On Bullshit

Some thoughts from Harry Frankfurt on the nature of bullshit, of which in contemporary life there seems to be an ever increasing quantity.



The comments about the relation to sincerity reminds me of the situation with Tony Blair over the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The public, and to some extent also the media, were primarily concerned with whether the claims being made were true or not, but to Blair what mattered was not the truth or falsity of the matter but instead whether he sincerely believed that the weapons existed. This highlights the tenuous predicament of the bullshit artist.

Of course blogging represents the very pinnacle of bullshitting, so I by no means exempt myself from membership of this category. But I think (however inexpertly) that BS transcends merely an agnostic relationship to the truth. Much of what seems to be going on could be ascribed to a sort of social persuasion or social bonding - a kind of glue which is maintaining some coherency between members of a group. Large swathes of politics, religion, media and marketing falls into this persuasiveness and bonding mode of communication. What's being said could be true or could be false, but in a sense the content of the message itself doesn't matter so long as it serves the function of binding the group in collective action. Without some degree of bullshit, goods might not be sold, relationships might never be formed, polite conversations about the weather never be engaged in and novels go unwritten.