Analyzing Frank Ambler's Essay 'On Bullshit'
With the upcoming presidential elections, citizens of the Unites States will soon be asked to vote. It can be quite challenging to be completely educated on all subject matter that the candidates use to promote their campaigns. So when your distant family member asks for opinion about a subject at the dinner table and you don’t really know anything about that particular subject, what do you say? You could say you don’t know anything and look uneducated in front of the rest of your family. Or you could bullshit it, just like you did in your English class for the essays, and seem like you know what you’re talking about in front of the rest of the family. But what really is bullshit and is it a good thing to use? In the short essay On Bullshit, written by Harry Frankfurt a Princeton University professor, we follow the process that is used to create a “rough account of what bullshit is and how it differs from what it is not”(1) to create a working thesis for “bullshit”, which is presented in the latter stages of the essay. Frankfurt takes a broad view on items to be applied to bullshit and then shifts his gaze to more specific details of bullshit. The first broad item is the title essay The Prevalence of Humbug in which the parts of the definition of “humbug” are heavily analyzed. The second broad view he takes is a look into the life of Ludwig Wittgenstein to discuss his view on how a woman portrays her feelings. After this Frankfurt takes a specific look into items, such as the Oxford English Dictionary, a novel Dirty Story, and St. Agustine. These all have the common theme of discussing lying and how it relates to bullshit. By this point Frankfurt has a working concept of what “bullshit” is, that being it is a form of miscommunication, like lying, in which the perpetrator is indifferent to the truth. Now with a thesis Frankfurt ends his essay by relating this thesis to real world and the implications that come with it. However, Frankfurt does successfully define
bullshit he does it a way that is confusing for the reader to follow along at times. In the short opening Frankfurt displays his interest in the term bullshit, and how it is “one of the most salient features of our culture”(Frankfurt 1). There’s not much to argue here, it clear that some form of bullshit is present in most cases of everyday life. But what exactly is bullshit and what purpose is it used for? This is Frankfurt’s dilemma with bullshit, there is no clear explanation for why there is so much bullshit in our society. With no thesis for what bullshit is, the reader is forced to take the plunge into the first source. Frankfurt immediately starts comparing the likeness of bullshit to a more outdated term, humbug. This is quite a jarring experience for the reader, to be shifted so suddenly into a broad view and contrast method. However humbug does have a formal definition, which is given in the essay The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black, and is similar to bullshit but not fully interchangeable. The definition is separated by Frankfurt in four parts, each with a lengthy and possible pleonastic analysis. The main points emphasized from the analysis are that bullshit, and humbug, “is short of lying and those who perpetrate it misrepresent themselves in a certain way” (Frankfurt 5). By saying bullshit is short of lying it shows that bullshit isn’t technically a lie, more like misleading information. Mispresenting yourself means that bullshit conveyed is meant to display yourself in a specific light that otherwise you would not occupy. With this information bullshit’s use and definition can now be explained, although not fully; to bullshit is set yourself up to look a specific way to others while not directly lying. Frankfurt then shifts focus rapidly, again, to look at “biographical material pertaining to Ludwig Wittgenstein” (Frankfurt 5) to observe the central characteristics of bullshit, one of which is a “lack of connection to concern with truth” (Frankfurt 8). The derivation of this comes from a conversation between Wittgenstein and Pascal, were Pascal claims to “feel just like a dog that has been run over” (Frankfurt 6). Pascal cannot actually know what that dog feels like, so she is lying about how she feels then? Frankfurt argues she is not lying. She can infer that the dog would feel unpleasant, so if she feels unpleasant she can make the claim she feels like that dog, but still not know how that dog exactly feels. This is an indifference to the truth. Pascal doesn’t care how that dog exactly feels yet will still relate her feeling to that dog. This shows she has no concerns about the truth of the statement she made. This characteristic of bullshit connects to the not directly lying definition. Bullshit is now a misrepresentation of yourself with a lack of concern to the truth. To further solidify bullshits meaning Frankfurt consults the Oxford English Dictionary for more terms like “bull session”, “shooting the bull”, and “bull”. He uses the definitions and examples for the OED to convey how the uses of these sub-bullshit terms relate to each other at first. All the terms layout that the use of bullshit should be used more in a laid back environment, for when one talks just for the sake of talking and especially when what one says isn’t going to be held against them later. It also makes references that bullshitting is more of bluff than a lie. That is, bullshit is more similar to a fake out than that of a deliberate lie. The next source that Frankfurt induces is Frank Ambler’s novel Dirty Story. This is used to serve one purpose, to show a clear distinction between a lie and bullshit. This is done by examining a specific line from the book, “Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through”(Frankfurt 10). This advice states that you can ether bullshit or lie, meaning the two do not have interchangeable meanings. A lie is an exact act with a sharp focus that is designed to insert a specific falsehood at a specific point in a system of truths so that the truth is not conveyed at that point. The key to telling a lie is that you need to know the truth in order to change it to a lie. The last outside information Frankfurt draws on is St. Augustine’s essay Lying, for which that main points are the distinctions between one who tells a lie and a liar, and how they both relate to bullshit. A lie can be told here or there but a liar loves to lie and lies for fun and is more often not in favor of the truth. So where there is truth in the mind there could also be a lie, but if there is bullshit there cannot be a lie therefor there truth cannot be there either. At this point Frankfurt moves to his conclusion. He talks about how bullshit can become a habit for disregards for the truth. It means the more we bullshit more we ignore the truth, and the less truth we know means the more bullshit that takes up the absence of truth, creating a never ending cycle that will end with a disregard for all truths and be only replaced by bullshit. All in all Frankfurt’s essay can be very confusing for a reader to understand due to the setup of the essay. The reader is simply dumped into Frankfurt’s analysis of subjects that seem to come from nowhere. However upon rereading and deciphering what is being analyzed into simpler terms, the read can firmly grasp at what Frankfurt is explaining. Bullshit seems to be a concept that most people would take for granted, however it seems that excessive amounts of bullshit is a danger to society so it should be avoided as much as possible.
bullshit he does it a way that is confusing for the reader to follow along at times. In the short opening Frankfurt displays his interest in the term bullshit, and how it is “one of the most salient features of our culture”(Frankfurt 1). There’s not much to argue here, it clear that some form of bullshit is present in most cases of everyday life. But what exactly is bullshit and what purpose is it used for? This is Frankfurt’s dilemma with bullshit, there is no clear explanation for why there is so much bullshit in our society. With no thesis for what bullshit is, the reader is forced to take the plunge into the first source. Frankfurt immediately starts comparing the likeness of bullshit to a more outdated term, humbug. This is quite a jarring experience for the reader, to be shifted so suddenly into a broad view and contrast method. However humbug does have a formal definition, which is given in the essay The Prevalence of Humbug by Max Black, and is similar to bullshit but not fully interchangeable. The definition is separated by Frankfurt in four parts, each with a lengthy and possible pleonastic analysis. The main points emphasized from the analysis are that bullshit, and humbug, “is short of lying and those who perpetrate it misrepresent themselves in a certain way” (Frankfurt 5). By saying bullshit is short of lying it shows that bullshit isn’t technically a lie, more like misleading information. Mispresenting yourself means that bullshit conveyed is meant to display yourself in a specific light that otherwise you would not occupy. With this information bullshit’s use and definition can now be explained, although not fully; to bullshit is set yourself up to look a specific way to others while not directly lying. Frankfurt then shifts focus rapidly, again, to look at “biographical material pertaining to Ludwig Wittgenstein” (Frankfurt 5) to observe the central characteristics of bullshit, one of which is a “lack of connection to concern with truth” (Frankfurt 8). The derivation of this comes from a conversation between Wittgenstein and Pascal, were Pascal claims to “feel just like a dog that has been run over” (Frankfurt 6). Pascal cannot actually know what that dog feels like, so she is lying about how she feels then? Frankfurt argues she is not lying. She can infer that the dog would feel unpleasant, so if she feels unpleasant she can make the claim she feels like that dog, but still not know how that dog exactly feels. This is an indifference to the truth. Pascal doesn’t care how that dog exactly feels yet will still relate her feeling to that dog. This shows she has no concerns about the truth of the statement she made. This characteristic of bullshit connects to the not directly lying definition. Bullshit is now a misrepresentation of yourself with a lack of concern to the truth. To further solidify bullshits meaning Frankfurt consults the Oxford English Dictionary for more terms like “bull session”, “shooting the bull”, and “bull”. He uses the definitions and examples for the OED to convey how the uses of these sub-bullshit terms relate to each other at first. All the terms layout that the use of bullshit should be used more in a laid back environment, for when one talks just for the sake of talking and especially when what one says isn’t going to be held against them later. It also makes references that bullshitting is more of bluff than a lie. That is, bullshit is more similar to a fake out than that of a deliberate lie. The next source that Frankfurt induces is Frank Ambler’s novel Dirty Story. This is used to serve one purpose, to show a clear distinction between a lie and bullshit. This is done by examining a specific line from the book, “Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through”(Frankfurt 10). This advice states that you can ether bullshit or lie, meaning the two do not have interchangeable meanings. A lie is an exact act with a sharp focus that is designed to insert a specific falsehood at a specific point in a system of truths so that the truth is not conveyed at that point. The key to telling a lie is that you need to know the truth in order to change it to a lie. The last outside information Frankfurt draws on is St. Augustine’s essay Lying, for which that main points are the distinctions between one who tells a lie and a liar, and how they both relate to bullshit. A lie can be told here or there but a liar loves to lie and lies for fun and is more often not in favor of the truth. So where there is truth in the mind there could also be a lie, but if there is bullshit there cannot be a lie therefor there truth cannot be there either. At this point Frankfurt moves to his conclusion. He talks about how bullshit can become a habit for disregards for the truth. It means the more we bullshit more we ignore the truth, and the less truth we know means the more bullshit that takes up the absence of truth, creating a never ending cycle that will end with a disregard for all truths and be only replaced by bullshit. All in all Frankfurt’s essay can be very confusing for a reader to understand due to the setup of the essay. The reader is simply dumped into Frankfurt’s analysis of subjects that seem to come from nowhere. However upon rereading and deciphering what is being analyzed into simpler terms, the read can firmly grasp at what Frankfurt is explaining. Bullshit seems to be a concept that most people would take for granted, however it seems that excessive amounts of bullshit is a danger to society so it should be avoided as much as possible.