Moving Beyond Bullshit

There is a lot of bullshit (BS) in our American culture. Between fake news, flat-earthers, aliens, and unqualified individuals giving medical advice regarding a global pandemic, it can be a daunting task to sift through the BS within our culture. With the ongoing struggles of a semi-quarantined nation, the economy going down the crapper (pun intended), and African Americans struggling to have people understand that their lives matter, the volatility within our country has never been greater.

We have T.S. Eliot to thank for one of the most common expletives in my house growing up. Eliot coined the term through his poem “The Triumph of Bullshit – In the Form of a ballad”. Eliot defines this word for us through his poem where he stages several examples of what he deems BS.

However, it wasn’t until philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote a New York Times best-selling book called “On Bullshit”. Where the term gets fleshed out.

In his book, Frankfurt attempts to make a distinction between telling a lie and bullshitting. According to Frankfurt, telling a lie is an intentional act meant to deceive another individual about what is true regarding some proposition. Bullshitting goes to the individual’s total disregard for the truth and is more concerned about how their bullshit can increase other’s perception of them regardless of the truth. Ultimately, a bullshitter is more dangerous than a liar.

A New Era Of Bullshit

On January 20, 2017, a new era of BS was unleashed upon the planet by the newly elected president Donald Trump. No doubt the idea of truth had been eroding for many years, but for the most part ideals like integrity and character still had some value. But, whatever was left of the idea of truth in our country was completely obfuscated with the rise of BS.

To be clear, I am not using BS in the pejorative sense, but as a real phenomenon within our society. Donald Trump is neither the inventor of BS nor is he the first President to use BS when communicating with the general public. However, to his credit, Trump did perfect the use of BS as a staple for general communication.

If talking about BS is strange to you, you might be more familiar with one of its euphemisms, “misinformation”. Although misinformation is a more polite way to speak about BS, it doesn’t quite hit the mark as BS does. Expletives are not just terms we use when we are angry and want to find a quick way to express that anger. Expletives have a function in our language. Expletives provide a linguistic force that when uttered conveys both content and emotion, which are absent in their euphemistic brothers and sisters. This means there is a time and a place where an expletive is useful even if it is not politically/socially acceptable – this is one of those times.

Why?

Because the BS in our culture is rampant and must be called out and identified as such. One need not go any farther than tunning into one of your favorite mainstream news outlets, podcasters, or influencers to see it in action. We often use these various forms of media to inform our minds about the thoughts and ideas present within society.

However, one of the major reasons for the sheer volume of BS in the world, are the shortcuts we take. It’s a bygone era when men would philosophize with their barber over the latest lit review in the local paper. Instead, we have settled for propaganda and we punish any thinking that doesn’t fit into one of our political ideologies.

Clean Up the Mess or Hike Up the Britches, it’s Getting Deep

We must become averse and NOT immune to BS. Electing a new President is only a small step toward addressing the larger problem that is perpetuated by many media outlets and countless others to whom the current administration has influenced.

We have a free press. The reason we have a free press is that our forefathers did not want politicians influencing what was written. Instead, the press is supposed to hold the branches of government accountable by publishing the truth of what is actually happening. The press is supposed to be for the people, not the government.

In today’s age, we have the opposite occurring. Somehow, truth is expected to emerge from a synthesis of liberal and conservative news outlets. In a recent article for the Detroit Free Press Mitch Albom referred to this as “The Desert of Objectivity”.

BS is not just some clever term meant to get a rise out of another person. As we have learned during a global pandemic, BS takes lives! It sows confusion in a time when people

are desperate for truth. We must hold our leaders and the media accountable for the BS they perpetuate.

But, it’s not just our leaders and the media, it is also us. We are perhaps most responsible for the prevalence of BS. It is no longer a small pile on the sidewalk that we can avoid. No, it’s everywhere. BS spreads like a virus. It only takes one person to re-tweet, share a post, or have an innocent conversation with another for it to spread quickly.

Finally, BS does not discriminate. It has no political affiliation. Its only job is to distort. That means this is not just a conservative or republican issue. I see liberal BS all the time. We must learn to go outside our echo-chambers or we will be no different than those we call BS on. We also need to exercise patience and try combatting ignorance with information; irrationality with logic.

Fact-Checking Resources that don’t Stink

A fact-checking website is a website that researches and verifies claims that are made either by high-profile people (like government leaders) or that are circulating around the internet (usually social media). I often use these resources to check claims I see on social media that seem suspicious. However, not all fact-checking websites are non-partisan. Here are a few that are considered by most to be unbiased.

Snopes.com – The definitive website for clarifying and/or debunking misinformation.

FactCheck.org – “FactCheck.org is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania….a nonpartisan, nonprofit ‘consumer advocate’ for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases.”

FlakCheck.org – This is the political fact-checking branch for FactCheck.org