On Bullshit

Read last night that a Princeton professor by the name of Harry G Frankfurt, has written a treatise entitled "On Bullshit". Both the liar and the honest man must have regard to truth - he says - the former to subvert it, the latter to propagate it.

Bullshit, on the other hand, is fundamentally unconcerned with truth, but only with appearance, effect (spin ?) and persuasion. The art of the bullshitter (as anyone who's ever been to a class at the LSE will tell you) is simply to 'get away with it'...Persuading listeners or readers of a sincerity that is, by definition, phoney.

Thus his thesis is that bullshit is, in fact, a greater enemy to truth than lies are...

In New Labour speak we need to be (as I have said before) "tough on bullshit and tough on the causes of bullshit"...next time you find yourself talking 'city speak' to an investment banker, sat in a human rights lecture where someone feels the urge to deliver their life story and show off by making it pseudo-relevant to the course, or a political canvasser comes knocking on your door promising you a tax break, better hospitals and a Tube that works - tell them to, in the words of my good friend Judge Jonathan (who's blog is always a good read) - shut the fuck up.