L. Shedletsky
ABSTRACT
The Deep Structure of Bullshit
Alternative title:
Is Simple, Authentic Talk Possible?
L. Shedletsky
University of Southern Maine
It may come as a surprise to you to find that a serious consideration of the notion “bullshit” takes us headlong into a shockingly revealing understanding of our selves and the communication environment we inhabit.
Princeton University’s Professor Harry G. Frankfurt’s 2005 little book titled, On Bullshit, set in motion a closer look. Some years earlier, in 1969, Neil Postman delivered a talk titled “Bullshit and the Art of Crap Detection[i],” in which he urged teachers “. . . to help kids learn how to distinguish useful talk from bullshit.”
A number of thinkers have seen the topic as particularly apropos to today’s world, connecting it to reasons for war, a proliferation of fraud and deception, new technologies allowing for the manipulation of photographs and documents, scandals involving the church and the financial industry, corporate pronouncements of sincerity (“your call is important to us”), titans of the entertainment world, politicians, much of what passes in the classroom as discussion, on and on.
What this chapter proposes to do is to review the literature on the topic of bullshit with a focus on clarifying what “bullshit” is as used by people to both produce and receive messages. This chapter proposes to review what theorists have had to say on the topic, to ask what empirical work has been done on the topic, and to try to stimulate empirical work. It presents original survey data and ideas for further research. It will show that relatively little empirical work has been done on bullshit. Yet a close look at the topic reveals that “bullshit” is a theoretical hub for a complex of constructs that take part in the process of communication: namely, attitudes, beliefs, confirmation bias, deception, morality, lies, truth, ideology, identity, motivated cognition, political philosophy, persuasion, values, discussion, critical thinking, and conflict. “Bullshit’ is a fertile topic.
[i] Neil Postman, “Bullshit and the Art of Crap-Detection” (Delivered at the National Convention for the Teachers of English [NCTE], November 28, 1969, Washington, D.C.)