Harry Frankfurt's Theory of "Bullshit"

In 2005, this little book of 67 pages became a surprise bestseller.

Why? People were hating the spin around the launch of Iraq War II.

“Bullshit” is different from lying, said Harry Frankfurt (a Princeton philosophy professor who died In 2023). So it needs its own theory.

Bullshit is an attempt to deliberately mislead, and yet stops short of an outright lie. A grand political speech, for instance, does not aim to say how the world actually is; its purpose is to make the speaker sound like a patriot, or a spiritual person, or a protector of morals

A craftsman is not out to “make an impression” but to make sure something is done right, even if no one notices the detail of their work. With bullshit, everything is about a hope-for short-term effect that will benefit the producer. Quality is irrelevant.

The nature of shit is that it is dumped or excreted. It is the opposite of something that is wrought. There are highly sophisticated craftspeople of PR and propaganda, but despite their attention to detail they are still “trying to get away with something"

Frankfurt’s definition of bullshit:

Not simply outright lying, but rather a lack of any concern whether something is true or not

The liar “In order to invent a lie at all... must think he knows what is true.” In contrast, a person bullshitting their way through life has a lot more moral freedom. They are ‘running a story’ which doesn’t even have to be related to truth or untruth.

The ‘bullshit artist’ does not actually have to misrepresent or change the facts, because he is a master at spinning them so that they seem to support or justify what he is up to. Unlike the liar or the honest person, the bullshitter’s eyes are not on the facts at all.

The liar and the honest person are on one side of the coin, while the bullshitter is on the other. He rejects the authority of truth entirely. Given this, “bullshit is the greater enemy of truth than lies are”.

"Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomena has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry." - Harry Frankfurt

But it's everywhere, so we need to understand it!

In the next Memo, we turn to the impacts of bullshit on culture and society...

https://memod.com/TomButlerBowdon/Bullshit:%20Its%20Insidious%20Effects%20on%20Society-6773

Bullshit: Its Insidious Effects on Society Is there more bullshit now compared to previous times? Yes, said philosopher Ha