Bullshit

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My dad left me this book by Harry Frankfurt and implored me to read it.  He knew I was on a crusade to ensure that the world in non bullshit.  This book, although somewhat tedious does provide some perspectives that can't go unnoticed.

Harry Frankfurt  

Harry Frankfurt, a Princeton Professor of Philosophy posits in his book On Bullshit that “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” Everyday, it is evident that this is true. It is reflected in the words and actions of politicians, businessmen/women, clergy, and everyday people. Frankfurt suggests that there is so much bullshit that it is difficult to know the truth anymore; a truly ominous situation for those of us who value the truth. Consequently, if this is so then everyone of us must be guilty of bullshitting; at least some of the time. And this is what therefore makes us so removed from reality itself.

I believe today, we are all  embedded with some degree of bullshit; or our bullshit quotient.  How bullshit are you?

Headline

Who are the Biggest Bullshitters?

North American's

"Everybody tells the occasional fib. But whereas liars consciously conceal the truth, reckons Harry Frankfurt, a philosopher, bullshitters are shameless: they say what they want to, without even considering the truth. Bluffers seem to be everywhere: the share of Americans who believe that most people can be trusted has fallen from 48% in 1984 to just 31% today."

A new study of the phenomenon has found that North America is especially prone to speaking bull. John Jerrim, Phil Parker and Nikki Shure, three academics, have used an educational survey of 40,000 teenage students in nine English-speaking countries to find out who is most likely to spout nonsense. They inserted a section into the questionnaire which asked students how well they understood a collection of 16 mathematical concepts. Some were familiar, such as “polygon” and “probability”, but three were fake: “proper number”, “subjunctive scaling” and “declarative fraction”.

From the Economist, Daily Chart,  4-3--2019

In Frankfurt’s book, he goes to great lengths to distinguish lying from bullshitting. He outlines in what ways it is like, and different from, lying. Lying of course being far less acceptable then bullshitting. Frankfurt does a good job of differentiating lying from bullshitting to define what bullshit is and is not. The main similarities are that both liars and bullshitters want you to believe that they are telling the truth, and both want to get away with something. 

The differences are that liars are consciously trying to deceive. They know the truth and their attempt is to hide it from others. And they know better. They know the truth and what is false, so this deception is done despite that knowledge. 

Bullshitters on the other hand do not consciously deceive. They may or may not know the truth, but regardless do not care about the truth. They ignore or reject the distinction between truth and falsity altogether.

To answer the question as to whether we are all bullshitters it may be useful to discuss some examples to determine, beyond the conceptual theory how bullshit may be in our lives. Let us take an example of a fake Rolex watch. Back in the late 90’s, I was amazed as I started working with companies in China that friends would ask me if I would go to the market in Hong Kong and secure for them fake Rolex watches. These were good, honest people who wanted a fake watch. At the time I did not think much of it so I did what I could, but more recently I started thinking what the implications were relative bullshit. You see, they wanted a fake watch to wear that would effectively deceive those who cared that they were wearing an expensive, high end watch. The intent was clear, they knew the watch was fake, they wore it to deceive and they didn’t really care that it was fake. They also didn’t believe it was wrong to wear a deceptive watch. Now, thinking about this I believe this was total bullshit. However, does anyone think that wearing that fake watch is really all that wrong and is bullshit? The answer is likely no. 

So, has it now become not only acceptable to bullshit, but our way of life? Are the people we deal with deceptive, misrepresenting who they truly are and what the truth is?  And, are the organizations we work for deceptive, the government, the clergy, and everything else that we encounter?