Bullshit

I. What is Bullshit?

The ability to recognize philosophical bullshit is a prevalent obstacle in writing and is crucial to creating a sound argument. Harry Frankfurt argues this bullshit is an expression made with a “lack of connection to a concern with the truth” (33). Specific aspects of bullshit include being short of lying and deceptive misrepresentation. However, a key aspect of bullshit according to Victor Moberger is the “lack of concern with the truth of one’s statements” (596). Bullshitters often do not care if what they claim is actually the truth. Therefore, they are not actively lying as they are not even aware if they are distorting the truth. Although, this is just as harmful as lying when evaluating the validity of arguments. People are frequently exposed to arguments which are supported by philosophical bullshit and must be aware when they evaluate arguments made by the media, politicians, peers, etc. 

The ability to detect bullshit in arguments is important for students who are learning to develop arguments of their own. When researching, students will come across a multitude of sources in which they will have to assess their credibility. Knowing how to detect bullshit is necessary to avoid the use of bad sources. With the definition above, examples of bullshit, and an explanation on how to detect bullshit sources, students will feel more confident in their bullshit detecting skills.

II. Bullshit vs. Lies

Knowing the difference between bullshit and lies is essential for reasons including, to prevent the denial of straight up lying, and can directly relate to the credibility and integrity of an essay. Bullshit does not equal lying.

Bullshit is far more dangerous than lies. The difference between bullshitting and lying is that bullshitters purposely advocate for deceit. According to Harry Frankfurt, bullshitting is the intended misrepresentation of facts. Frankfurt argues that "the bullshitter really doesn’t care if what he’s saying is true or false" (Baym 110). The bullshitter understands that there is no validity to his statement, yet he continues to promote it to fulfill his grim agenda. Frankfurt continues to suggest that "bullshit is a more insidious threat to society because it undermines respect for the truth and it manifests a lack of concern for the truth" (Baym 110). Frankfurt suggests that bullshit is more dangerous than lying because a bullshitter does not acknowledge the real truth of what they are attempting to argue. The bullshitter's agenda is to disregard the truth while the liar realizes that there is a truth and decides to say otherwise.

III. Example of Bullshit in Quotes

Bullshit is prevalent in all aspects of information providing sources. One of arguably the most important places to find and avoid bullshit claims is in politics. Regarding politics, deciphering valid information out of bullshit claims is impertinent as the information we intake directly affects the outcome of our lives. If misinformation is commonplace, then our perspectives on political topics is skewed. If our views on political topics are skewed, then decisions will be made that could endanger people and otherwise cause harm to anyone affected. Therefore, identifying bullshit in the political environment is important to the wellbeing of everyone. When identifying fallacies in claims, intent on the speaker is vital to note beforehand. For instance, if a politician has a certain political view on a topic, then identifying sources and credibility in their arguments is imperative when deciding if their claims are bullshit or not. Their intent is to persuade an audience into believing their own beliefs, so deconstructing word choice is equally as important. Here, we use an example of a claim made by Donald Trump. on Muslims celebrating the 9/11 attack in New Jersey.

Example:

In this quote from a phone interview on NBC's Meet the Press, Donald Trump is discussing a claim that Muslims celebrated the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center: "When the Trade Center came down, it was all around the world, and you know that because that has been reported very strongly... I've had hundreds of people call in and tweet in on Twitter, saying that they saw it and I was a hundred percent right." (The Guardian)

In this example, there are many bold claims made by Trump that are notable in identifying bullshit. The main identifying factor is his lack of credibility. The only type of claim made is personal and source-less. He says "it has been reported strongly," but neglects to inform his audience where this information came from. Trump argues that he had "hundreds of people call in," and agree with his claim, yet provides no proof to support this. Additionally, his word choice is implicit of solid fact and is important to note in identifying the bullshit in his claim. Trump says that he was "a hundred percent right," and this wording is meant to back his claim with a statistical factor that should be undeniable. He also says that he had "hundreds of people" agree with his claim. These word choices are used as seemingly statistical evidence in an attempt to validate his own claim, and this is why interpreting word choice is important in identifying bullshit claims. The goal of bullshit claims is to assert a certain belief on a population, disregarding the presence of fact or fiction, and this quote from Donald Trump exemplifies his lack of attention to whether or not his claims are truthful and his intent to simply sway his audience into a specific belief.

IV. Bullshit Receptivity and Political Ideology

The tendency to tolerate pseudo-profound arguments has a direct correlation to unyielding political ideologies. Bullshit sensitivity is the ability to detect fraudulent claims. Artur Nilsson et al. explains that components of rigidity of the right expose asymmetries between the left and right. The lack of symmetry being the right's "stronger epistemic needs for certainty, order, and closure, less cognitive ability, and a cognitive style that is more intuitive, simple, and heuristics-based and less analytical, complex, and systematic" (Nilsson et al. 1441). These imbalances suggest that individuals with right political views maintain a strong need for certainty, order, and closure and rarely engage in complex and analytical thinking processes. These individuals depend more on intuition, simple cognitions, and "heuristics" to make judgements and decisions compared to "left-wingers." These asymmetries "should make right-wingers more prone to be seduced by pseudo-profound bullshit, particularly insofar as they encompass the inclination to attend to superficial cues (such as impressive-sounding words) rather than actual content and to engage in low-effort, non-deliberative thought" (Nilsson 1441). The susceptibility of right-wing individuals to believe "pseudo-profound" bullshit is higher. Right-wingers are inclined to be convinced by statements with superficial cues, such as "impressive-sounding words" and surface level reasoning. This inclination often disregards lack of substance within justifications, contributing to the right-wing audiences separation from high-effort, deliberative cognitive processing. The example in the section above demonstrates the effects of pseudo-profound bullshit on right-wing audiences. Trump's claim at his Alabama campaign rally that he saw footage of Muslims in New Jersey cheering the 9/11 attacks was an example of pseudo-profound bullshit. Trumps states that "[he] watched when the World Trade Center came tumbling down, and [he] watched in Jersey City, New Jersey where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building was coming down" (Phelps). Trump makes definitive claims about the 9/11 attacks citing evidence in his witnessing of "thousands and thousand" of people celebrating. These claims lack substance yet they seem meaningful to the audience, especially coming from a presidential candidate. Trump makes these statements in front of "14,000 people who sat rapt in silence" (Bailey). The audience found his claims to be knowledgeable and credible, leading to his win in Alabama during the election. 

V. Identifying Bullshit through Utilization of Charts

When a source is extremely bias, thus containing deception or a misrepresentation of information as indicated in the charts above, then the source is deemed as bullshit and should not be more valued than a non-biased source. The bias charts of different news media sources as from MarketWatch and Ad Frontes Media above summarizes the common sources utilized as well as the type of bias they contain (Langlois). These images of this bullshit news media displays which commonly-used sources that utilize bullshit, and how the media can mislead the audience or misrepresent information. Political bias for instance often shifts how writers in certain news sources write, in order to manipulate readers into believing their stance on certain policies/subjects, as well as to convince more people to vote for specific politicians during elections. These charts identify how, if any, skews of political ideology the news medias delivers, as shown on the x-axis on top of the media bias chart ranging from most “extreme liberal” to “neutral” to “most extreme conservative”. The neutral “x-value” with minimal partisan bias or balance of bias being the sources least likely to contain bullshit in them. On the y-axis of both charts, the quality of reliability of the source is exhibited ranking from “inaccurate/fabricated info” to “opinion; fair persuasion” to “original fact reporting (Langlois).” Both the “original fact reporting” and “fact reporting” being optimal new sources for not containing bullshit (Langois). However, the most optimal news media sources must be factual and non-bias on both the y-axis and x-axis. For this reason, the highly ideal news media source should be both at least “original fact reporting” and “fact reporting,” as well as “skews liberal,” “neutral,”and “skews conservative,” in order to ensure there is no bullshit within the source. With this knowledge of news bias charts, future Engl-145 students can utilize these charts or at least become aware of which sources are trustworthy, so the students’ essays are not full of bullshit.

Works Cited

ANON. "Donald Trump Stands by Claim That New Jersey Muslims Cheered 9/11-audio." The Guardian, Reuters/NBC, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/nov/30/donald-trump-new-jersey-muslims-911-audio, 15 March 2023

Bailey, Holly. “Donald Trump's 9/11 Story and Its Influence On His Freewheeling White House Bid.” Yahoo!, Yahoo!, https://www.yahoo.com/video/donald-trumps-911-story-and-its-influence-on-his-freewheeling-white-house-bid-185345041.html? guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAESof67DdV0uaqQsfCv16uQwgw GMlVoponsmE9b8NAOukSgl9HEcVLHUQlE0ViPOxo08rw_PSjOHQhcQOmHaEg51HLKSuCs0cyaOzaqMrkuoJNPdTk73OAMPcCH GsgXKLuH2JUO2EdVWO9l57VllnVDD8XzPnJ-tNWxQ3RiLmYJU.

 Baym, Geoffrey. “Crafting New Communicative Models in the Televisual Sphere: Political Interviews on The Daily Show.” The Communication Review (Yverdon, Switzerland), vol. 10, no. 2, 2007, pp. 93–115, https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420701350379.

Frankfurt, Harry G., On Bullshit. Princeton UP, 2005. 

Langlois, Shawn. "How biased is your news source? You Probably Won’t Agree with this Chart." MarketWatch Inc., 21 April 2018, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-biased-is-your-news-source-you-probably-wont-agree-with-this-chart-2018-02-28. 

"Media Bias Chart" Ad Fontes Media, https://adfontesmedia.com/product/media-bias-chart-free-flagship-chart/?submissionGuid=f751d270-c6b3-4d81-9197-c2e384f587a0. 

Nilsson, Artur, et al. “The Complex Relation Between Receptivity to Pseudo-Profound Bullshit and Political Ideology.” Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 45, no. 10, 2019, pp. 1440–54, https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167219830415.

Phelps, Jordyn. ABC News, ABC News Network, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-cheering-jersey-911/story?id=35355447.