. I’d expect ex ante that it’s not reasonable to expect any consistent description to be applicable over speaker or over time.
Seems more useful to just say “intentional misrepresentation” when that’s what you mean, but what do we mean when we say “misrepresentation” … and so the line of —- what Id call bullshit — philosophical “enquiry” begins.
That’s literally the point of this little book. Bullshit as Frankfurt defined it is assuredly not “intentional misrepresentation,” because that is a species of lying which is distinctly different from bullshit. In short the liar is concerned with the truth. He at least thinks he knows it and is twisting or hiding it. Contrariwise, the bullshitter is completely unconcerned with the truth. He is solely concerned with the effects of his speech itself.
People should read this book, because learning to recognize bullshit is something everyone thinks they’re good at, but most persons are quite bad at it.
As an example, we have the catch phrase of 2021, “safe and effective.” The various talking heads didn’t at all care or even have a clue about the phrase’s truth value. How could they? The clinical trials weren’t even finished! Those bullshitters were solely concerned with persuading people to get vaccinated. Whether you agree with that aim or not is irrelevant to the observable reality that it was, in fact, bullshit.
It's "not even wrong". It's gibberish and/or internally inconsistent and/or fundamentally unprovable. It's a waste of time to read or comment on, much less correct.
It's more subtle than "gibberish and/or internally inconsistent"
as opposed to "intentional misrepresentation".
Frankfurt sets this important subtlety out quite early IIRC, as being
about the reflective capacity of the bullshitter.
The liar has clear reflection and intent, and may be highly
intelligent and able to construct clever arguments. A troll only wants
to hurt and uses disingenuous talk instrumentally. The idiot may offer
up enthusiastic but confused jibber-jabber whose truth content is
patchy/questionable but lacks deceptive intent. We can all be liars,
mean or idiots from time to time as we are sly, insecure or careless
through language. Even when acting in good faith most of us are in the
epistemological bind of spreading misinformation that seems true and
justified, but we're unable to verify.
The bullshitter; does . not . give . a . fuck .
It's a sociopathic disregard for feelings, consequences, truth or
falsehood. The bullshitter is immersed in their own fantasy of
confidence and will do or say anything that keeps it's momentum
going. When challenged with real contrary evidence the bullshitter
doubles down. You can see it in trained bullshitters, politicians,
company PR spokespeople, and drunks who are too far gone to keep
themselves in check.
Most of it is benign. You can still learn a lot from or about a
bullshitter by filling in the gaps around what the fantasy means to
them. Professional bullshit is a whole different problem and is deeply
corrosive so society - and there's mountains of it because the system
must, at all costs save face.
The problem is that in the modern world there are many people who repeat the bullshit they've heard everywhere. Now you'll say that they're not bullshitters, but the people who originally said that (from the boobtube or or the pulpit) likely were bullshitters.
So is what they are saying still bullshit? Does the label really change depending on who's saying it and how they feel? If I report what they are bullshitting as bullshit, am I wrong because I'm now the one repeating it?
I personally prefer my labels on content to be less philosophical than that. I agree that you could understand something about the original BS creator by analyzing it's intent, but then you'ld have to figure out who originally said it, and in this crowd sourced world that's near impossible. That is especially true in the troll farms of China/Russia etc and the ugly scrum that is Twiddit.
I see bullshit in the same way that culture develops its tradition; layers upon layers of truths and falsities strung together in ways we often take for granted and in most cases harmless. E.G. while one can understand a words meaning nonverbally, the written definition of that word is really a bullshit passage of different words strung together.
And while it's life's greatest gift, perhaps love is the greatest bullshit of all. The charades of romance is utterly beautiful, yet filled with so much pretence along the way.
I eventually used the book as a shim - a sort of layer of protection for my desk from the clamp of a microphone boom that I had to clamp down on the desk very tightly. It would threaten to fall off constantly, and On Bullshit was the perfect protection - small and thin but, most importantly, also hard-covered. It acted as a shim between the clamp and the desk I was protecting.
Eventually I got a better mic arm (low profile one from Elagato). Since then the book was somewhere around my messy office at all times, lost in the shuffle.
My 5 year old son just found it the other week and asked me to read it to him. Luckily he can't yet read, so the big glaring letters ON BULLSHIT on the cover weren't interpreted.
I was failing to come up with good excuse as to why I couldn't read this to him, even starting to sweat a little. He's a persistent one, so I had to word my response carefully, else risk a drawn out argument. Yes, an argument with a 5 year old.
Finally I blurted out "it doesn't have any pictures!" and that...worked?! "Oh, it's an adult book?" ... "uhhh yes that's it, an adult book!"
Crisis averted with a little bullshit.