There is a crucial distinction which is too often underappreciated and whose underappreciation places democracy in peril
It is the distinction between lies and bullshit (see especially Frankfurt, 2005, passim, or my 2024 essay entitled 'The Truth Crisis')
It is the distinction between lies and bullshit (see especially Frankfurt, 2005, passim, or my 2024 essay entitled 'The Truth Crisis')
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The concept of bullshit, as Frankfurt distinguished it, deserves our urgent attention
In what follows, I am going to try to simplify the reasons
And widespread understanding of this distinction should inoculate democracies against their tendency to degenerate into societies where truth becomes irrelevant, public discourse becomes mere noise and the mechanisms of accountability are rendered ineffective
Paradoxically, this makes the liar as attuned to the truth as the virtuous person (perhaps even more so) though for fundamentally different reasons
The liar, by necessity, operates within the framework of truth, even as they seek to undermine it
This engagement with truth means that lies are defeasible through our own commitment to the normativity of truth
Because the bullshitter is completely indifferent to truth, their statements are impervious to evidence or reason
They do not aim to deceive in the traditional sense but to whimsically muddy the waters, leaving us unable to discern what is real or relevant