On Bullshit
I was surfing Amazon some time ago when I came across this book called " On Bullshit" by Harry G. Frankfurt and I immediately felt an affinity towards it. So what transpired was that I ordered the book on a whim and what I have now on my desk is a book that basically talks about well " Bullshit."
So let me just bring out some excerpts from the book that well is pretty "bullshit". Pardon my pun.
From the first page: " One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.... In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much if it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientously developed apprecitiation of what it means to us."
Well and then he continues on page 55: " It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.... For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true or on the side of the false. His eye is not on facts....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."
Well, really the whole book he just rants on the topic of "Bullshit" as dryly as he could. But well, come to think of it, it really makes perfect sense. "Bullshit" IS really taken for granted and a "Bullshitter" really doesnt care whether he is telling the truth because the truth doesnt matter to him. Well, it makes a "bullshitter" less of a "sinner" than an outright liar.
But what i really like is his last paragraghp: "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 is bullshit."
What a whole load of bullocks!! Pardon my pun.
Well, why I bought this book was to read how the writer was going write about a subject on a thing that almost doesn't exist. And the funny thing is, he came out looking rather fine. It all makes perfect sense. It feels almost like a thesis that I would write for a Political Science module.
Apparently, this Harry Frankfurt has a compendium of book and following this book was a book called, hear this out man: "On Truth". Well, maybe this Harry guy felt abit guilty for misleading the world and wanted to rewrite another just to quell that niggling guilt
What a whole load of well "Bullshit"!!
Well, please get my $20 worth and read this "dense" book.
Sincere readers. Gotcha there!! Hehe...