When we left Dr. Frankfurt he was telling us that bullshitting is pervasive and that it performs differently than lying because it shows no regard for truth or authenticity. We also heard him argue that bullshit has a corrosive effect on our culture; consequently, we should try to understand it and address it. I’m the choir, and he’s preaching to me on that score. The culture of cynicism and nihilism fostered by the ubiquity of bullshit should alarm and provoke us.
As we rejoin the good doctor, however, I must take up the cudgel. Don’t worry, it’s a small cudgel; I’ll only give him a spanking.
Frankfurt says, “I shall not consider the rhetorical uses and misuses of bullshit.” By claiming that we can misuse bullshit, he accepts that it could be used appropriately; but we don’t know how or under what conditions. He acknowledges that there may be something important or useful about bullshit, then exempts himself from the argument by refusing to address it. The problem is that he goes on to categorically reject the validity of bullshit.
He stakes out his philosophical ground when he says,
The contemporary proliferation of bullshit also has deeper sources, in various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality and which therefore reject the possibility of knowing how things truly are. These “anti-realist” doctrines undermine confidence in the value of disinterested efforts to determine what is true and what is false, and even in the intelligibility of the notion of objective inquiry.
Frankfurt is taking Plato’s side in the age-old quarrel between philosophy and what he sees as the skepticism of rhetoric. Skeptics like Gorgias and Protagoras—Plato’s contemporaries—rejected the idea of a reality that could be known or communicated without distortion. Consequently, they embraced the practice of rhetoric known as “sophistry.” In short, sophists believed that since there was no truth to be known, you were better served to learn the skills of persuasion than philosophy. Plato claimed that this practice of rhetoric was “an art akin to cookery;” he argued that people should concern themselves with the truth of philosophy, rather than the “deceit” and “trickery” of rhetoric, where “the lesser is made to appear the greater.” (Of course, in order to make his case Plato had to make use of…er…rhetoric.)
Enter Plato’s student, Aristotle. Much like his mentor, Aristotle believed in truth and the virtues of philosophy, but he also recognized the value of rhetoric, defining it as “the faculty of discovering, in any given case, the available means of persuasion.” Aristotle argued that since most of the public situations we face are contingent issues (like whether there were WMDs in Iraq…wait…bad example), where the truth does not naturally win out; we need to use rhetoric to construct and communicate truth. He also maintained that there was more to persuasion than Platonic reason; appealing to emotion and credibility were equally important to Aristotle’s view of rhetoric.
Frankfurt seems to believe that all rhetoric is sophistry, and suggests that anything short of truth is bullshit, no matter how sincere.
One response to this loss of confidence has been a retreat from the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness to a quite different sort of discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an alternative ideal of sincerity. Rather than seeking primarily to arrive at accurate representations of a common world, the individual turns toward trying to provide honest representations of himself. Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being true to his own nature.
He goes on later to rather succinctly state that “sincerity itself is bullshit.” So to him, it’s an either/or proposition: you’re either dedicated to the correct understanding of truth, or you abandon the truth for a form of narcissistic deception.
Just as hot air is speech that has been emptied of all informative content, so excrement is matter from which everything nutritive has been removed. Excrement may be regarded as the corpse of nourishment, what remains when the vital elements in food have been exhausted. In this respect, excrement is a representation of death which we ourselves produce and which, indeed, we cannot help producing in the very process of maintaining our lives. Perhaps it is for making death so intimate that we find excrement so repulsive. In any event, it cannot serve the purposes of sustenance, any more than hot air can serve those of communication.
It’s a potent metaphor and an admirable sentiment. Poop isn’t useful. It contaminates our lives if we don’t deal with it (and it backs up on you if you eat too much cheese). Unfortunately, there is a big difference between our body’s ability to separate nutrients from toxins and the human mind’s ability to separate truth from trickery. What is “hot air?” How do you mark the difference between bullshit and truth? Is there no middle way between those who profess access to truth and those who abandon truth for complete skepticism? Is communication bullshit if it does not serve as an unmitigated conduit between truth and audience? There’s also this: bullshit is used as fertilizer, right? Not to create a metaphor carnival here, but isn’t it possible that some bullshit aids in the growth of new ideas? If I am expected to get it right every time, meeting the “ideal of correctness,” isn’t the likely outcome that I will be consumed by anxiety and stop communicating much at all?
I have faith that truth is “out there;” but I recognize the futility in articulating it with complete correctness. The moment you lay your hands on an idea and begin to translate it into your language, it changes from what it is in reality to what you interpret it to be, unless of course your interpretive insight is infallible or you have gotten your hands on the Handy Dandy Double Dog Universal Decoder Ring (and don’t tell me the answer is the Bible, what with its multiple interpretations and the fact that it doesn’t tell us how to vote or whether Thursday night on NBC is truly “Must-See TV”). All we get are partisan glimpses of the truth as it passes by. Does that mean we have to become skeptics and traffic exclusively in bullshit? Frankfurt leaves us with only two options: get it right or sling shit.
It seems to me that there is a role for meaningful communication that isn’t rooted in certainty or skepticism. I think we can ditch this obsession for truth without abandoning it altogether. I propose a relational rhetoric: a form of communication where neither truth nor man is the measure of all things; relationship is. In relational rhetoric our attention is given to whether we are cultivating meaningful connections with other people. In this equation, a compulsive concern for truth is wrong because it alienates those who are less concerned, or who share a competing view of truth; and a skeptical rejection of truth is also wrong because it elevates the individual at the expense of others.
In relational rhetoric, untrue claims are okay if they are offered with the sincere intention of moving the conversation forward. If I argue something I’m unsure of, my hope is that I will provoke you to add to the argument or dialogue, making our understanding more complete and our relationship more meaningful. As our ideas converge on “truth,” the real truth emerges in and is defined as the relationship we are sharing.
So I agree with Dr. Frankfurt about the culture of bullshit. It contributes to the empty idol of celebrity and the crass egocentricism of the marketplace. But the answer is not to oppose bullshit because it vandalizes truth, we should oppose it when it harms relationships.
This idea needs a lot of fleshing out—some reaching. But before I go on, I want to know what you think.
Reach.
