The Never-ending Stream of Bullshit
My wife and I have a small ritual where we say “this is my truth, but…” before going into some half-baked, unsubstantiated claim about the world, society, politics, science, etc. We use it in a very tongue-in-cheek way. It’s a signal to us that what is about to be said is based on nothing but feelings. Some of these statements are pretty astute, we don’t have the facts, but it is likely correct, others are outlandish. In the moment, though, it doesn’t matter. I’ve noticed this sort of thing happens in many discussions both by commenters on social media, especially Substack, and popular commentators. However, rather than expressing their lack of evidence, they bury it within long exposition and moral posturing.
For some reason, perhaps it’s ideology, perhaps laziness, there is a growing lack of intellectual rigor in conversations surrounding politics, geopolitical conflicts, and society. I don’t expect the average person to be held to a high standard when discussing these topics online, but I do expect it of popular commentators. There has much ado about Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book and his lackadaisical mission to uncover the truth of what is happening in Israel. I haven’t read it, but I have heard many concerns about the lack of discussion about pivotal aspects of the topic at hand. This style of fact-plucking and narrative formation based on pre-existing understandings, or misunderstandings, has proved to be an extremely annoying problem.
There are different ways one could describe this. I’ve called it vibes, or “my truth”, and surely others that I don’t remember. But I heard a term that I think encapsulates it well: bullshit. This is not just me being crass, it is a legitimate philosophical concept proposed by Harry Frankfurt. I was introduced to the idea of bullshit by Jared Henderson in his essay, and I have begun to see it everywhere.
Frankfurt went through the meticulous process in his book, On Bullshit, to differentiate bullshit from lying, bluffing, or other similar actions. The main difference is their care for the truth. Whereas a liar or bluffer is attempting to hide the truth, “the bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. 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.” Furthermore, liars try to hide the fact that they are being purposefully misleading, but “the fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it.”
I guarantee everyone reading this could map this onto a political candidate running right now, but this is not who I feel is the main culprit, nor the most important. It is expected that politicians lie, bluff, and bullshit to gain a short period of power within our government. Perhaps candidates have pushed this to the brink, but it has always existed. My bigger concern is about the people on the ground -- the writers, commentators, commenters, or the general social media users – who do the same thing. What they gain in bullshitting without any consequence is money, renown, and reverence. In short, they gain influence. They can then use this influence and peddle bullshit without so much as a whiff of fact-checking. After all, this is just how they see the world, and surely since they have gained influence, people agree with them.
There is some benefit to bullshit, I don’t want it to be misconstrued as a purely bad action. In conversations with friends, or coworkers, it is not necessary to be perfectly factual and precise. But it is understood by all parties involved in these conversations that it is bullshit. By rejecting the need for facts, these conversations allow for a “high level of candor and an experimental or adventuresome approach to the subjects under discussion.” By stripping away the need for facts, these conversations can reveal far deeper beliefs within the interlocutors. However, this is fundamentally different from writing a book discussing a complex geopolitical conflict without a deep care for the facts that hurt your case.
In a world that is inundated with information from so many sources, it can be hard to discern the truth from fiction. Be wary of smooth talkers and sloganeers who seem to have a grasp on every major topic in the world, they are probably bullshitting. Be aware of bullshit in your own speech, and make sure others know you may not have the facts on your side. Most importantly, learn to care about the truth. It is not necessary to run down the facts behind every statement made; that is a full-time job and then some. But, if something seems fishy, look it up. You likely have a computer in your pocket waiting for you to do just that. This may allow a whole new world of facts and analysis to open up for you. But even if it doesn’t, you will have shown you care, and that’s half the battle.