Some authors just have a knack for finding an eye-catching title.
One such writer was Harry G. Frankfurt, a philosophy professor whose pint-sized book On Bullshit created something of a furor when it hit the bookstores in 2005.
Frankfurt also had a gift for putting together arresting opening sentences.
Here’s how he launched into his subject: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share.”
He originally published the piece in the journal Raritan in 1986, but it only gained widespread attention after Princeton University Press released it as a stand-alone volume.
One thing’s for sure: the topic is as relevant now as it was a few decades ago.
So how did Frankfurt examine his subject? In part by locating fairly synonymous words and examining them closely.
His first virtual synonym: humbug.
Piggybacking on Max Black’s definition in The Prevalence of Humbug, he finds that BS involves deliberate misrepresentation. But although it leaves its audience with false impressions, the way that lying does, that’s hardly its central aim. The speaker wants his audience to regard him in a certain light, to communicate a certain impression of himself—as a stalwart patriot, say, or as a dynamic and original thinker.
“Hot air” is also fairly synonymous with BS, Frankfurt muses. “When we characterize talk as hot air, we mean that what comes out of the speaker’s mouth is only that. It is mere vapor. His speech is empty, without substance or content.”
Yet another word that Frankfurt considers: bluffing.
He notes that bullshitting is close to bluffing, given that both entail deceiving and misleading one’s audience. At the same time, however, neither is exactly the same thing as mere lying. Lying, he writes, is uttering a falsehood. BS, by contrast, involves fakery. “For the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony.”
Which leads Frankfurt to his central distinction between lies and BS. Liars want to prevent us from perceiving what they themselves recognize to be true. Bullshitters, however, don’t care about what’s true at all. They simply make whatever statements are needed to attain their aims, regardless of the truth or falsity of those statements.
Frankfurt also opines that we tend to judge liars more harshly than purveyors of BS. Outright lies tend to offend us, and as a consequence we judge liars harshly. We tend to shrug off or discard BS, and accordingly we react with less severity to its practitioners.
So much for the nature of bullshit. Why is there so much of the stuff?
Toward the end of his tract, Frankfurt offers one reason. Sometimes individuals—especially those in the public eye—are asked questions about topics that they know little about. They could, of course, admit to their ignorance, but the temptation to fake it—to provide an answer that sounds impressive—is great. Others might well expect them to provide an answer, and by fulfilling that expectation they inevitably make use of BS.
Are Frankfurt’s observations always on the mark? Well, his claim that we judge liars more harshly than BSers seems dubious.
Nowadays a good number of people tend to be offended by those in the public sphere who regularly spout this sort of material. One thinks of the rhetorical antics of George Santos, or various other prominent public figures.
Also questionable is his sharp and tidy contrast between a lie and BS—as well as the mindsets of those who employ them. His distinction suggests that those seeking to hoodwink their audience make a clear and consistent choice to employ either one approach or the other. In real life, those who seek to mislead others probably don’t just stick to one strategy to attain their goal. They most likely feel free to use both to get the results they want.
Several years ago, the author served as the foreperson of a jury here in Fresno. During his opening remarks, the defense attorney declared that his client couldn’t possibly have committed the crime—a robbery at a local mini-mart—because he’d been gambling at Club One at the time.
Never in the course of the trial, however, did he offer evidence to substantiate his claim.
This bit of bluffing, along with others like it that occurred later on during the proceedings, helped to sow doubts among many of my fellow jurors.
It took our group more than two days of deliberations to reach a guilty verdict, in no small part because of this lawyer’s adroit shenanigans.
After the judge dismissed us, the attorney dropped by our jury room with an exuberant grin on his face. “I had you guys going, didn’t I?” he said, clearly proud of himself.
He certainly showed no compunction about his behavior. For him, it seems, he was merely doing his job and representing his client to the best of his abilities.
His attitude points to another reason why BS remains so ubiquitous. In some areas of our world, it would seem, the capacity to produce effective BS is a valued and admired trait.
