• BULLSHIT PRODUCT. .....Have you noticed advertisements by a new company called "Philosophy"? Philosophy sells cosmetics. Their motto is "believe in miracles."
.....I know a lot of philosophers. The philosophers I know are about as likely to believe in miracles as they are to believe in the Tooth Fairy.
.....One of Philosophy's products is "Hope in a Jar." On the jar, we're told that, "where there is hope, there can be faith. Where there is faith miracles can occur.".....Well, by definition, where there is faith, there is belief without evidence. And a miracle is an event that defies natural laws. Why would belief w/o evidence bring about an event that defies natural laws? What total bullshit.
• BULLSHIT TV SHOW. .....While we're on the topic of BULLSHIT, have you ever seen Penn & Teller's Showtime TV show called "Bullshit"?
.....It's pretty entertaining. Here's one of their better segments—on bottled water. The best part comes in the second half, when customers at a fancy-schmancy restaurant pay big money for bottled water that, in reality, comes straight from a hose in the back alley. "You'll laugh so hard your sides will ache, your heart will go pitter pat."
.....I don't mind P&T's cursing and name-calling: that's just their style, their humor. But they can be sloppy (no, boys, they didn't burn witches in Salem, they hanged 'em.). They can be unfair—they've been accused of cherry-picking evidence (e.g., regarding the efficacy of recycling). Sometimes, they're just dead wrong (as when they rejected claims of the dangers of second-hand smoke, based on outdated info). I give 'em an A in entertainment and a C in logic.
• BULLSHIT PHILOSOPHER......A few years ago, philosopher Harry Frankfurt made quite a splash with his published essay On Bullshit (2005; written in '86). According to Wikipedia,
...Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress:Here's an interview of Frankfurt re "bullshit""It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with Ludwig Wittgenstein's disdain of "non-sense" talk, and with the popular concept of a "bull session" in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of "bullshit" in modern society upon anti-realism and upon the growing frequency of situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without appropriate knowledge of the subject matter.
.....The interviewer presses Frankfurt for an example of BS. With some reluctance, the professor cites the notion that John Kerry's heroic actions during the Vietnam War (the interview occurred a few years ago) qualify him to be President. "Bullshit," he says. And surely he is correct. (Note that F expresses no skepticism about K's heroism.)
.....Very recently (June 29), Wes Clark got into hot water when, in reference to Pres. candidate John McCain, he said, "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president."
.....Well, again, surely he is correct. Importantly correct. Nevertheless, Clark's comment caused a shitstorm. One must not speak the truth about this matter, evidently. Clark should have known better than to defy right-wing PC—a particularly funky species of bullshit.
• BULLSHIT PRESIDENT......Harry Truman was known to have a colorful vocabulary. According to a familiar story,
Always an earthy talker, Truman once offended a friend of his wife's by referring repeatedly to "the good manure" that must have been used to nurture the fine blossoms at a Washington horticulture show. "Bess, couldn't you get the President to say 'fertilizer'?" the woman complained. Replied Mrs. Truman: "Heavens, no. It took me 25 years to get him to say 'manure.'"
8 comments:
Regarding bullshit philosophy: It seems on par with "pretending." In my experience at least, it seems like kind of an ego stroking thing where one isn't being very honest with one's self. Since the bullshitter often doesn't mean any harm, it is excusable, and often forgiven out of feeling embarrassment FOR the other person. I.e. I often feel saddened or embarrassed for people full of shit.
I am from a family of bullshitters. Often they will gather around the dinner table at family get-togethers and talk about their experience with paranormal stuff. Often it's religious, so they talk about their personal encounters with god, or spiritual representations of recently deceased people (sometimes they are 'open minded' and talk about Qi/Ki/Prana). It's reminiscent of when I was a little kid when my sister and I used to play "school." I'd be the teacher, she the student, and I'd get in front of our little chalk board (green cardboard paper) and just spout stupid shit. I can't recall specifics now, but I think that at one point I made my "students" play the lottery. Anyways, I was bullshitting the position, i.e. I was mimicking what I thought a teacher looked like. So, I feel that it is often that my family gathers around the table to discuss god, or other paranormal stuff in an attempt to mimic intelligent or meaningful conversation. How can you be mad at them for this? It's sad!
Lying is deliberate attempt to evade something, or do harm to someone, so this is why we are less likely to excuse it. Where as bullshit is usually pretty harmless (I'm aware this isn't generally true); at least, to a people who don't uphold "Truth" as an important thing. I actually don't know what the people of Orange County uphold as their main principles. I know that a majority of my neighbors would bullshit that God is pretty important to them though. Who knows? Maybe they don't even know what is most important to them.
This is all just opinion though (he says self-consciously whilst commenting about Bullshit), from my perspective growing up in Hesperia, Victorville, and Orange County. A lot of people from these areas never really "grew up" emotionally. Perhaps it is the extensive drug use from their youths, I don't know. But it's not so much anger inducing as it is depressing.
Who's next?
Good article on BS, but I think there may be some BS in it.
Of course, Wesley Clark's statement about McCain that "riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down" is not a "qualification to be president" is, in itself, true. But how is it as a characterization of McCain's military service?
Who is Clark supposed to be talking to? Who on earth would ever actually make the claim that "Riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president"? Don't you think it's BS on Clark's part to oversimplify and distort McCain's military service, and how it contributes to McCain's candidacy?
Isn't it also BS to give Clark a pass on his obvious oversimplification and distortion, and then even defend him against his critics? You know darn well that what is wrong with Clark's statement is not just that it defies "right-wing PC." You wouldn't let any IVC student get away with such oversimplification of an opposing position. (Unless you are hostile to the distorted position yourself? Uh oh!)
How 'bout if someone waltzed into this nice forum you provide (thanks, BTW) and said about Obama, "I don't think going to Harvard and eating in the cafeteria is a qualification to be president," or "I don't think hanging around the streets of Chicago and rubbing shoulders with dirt-bag politicians is a qualification to be president"? Would you give such comments a pass, like you give Wes Clark's? After all, while those statements are also "true," they would still be vicious BS, of about the same low quality as Clark's statement about McCain. (Now rhetorical quality is a different animal. BS often has that kind of value. That's why Clark employed it.)
Suppose we improve Clark's statement by adding an account of how McCain bravely survived being a POW, and came home to serve his country in a life of public service? Well, even that would not be McCain's entire case for being elected president, and someone who said that it is would still be grossly oversimplifying, committing the same mistake as Clark but less egregiously. But I have to ask: Could you or I have been as brave and strong as McCain was as a POW? Shouldn't what he did impress us? I think it should impress Clark. Generals might be smarter than the average fighter pilot, but they don't get shot at as much, and they aren't often taken captive.
Of course, the editors and general audience of Dissent don't think McCain should be elected, and it's fair to point out his gaffes, his insensitivity to the costs of war, his other flaws. But we have to give him credit where credit is due. That's only fair; that's our duty to the truth. That's how we avoid BS.
You can read a transcript of Clark's remarks here:
http://securingamerica.com/node/2993
Observe that, when Clark makes the statement, CBS's Bob Schieffer responds by saying, "Really?" He seems incredulous.
Yes, people really do seem to think that McCain's military experience prepares him to lead the nation, especially as regards international relations and defense. I'm a little surprised that Schieffer thinks this, but there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that many Americans think exactly that. It is a simple empirical matter.
You'll note that Frankfurt calls "BS" the notion that John Kerry was prepared to lead us as Pres. owing to his military service in Vietnam. No doubt he (and you) are aware that, at the time (2004), Democrats fretted about their perceived "weakness," in the eyes of voters, with regard to military/defense issues, and they sought to counter that by choosing a candidate who could plausibly be presented as a "military hero." This, of course, is nonsense, except as politics. As politics, it is simply common sense, born of the foolishness of the electorate. McCain's endless references to his own military record is also commonsensical, politically speaking, despite the essential irrelevance of his military experience to the question at hand.
The cluelessness of the electorate is a theme we have pursued here in DtB of late.
Isn't it clear that, as Frankfurt suggests, we are awash in BS, especially in the case of political campaigns? I wasn't' defending Wes Clark; I was simply citing the reaction to his (obviously true) remark as an instance of BS and our embrace of it. Observe that, as usual, people reacted, not to Clark's remark in context, but to his remark irrespective of context.
More Bullshit.
We're either awash in BS or we are not. We are. Plainly.
Nielsbert (aka Bohrstein):
You'll note that Frankfurt's subsequent book was "On Truth." I have not read "On BS" or "on Truth," but I am familiar with F as a philosopher, and it seems to me that his real interest is in truth, which is unsurprising, coming from an Analytic Philosopher. My guess is that F sees what many of us see: a culture that is drifting from the idea that there is such a thing as thinking soundly and laying claim to the "probable truth," the "best position." As I have noted recently, it is not only the wacky Continental "philosophers" who sneer at the idea of truth--it is also the (GOP "base") right-winger, who, it seems, has equally abandoned all reason and argument. Consider his endless skepticism toward scientific testimony re Global Warming; his skepticism re evolution; his bullying and sophistry (O'Reilly, Hannity, et al.). These people seem to suppose what no academic (and certainly no philosopher) would suppose: that the truth is not something one seeks in terms of evidence and argument; rather, it is something given to the good and the right, independent of evidence and arguments. And because that is so, there is no need for reason, there can be no objection to sophistry, and bullying, braying, and sneering are as good as it gets, rhetorically.
I'm thinking that Frankfurt is especially bothered by bullshitting because the bullshitter, unlike the liar, has given up on truth, thinking that it cannot exist, except perhaps as a gift to the righteous from God.
Don't be so hard on your family. The kind of nonsense that happens when family gather involves a great deal more than simply communicating "the truth." Hell, they may as well be bullshitting, then. It's the togetherness and the love that counts.
Let's talk about Obama's qualifications to be POTUS. Does he have any at all?
Let's stick to the subject.
Not everything is fair in love and the culture wars, Chunk.
Why compare relatively sophisticated academics with unsophisticated radio personalities? What if someone argued that conservatives are bright and leftists are idiots, because Russell Kirk, Robert Nozick, and Victor Davis Hanson rely on reason more than the ranting and raving Michael Molloy (of Air America)?
What about F.A. Hayek, a writer conservative enough to say that his main thesis is that there is no such thing as social justice? Leftists hate that guy as much as anybody. Would you say that Hayek is someone who thinks that "truth is not something one seeks in terms of evidence and argument"? I don't think you would, because Hayek's arguments are highly developed.
There are a lot of conservative writers and academics who rely on the same methods and tools that you do: reason, evidence, argument. There are a lot of left-wingers who do little more than BS. (Ever listen to Air America? Even Pacifica radio?)
In my experience, left-wingers are much less willing to consider and discuss conservative ideas than conservatives are to discuss leftist ideas. Conservatives I know read books on both sides of issues. The leftists generally only read material that agrees with what they already believe. I know one leftist professor whose only reading seems to be left-wing blogs. (BTW: do Red and Reb, beloved fellow Dissenters, really ever give serious consideration to conservative ideas and arguments? But then how do they test their own arguments against anything contrary?)
This idea that conservatives, even the ones in the "right-wing base," generally reject reason and evidence, citing brutes like O'Reilly, is really just a slur, a slur not worthy of you. I really think that you should give all this "right wingers are stupid and irrational" stuff a rest, and I say that as a fan of you and Dissent.
2:03:
First, you really should get more sleep.
In my view, there are very impressive "conservative" thinkers. One of my favorites was the late Michael Oakeshott, whose work I do believe I have quoted here in Dissent. (I encountered O's work in college, when George Will's father, Frederick, spent a quarter at UCI.)
Such conservatives (and Hayek too) don't seem to have much sway with "conservative" political leaders these days. Do you disagree?
Conservatism as I understand it is absent from politics. In my view, the wisdom that can be found within it cannot be found in the thinking of ordinary Americans, for the most part. I've been meaning to write something about how hard it is to find any conservative impulses in American politics. No doubt, I'll get around to that, though I already know that few will care to read what I have to say on the matter.
People like Rush Limbaugh (if not Bill O'Reilly) are no mere Straw Men. They are very powerful and are treated as such by GOP leadership. Like it or not, Rush really does represent much of the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, the "base" that the GOP has relied on is without doubt as I describe them: unsophisticated irrationalists. The evidence is that they are the least knowledgeable segment of the electorate, and that's saying something.
GOP leadership, at least at the national level, has been largely corrupt and coarse for many years now. I didn't think I could be shocked, but some of what's gone down is indeed shocking. I would welcome the arrival of conservatives who to some significant extent are guided by the impressive conservative thinkers that you and I could point to. But that doesn't seem to be happening.
Naturally, the liberal part of the political spectrum is unimpressive, but, for the most part, it has not embraced and exploited and honored irrationality and ignorance, as Republicans have. For instance, some of Obama's speeches (e.g., on race) have been subtle and wise, and a substantial portion of the electorate have found them so. Can this be said regarding any "conservative" political speech in recent memory? (Let me know where I can hear them if they exist.)
Obviously, it is upsetting to me how coarse and sophistical politics has become--and how course and ignorant and irrational the electorate has become. (As a teacher, I am daily reminded of the latter factoid.) This problem concerns the whole mainstream political spectrum, but, clearly, it is more evident as one moves further down the right-wing of the spectrum.
This "reality," as they say, is the one I am thinking about. It is certainly true that none of this is relevant to the merit of some conservative thought/thinkers, which is considerable. But, for now, that's pretty academic.
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