Bullshitter
Segments of opinion have formed on whether the US President Donald J Trump by natural proclivity is, in his basic approach to this world and its truths is a straight up liar or another form of liar -- a bullshitter. Considering this one realizes that their are varieties of Untruth and that it may may be helpful to briefly run some of them down. The reasons for relating an untruth. Their are the little lies, the white lies, backstop of all social cohesion. They help nothing, but it would be hard to do without them. There are lies stemming from ignorance and from malice. Lies that originate from not knowing the truth and from the desire to hurt and tear down reputations. There is lying under oath no different from other lies perhaps but still a transgression against an entire society in the formal seat of its rules at once. There are calculated lies told in a deliberate select strategy of gain. And, of course, the Big Lie of propaganda -- an institutional version of the select strategy or gain.
Bullshitting on the other hand might be seen and termed a diffuse strategy of gain. Some I imagine simply do it for the Lulz as its called, the laughs. For the mutant pleasure of seeing others struggle with it. You could usefully compare this with online trolling behavior. Even with the lack of anonymity, Bullshitters wear their bullshit as a shield as armor. Bullshit seeks either to misdirect, provoke or overwhelm. It easily can be compulsive, some form of neuroses. Or the low need for petty aggrandizement. If Bullshit has one common denominator it is that Bullshit is often obvious, that it is mostly recognizable as such to those who hear it. This little insight comes from Harry Frankfurt, a retired philosopher of ethics and his book length essay On Bullshit - Wikipedia. At only eighty near perfect pages I would recommend it to all.
Next having taken quick tour of the varieties of untruth we should a a similar look at the utilities of untruth. That is the end goals, if any. Untruth is the sabotage of truth: the destruction of truth table. There is no true when its done, no false, no true or not true. Information has been wrung from the system. It is a reshaping of the public space creating an inability to perceive facts at all.
Now I read a number of articles over the two (three) years that inspired me to take this up without exception, I think, the authors were all acquainted with Harry Frankfurt, and quote from him profusely. So here I have my own little Frankfurt section. First. Lying a definition: (this is roughly paraphrased from pages 12-15) The liar desires to replace a truth with a falsehood. A fact or opinion is expressed. Though it is false the expresser desires the hearer believe it to be true. Ancillary to this is an implicit statement on the expressers state of mind -- that the hearer believes that the speaker also believes what they said to be true. A key condition is that the expresser of a falsehood must believe they know what is true and not. A liar dos not necessarily know the truth (they simply believe they do). Note believing in the existence of truth is not of necessity respectful of truth - they seek to destroy it. For his project Frankfurt makes an important distinction on pages 17 through 19. Often the expresser is not utterly concerned whether the hearer believes what is related is true, but that they accept the misrepresentation or obusucation of what the expresser believes. It is this disconnection that is the foundation of Bullshit.
What types of falsehoods is bullshit constructed from? Are they to be believed or not? I note Washington Post's Glenn Kessler category: Bottomless pit of Pinocchios Opinion | Trump’s lies and disinformation require a new kind of media response But even this is not the special provenance of the bullshitter, who after all doesn't care if you don't believe him or her. This is what Frankfurt believes is true of Bullshit. The bullshitter is often easily recognized in falsity, bombastic inconsistency of facts. nihilistic with truth, careless in detail, not overly concerned with what you believe. This is the key distinction between a lie and bullshit.
Why then do some some feel that bullshit is not lying, why do some feel it is worse than lying, particularly as it pertains to the President. The latter is the tack these articles took. There is Jeet Heer writing in the New Republic in 2015 He cites Frankfurt:
Frankfurt’s key observation is that the liar, even as he or she might spread untruth, inhabits a universe where the distinction between truth and falsehood still matters. The bullshitter, by contrast, does not care what is true or not. By his or her bluffing, dissimulation, and general dishonesty, the bullshit artist works to erase the very possibility of knowing the truth. For this reason, bullshit is more dangerous than lies, since it erodes even the possibility of truth existing and being found. ... "A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it." Donald Trump Is Not a Liar He's something worse: a bullshit artist.
Eldar Sarajlic writing in Salon 2016 in 2016
Frankfurt concludes his essay by asking why there is so much bullshit nowadays. He gives two possible answers. First, he says that bullshit is "unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what is he talking about." Second, bullshit springs from various forms of contemporary skepticism "which deny that we have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are." Donald Trump’s reign of bullsh*t: He’s not lying to us, he’s just completely full of it | Salon.com
Lauren Griffen (a professor of journalism) - Conversation 2017 Trump isn’t lying, he’s bullshitting – and it's far more dangerous takes the position that primary reason media has had trouble labeling and handling Trumps lies is that it is bullshitting not lying. It is hard to tell what he intends by it what he understands by it. It often seems coded. The fact checking needed is overwhelming. She also cites Frankfurt principally on Bsullshitters "unconcern" for the truth, converse concern for themselves. She notes at the end Trump's tendency to attack people That he has to go to war with everyone who seeks to reinstate the truth.
Lastly Michael Blake writing in May of 2018 Why bullshit hurts democracy more than lies writes that:
When there is no shared standard for evidence, then people who disagree with us are not really making claims about a shared world of evidence. They are doing something else entirely; they are declaring their political allegiance or moral worldview.
And Joshua Habgood Coote (vice Chancellor Bristol University) also in Conversation in 2018, The term 'fake news' is doing great harm, says that such bullshitting:
- Insinuates that all news is false or uninformed
- Or that it is a lie or deliberate falsehood
- Trust attack on journalists/journalistic profession He also cites Frankfurt that the Bullshitter says whatever is in their interest irrespective of the Truth.
I have a little trouble with all this. I think people are just glomming on to this read of Frankfurt because Bullshit sounds archer and more accusatory than lie, and because bullshitting appears superficially to be what he's doing. I suspect there is more method to his madness.
I have also noticed over time and by turns A sneaking admiration for the bullshitter. The master of an art form. A lovable rouge or a go getter; however irritating and waster of one's time. If you don't perceive yourself as the target of someone's BS it can seem almost harmless. I knew a Lieutenant once working as a briefer in a place called the CNO-IP who wryly noted to me never make the mistake of believing your own bullshit.
The Chief of Naval Operations didn't really need to know where that Soviet ship was going. So a wild ass guess was not really hurting anyone. The only only real harm is to yourself. Consider the general feeling that accompanies such common statements as Getting by
, or Fake it til you make it.
Of course the subject here is the President Donald Trump. The increasing tempo and volume of his lies. An indication either of that he is aware of his manipulations or that he is losing awareness all together. Above all that he remains unaccountable. The reasons for his lying and dismissal of it lie in Trump's wealth, sociopathic narcissism and lack of a personal center. His cynicism about the world, belief that it is all a (televised) game. A game of dominance The emotions (fear primarily) his lies evoke are quite real. Those around him are aware of this, with that he turns those around him into accomplices, to support and repeat his lies. Some, I know, wave off the damage to the rule of law that he seems to be inflicting, because he often doesn't seem to be getting anywhere. This apparent incompetence; however is not the point. The chaos is a stage for use of unreconstructed power.
I had a friend years ago when I was in the Navy, Mark Edmunds, who had a trait I always considered a mark of late boomers. The main cohort of the boomers had come, sucked up all the oxygen and moved on leaving nothing behind but their sardonicism which we embraced -- everyones a sucker or a stranger, never give anyone a straight answer. We didn't trust you or your motives. Donald Trump is not this, he is a Confidence Man. His bullshit is Fake Bull Shit. His lies are real. He is a Huckster. When something is unimportant or tangental to himself he will make up whatever he has to to win the moment, or pass it on as a spoil for others. He makes no attempt to inform himself about such things. But, be assured: His mind is on his money and his money's on his mind (h/t Flo Rida). There is nothing accidental about that realm. He comes out of bankruptcies with money in his pocket. With Trump there is an efficiency beyond mere competency. The latter a word that I let here encompass all conventionally ruthless normative behavior. There is no method no deliberation of cause or effect no plan no strategy. Nothing but a raw impulse to punch break and possess the rubble in its diminished value, that hardly rises to the level of thought. While there are those who cheer him on, and gather darkly in the torn spaces the Rule of Law once held together. Trump does not even want these things for themselves, but as a means of adulation. A feeding of a hunger he will never satiate because in the end he can't really identify a point to it all.
Friday, 22 March 2019 0800:00 EDT #
