ON BULLSHIT
Harry G. Frankfurt
ON BULLSHIT
Harry G. Frankfurt
THE LIAR AND THE BULLSHITTER
“When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. 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.”
Harry G. Frankfurt, “On Bullshit” (1986; book edition, 2005).
A liar remains oriented toward truth: he believes he knows what is true and deliberately presents its opposite in order to deceive. His success depends on keeping track of reality well enough to conceal it.
The bullshitter has a different aim. He selects or invents statements for the impression they create, without caring whether they are true or false. His concern is not the facts themselves, but how he appears and how his audience responds.
For Frankfurt, this indifference is the decisive distinction. Lying opposes a truth the liar recognizes; bullshit bypasses the question of truth altogether. That is why he regards bullshit as a deeper threat to truthful discourse.
Guai a fare finta, ti credono tutti. La gente non ha creduto a Semmelweis, che diceva ai medici di lavarsi le mani prima di toccare le partorienti. Diceva cose troppo semplici. La gente crede a chi vende la lozione per far ricrescere i capelli. Sentono per istinto che quello mette insieme verità che non stanno insieme, che non è logico e non è in buona fede. Ma gli hanno detto che Dio è complesso, e insondabile, e quindi l'incoerenza è la cosa che avvertono più simile alla natura di Dio. L'inverosimile è la cosa più simile al miracolo. Voi avete inventato una lozione per far ricrescere i capelli. Non mi piace, è un brutto gioco.
Umberto Eco, Il pendolo di Foucault
Beware of pretending: everyone will believe you. People did not believe Semmelweis, who told doctors to wash their hands before touching women in labor. He said things that were too simple. People believe anyone who sells a lotion to make hair grow back. They instinctively sense that such a person is putting together truths that do not belong together, that he is not being logical and is not acting in good faith. But they have been told that God is complex and unfathomable, and so incoherence is what they perceive as most akin to the nature of God. The implausible is the thing most like a miracle. You have invented a lotion to make hair grow back. I don't like it; it is a nasty game.
Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum