On Bullshit

Harry G. Frankfurt’s On Bullshit is in my view hilarious and heartbreaking. As for the latter, the distinctions in the book between lies, bullshit, humbug (new ways of viewing a different attitude related to bullshit like a second cousin), and intention had me reflecting on relationships with friends, family, and partners or dating. Even groups I serve(d) from military to boards, jobs in teaching, to politics, and people I've looked up to. The former, hilarious, relates to my reflection and laughing at how obvious BS is when I understand the difference between this and a ‘bold-faced’ lie. Or, a lie of perception with supporting facts based on the side of belief the individual is on. Having had a relationship with bullshitters is funny in contexts upon reading now. How obvious using this text. Although heartbreaking at the time. Besides owning the book bought a copy of Audible for a few dollars rather than convert text to speech with Speechify. Mostly because I’d like to revisit the topic multiple times without having to retake screenshots for conversion since Speechify only allows so much storage. My purpose for reading and reviewing regularly for use is in regards to marketing. As an aspiring author will undoubtedly be marketing for the remainder of my life. While also teaching others about as a consultant branding is a means of marketing. How we share reality is hugely important. If we develop a strategy on Bullshit for marketing reflects our brand. In the world today nothing goes away. This is how past transgressions while acceptable ‘then’ aren’t now. We will get called out communally for the newly accepted sin. Which was a sin within lack of conscientiousness or training at the time. Building a brand minus bullshit may be a challenge given how we are raised or fear and even who we focus on. Meaning those in the world we idolize who influence us. This book distinctly petitioned to my mind a particular politician. The obvious bullshit by the definition of the book is so obvious when applied. The other definitions where people believe the lies or BS they promote is a whole different ideology due to intention. The intention of which we are aiming for is distinctive. If we are lying there's a method to deception with intent as opposed to the bullshitter who doesn't care one way or another and may or may not believe the crap they're weaving with a certain message they may know very little about. The pandemic certainly has a measure of a little bit of every description in the book. If you're gonna make a review comment without reading the book would make for a very simple misunderstanding of the review and my view on the book or the hot topic of the pandemic. I'm merely sharing observations in brief of how the book aroused a need to dig deeper personally. To ensure bullshit is never allowed in brand marketing not encouraged for client growth. It's my choice to not participate in bullshit or people who exemplify this though before reading the book see how bullshitters had weaseled into my inner circles through life. I laughed at how obvious this is now though at the time can not believe how gullible I was. How I found this book is saw it in a pile Brene Brown had in her office. Why I waited a year to read it through with purpose is to partner with my word of the year, Peace. Every year I pick a word to represent a focus for the 365 days. Rather than my old way of creating a mission and vision statement with ways to accomplish this and a whole lotta reviews of progress, goals, etc. My only goal yearly now is to pick a word. Creatively focus on what this means. Develop a reading list that addresses spaces that interfere with the success of meaning attainment. And, help weed the spaces filled with for lack of a better word bullshit that distracts from what I need, and most of what I want. It’s super easy to pick books about peace. A larger difficulty I’m enjoying is weeding the less obvious challenges. This book has assisted me in recognizing ways I sabotage mental and personal peace tolerating bullshit I wasn’t astutely aware I allowed. Being able to spot the lie is easy. Simple. Mostly. But, bullshit is not so simple. As the person is “never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through”. “The bullshitter … does not reject the authority of truth, as the liar does … he pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are”. Being middle-aged having grown up without present parents am fortunate that a few adults demonstrated healthy attitudes about life. It’s been through faith practice I’ve learned what truth and lies are. How they hurt or help. The art of bullshit was never part of life lessons until adulthood. If you’ve never been hurt by a bullshitter or acknowledged the difference between certain politicians to family or people once considered or maybe still do consider friends this might be a great short read for reflection. Buying on Audible to follow along in the book enjoyed this because I could focus on hearing and digesting. Being read to with some books feels like sharing space with a friend, caring person, or sometimes from a teacher depending on the narrator. This book reads as though it’s a serious subject. Though I had difficulty not laughing based on some examples either from my own life or in the world today. This book vibes like clipping sheers to weed a garden. Or, a tiller if you have so much BS in your life that needs constructive acceptance. This book can be a way of cleaning up life’s garden. Making room for more beautiful flowers and landscapes for enjoyment. I’m laughing at the idea the review is so long for such a short book. Bullshit is deep and I’m hoping this review is the pair of boots you need and or want to wade to the book 😊 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ because some of the book spends a lot of time distinguishing humbug from BS that felt excessive for me to make a point. Having a leather-bound copy of such a little book gives a distinct impression of its value. For this, I’m adding back the ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Though, leaving off my traditional 💯. So not to bullshit the reader into thinking I didn't notice at least one area that vibed four stars. The overall impact of the book's meaning is five stars for me. I got a lot out of this little book. Gained improved senses for what BS is. Knowledge for understanding creating wisdom in the insight of choices is always a blessing. Who needs more space for happiness and less anxiety, fear, distraction? Check On Bullshit out for answers to ways to improve and eliminate with awareness. Owning authentically all decisions makes dealing with bullshit way easier. A little TP and flush. Rather than not cleaning these people away from influence. Consider who you follow on media. Associations. Inner circle people. Is it better to adjust now or continue to tolerate what eats away at personal peace? How you brand yourself eill determine how the world sees and the legacy being left for generations. May we all have more piece, happiness, and understanding and less crap that interfere with our well being and that we share with the world ❤️

Harry G. Frankfurt is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Princeton University. His most recent publication is On Truth, which was published the year after his philosophical investigation, On Bulls***, the subject of my interest in this post. Frankfurt first developed his ideas about bulls*** in a 1986 philosophical investigation of the concept. This was subsequently republished as a small 67-page book in 2005, leading to media appearances such as Jon Stewart's The Daily Show. It is obvious from the fact that our nation elected Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008 on a platform of demonstrably bulls*** slogans like "Hope," "Change" and "Yes we can" that the best-seller publicity received by Frankfort's study has more to do with the public's fascination and amusement with its title than with the actual, serious content of the volume. Perhaps if more people actually read Frankfurt's study, they would force our politicians to deal with issues more honestly and forthrightly -- a pressing issue in this election year. (And, no, I'm not supposing that bulls*** is the exclusive province of Mr. Obama or the Democratic party, although they have certainly set new records of late.) While Frankfurt's study of bulls*** may not be philosophically dense or profound, it is far more than a book about (excuse me) “s***s and giggles.” Frankfurt is quite serious. While there are passages that will certainly make the reader smile, this is generally because of the juxtaposition of serious conceptual and linguistic analysis with a subject generally treated as crude and trivial. For example, in his opening pages, he writes: "One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bulls***.... I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bulls***, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis." Frankfurt compares bulls*** with adjacent concepts such as "humbug," "lying," and "bluffing," referencing points made by Max Black, Wittgenstein, St. Augustine, and the Oxford English Dictionary. He concludes that unlike the liar, the bulls***ter is never serious about truth. Lying is parasitic upon truth, because the liar is concerned that the truth not be discovered. Like the liar, the bulls***ter is also represents himself falsely as endeavoring to communicate the truth; but unlike the liar, who hides the fact that he is trying to deceive us, the bulls***ter hides the fact that truth is of no basic interest to him. "It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth," writes Frankfurt. "Producing bulls*** requires no such conviction." He continues: "For this reason, telling lies does not tend to unfit a person for telling the truth in the same way that bulls***ting tends to.... Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, of the same game.... The bulls***ter ignores these demands altogether.... By virtue of this, bulls*** is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are." Anyone who wishes to continue making assertions but who no longer believes in the possibility of identifying certain statements as true, cannot do anything but bulls***, says Frankfurt. In conclusion, he asks why there is so much bulls***, and offers two basic hypotheses. First, people bulls*** whenever circumstances require them to talk without knowing what they are talking about. This phenomenon is widespread, obviously, in the public life of politicians, who are expected to be able to talk intelligently about everything under the sun, most of which they are capable of addressing only in memorized sound bites and cliches that are no more than forms of bulls***. Second, the contemporary proliferation of bulls***, says Frankfurt, has deeper sources in "various forms of skepticism which deny that we can have any reliable access to an objective reality." One response to these "antirealist" doctrines and loss of confidence has been, he says, a retreat from "the discipline required by dedication to the ideal of correctness" to a quite different sort of habit, which involves the cultivation of an alternative ideal of sincerity. "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." Frankfurt observes: "But it is preposterous to imagine that we ourselves are determinate, and hence susceptible both to correct and to incorrect descriptions, while supposing that the ascription of determinacy to anything else has been exposed as a mistake. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them.... Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial -- notoriously less stable and less inherent than the natures of other things. And insofar as this is the case, sincerity itself is bulls***." Sincerity, in other words, generally has nothing to do with having a correct account of what is true.

ineluctible, concise, tightly reasoned and elegantly structured, a true pleasure to experience. A brief gem of mental and especially verbal precision which may be savored with a fine single malt while its subject destroys our civilization.

amazing, a very good reflextion

O livro é realmente pequeno, como vocês podem ver pelo tamanho da minha mão e comparado a outro livro que eu tenho. Estou muito interessada em ler, foi indicado por um amigo meu, que é filósofo.

Exceptional ever lasting book. Not to be missed

Ein empfehlenswertes Kleinod, das in unserer Zeit einfach geschrieben werden musste. Wenn man das Preis-Leistungsverhältnis nach der Buchstaben-Menge bewerten wollte, könnte man ja auf die Idee kommen, dass es viel mehr Buchstaben sein sollten für das Geld ;))) Hier ist der Inhalt einfach sein Geld wert! Das Buch kommt in einem schönem schwarzen Einband mit Goldprägung für den Tite. Gut das sich ein renomierter Philosophie Professor diser Begriffsdefinition angenommen hat

Harry Frankfurt är en amerikansk moralfilosof som resonerar om skitprat kontra lögn. Intressant och belysande över skitpratets fara för demokratin.