The bullshitter is a self-serving idiot with no concern for the truth—so says Harry Frankfurt in his 1986 essay “On Bullshit.” Proposing that inattention to the truth is what makes the bullshitter so dangerous, Frankfurt neglects an essential quality to the concept’s effectiveness—relative believability. Persuading the masses, substantively, must be somewhat connected to the truth, or else no reasonable person will be persuaded. In this post, truths are considered to be common knowledge consistent with our logical reality. 

Bullshit is just nonsense. The bullshit that Frankfurt argues is strategically employed to bolster one’s social currency. According to Frankfurt, the bullshitter does not seek to cover up the truth; they are indifferent to it, creating their own truths to build a recognizable image within their social group. Where liars build walls to hide their realities, the bullshitter floats on top of it in a self-made bubble—adding a layer to the “Glass Onion,” so to speak.

Bullshit itself is not dangerous. It is certainly not threatening because it is completely removed from the truth either—assuming a nonsensical statement can produce danger within the logical reality, while being logically inconsistent with said reality, creates a paradoxical identity of bullshit. The bullshitter must interact with their reality in some way, and where it does not serve them socially, it serves them strategically—serving as anchors for the bullshitters reality. 

Imagine an academic bullshitter who wants to advance the intellectual social ladder within a college lecture—surely the other intelligent students, even the professor, would be able to see right through their substanceless, fatuous claims. But the collegiate bullshitter could obtain a persistent identity as a scholar amongst their peers, and even professors, by learning just enough to get through a Socratic lecture under the guise of their new identity. They convince their peers by slogging through speeches of buzzwords related to the topic at hand, remaining somewhat connected to the logical reality.

However, this type of bullshitter harms no one but themselves and possible group partners—ultimately, by half-assing their education, they will receive half of an education. On top of that, ideally, once the bullshitter has used up all their buzzwords, they’ll be zipping around like a balloon deflating hot air. 

Contentious claim, but possibly true, bullshit does not need a greater definition than contrived nonsense to be a tool for social gain and or harm. Analysisabouto the quality of bullshit statements are useful for identifying bullshit,  but substancelessness or vapidity should not be rigidly applied as a characteristic of all bullshit— particularly when arguing that bullshit could cause harm as such arguments seem to concede that within these statements presides a notion pertinent enough to persuade people’s into believing farce—even if that pertinence, or what is provocative about the bullshit is the listeners will or want for it to be true.  

While pertinence does not always indicate an objective quantity of substance, it does provide an adequate reason as to how or why reasonable individuals are persuaded by complete bullshit. If bullshit were to be completely substanceless and entirely removed from the logical reality, it would hold no cultural prevalence—in other words, no harm would be done because no reasonable person would be persuaded into believing the bullshit. 

A classic case of harmful bullshit is known as rumors. Even referenced by Fleetwood Mac as the title of their hit 1977 album, Well known in the cultural context to be incredulous claims about individuals that are often defamatory to their character.  Rumors possess the same transient connection to lies that Frankfurt describes as about bullshit,  while maintaining some connection to the known logical reality. Bills the parameters defined previously—for bullshit to be harmful, it must be believable, it has some relation, or is predicated by a truth or known reality.

Rumors, like bullshit, are not whole truths and they’re not whole lies, rather a provocative sentiment, believable enough to be spread from ear to ear. Situational truth is then how bullshit maintains its integral connection to reality. Objective truth doesn’t have any relevance to bullshit because it is lacking in judgment. Situational truth, on the other hand, is perfect for the concept as it is not dependent on anything objective rathe,r it is connected to how the truth is momentarily perceived by an individual.   

Bullshit remains connected to the truth because it is built on top of it, and in the moment when the statement of bullshit is exclaimed, it is the willful choice of listeners to believe the nonsensical statement. Critical thought might tell them later what they heard was a farce, but if the bullshitter was successful, the listener won’t think twice about what they heard within the moment—they might not think twice about it at all, choosing to go the rest of their life never replacing the bullshit with actual logic.

Luckily, the local pseudo intellectual and the spread of rumors are easy to counter and or ignore—think back to high school. Unfortunately, the current political landscape is not full of pseudo-intellectuals or rumors—it is being flooded with pure bullshit. Bullshit, once connected to the most convenient truth, is then used as a foundation for more bullshit, and then more bullshit—until it is such a huge pile, Americans can’t even see the bottom of the crock anymore.