"That's not a lie, its bullshit."
Most of us spend our whole lives talking about bullshit without ever really knowing what it is. Well, atleast I didn't untill just last week. I was sitting at the dinner table eating thanks giving leftovers and discussing everyone's favorite topic: the Iraqi War, when I was informed that the supposed weapons of mass distruction were not a lie by the administraition, but rather bullshit. This puzzled me as I had always thought of the two as being intrinsically linked. They aren't.
If you get a chance, I highly recomend you read Harry Frankfurt's book On Bullshit. For the more erudite it will probably do a much better job of explaining the difference than I can. However, Frankfurt can be a hard read, so I will do my best to summerize it here for you.
To understand the difference between bullshit and a lie, it becomes necessary to understand what a lie is first. Without going into too much detail, a lie is a cunning attempt to convince the other person that something which the liar knows to be false, is infact true. The importance here is the deliberate attempt to deviate from the truth. The liar commits two sins here. Firstly, they convince you that something that isn't true is; and secondly, that something which is true isn't. This specific deviation from the truth is the ultimate goal of the liar.
Bullshit on the otherhand is something far more devious. To start, the bullshitter has no concern as to what is infact true. The bullshitter's objective is deception, just as the liar's, however he is unconcerned with the truth. Where the liar must convince you that the lie is true, and the truth is a lie, the bullshitter only convinces you that the bullshit is true. He is unconcerned as to what the actual truth is. He may even be right, but the fact that he does not know whether or not his stance is infact true is the essence of bullshit. But let me give you an example.
Suppose I choose to comment on a subject on these boards that I have a basic understanding of without doing any research into the matter. Let's say for example I advocate "Gun Proliferation for the Reduction of Crime" (something I don't in reality advocate) during a debate on gun control. Without actually doing research to find out if it is an effect method or not, what I've done is made a statement that is essentially bullshit. It may be true, it may not, however, as I've made no attempt to find out, my statement has no regard for the truth and instead exists only to further the cause for which I support (in this hypothetical scenario it would be looser gun control laws). While my argument is a possibility, it is essentially bullshit, because I don't care if its true or not, I'm only trying to further my cause.
If you look at politics in general, it doesn't take long to realize that most of it is bullshit. Lets look at the example of the justification of the war in Iraq. Assume for a second that the real goal was the removal of Saddam from power (I know its a strech for you bleeding heart liberals, but its only a hypothetical, and don't use this as a forum to vent your "blood for oil" campagain) something the current adminastration has said many times (so its not beyond reason that it might have been). The actual justification which was used to enter the war was "weapons of mass distruction." Now, Saddam himself insisted that he had them and even went to the extent of publicly buying missles to deliver them. What emmerged was an atmosphere in which it began to be plausible that Saddam might have had them. Of course there is no way to prove he didn't have them (short of invading the country), so when Bush got up there and said "he quite possibly could have weapons of mass distruction," this wasn't a lie as much as it was bullshit. Everyone assumed he had them (and for we knew did), but there wasn't any hard evidence.
This doesn't mean bullshit is by any means a justifible communication tool for the government to employ, however it means Bush is not a monster, just another sinner like the rest of us. Afterall, who among us hasn't had to "bullshit" an essay or presentation when we were younger for school.
Taken in part from "Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt, Conversations on the Intellectual Elite forum and conversations within the Tzenes family.
Most of us spend our whole lives talking about bullshit without ever really knowing what it is. Well, atleast I didn't untill just last week. I was sitting at the dinner table eating thanks giving leftovers and discussing everyone's favorite topic: the Iraqi War, when I was informed that the supposed weapons of mass distruction were not a lie by the administraition, but rather bullshit. This puzzled me as I had always thought of the two as being intrinsically linked. They aren't.
If you get a chance, I highly recomend you read Harry Frankfurt's book On Bullshit. For the more erudite it will probably do a much better job of explaining the difference than I can. However, Frankfurt can be a hard read, so I will do my best to summerize it here for you.
To understand the difference between bullshit and a lie, it becomes necessary to understand what a lie is first. Without going into too much detail, a lie is a cunning attempt to convince the other person that something which the liar knows to be false, is infact true. The importance here is the deliberate attempt to deviate from the truth. The liar commits two sins here. Firstly, they convince you that something that isn't true is; and secondly, that something which is true isn't. This specific deviation from the truth is the ultimate goal of the liar.
Bullshit on the otherhand is something far more devious. To start, the bullshitter has no concern as to what is infact true. The bullshitter's objective is deception, just as the liar's, however he is unconcerned with the truth. Where the liar must convince you that the lie is true, and the truth is a lie, the bullshitter only convinces you that the bullshit is true. He is unconcerned as to what the actual truth is. He may even be right, but the fact that he does not know whether or not his stance is infact true is the essence of bullshit. But let me give you an example.
Suppose I choose to comment on a subject on these boards that I have a basic understanding of without doing any research into the matter. Let's say for example I advocate "Gun Proliferation for the Reduction of Crime" (something I don't in reality advocate) during a debate on gun control. Without actually doing research to find out if it is an effect method or not, what I've done is made a statement that is essentially bullshit. It may be true, it may not, however, as I've made no attempt to find out, my statement has no regard for the truth and instead exists only to further the cause for which I support (in this hypothetical scenario it would be looser gun control laws). While my argument is a possibility, it is essentially bullshit, because I don't care if its true or not, I'm only trying to further my cause.
If you look at politics in general, it doesn't take long to realize that most of it is bullshit. Lets look at the example of the justification of the war in Iraq. Assume for a second that the real goal was the removal of Saddam from power (I know its a strech for you bleeding heart liberals, but its only a hypothetical, and don't use this as a forum to vent your "blood for oil" campagain) something the current adminastration has said many times (so its not beyond reason that it might have been). The actual justification which was used to enter the war was "weapons of mass distruction." Now, Saddam himself insisted that he had them and even went to the extent of publicly buying missles to deliver them. What emmerged was an atmosphere in which it began to be plausible that Saddam might have had them. Of course there is no way to prove he didn't have them (short of invading the country), so when Bush got up there and said "he quite possibly could have weapons of mass distruction," this wasn't a lie as much as it was bullshit. Everyone assumed he had them (and for we knew did), but there wasn't any hard evidence.
This doesn't mean bullshit is by any means a justifible communication tool for the government to employ, however it means Bush is not a monster, just another sinner like the rest of us. Afterall, who among us hasn't had to "bullshit" an essay or presentation when we were younger for school.
Taken in part from "Bullshit" by Harry Frankfurt, Conversations on the Intellectual Elite forum and conversations within the Tzenes family.
posted by jim at 12/27/2005 12:03:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home