On ‘Bullshit’
Date: 2020-09-02
Source: https://craigwright.net/blog/philosophy/on-bullshit
Franfurt (2005; originally 1986, in his
essay On Bullshit) assembled a modern philosophical concept that presents
perhaps one of the most critical advances in philosophy and the twentieth
century. Cohen (2013), following his defence of communism and Marxist thought
(Cohen 1980), further extends the conception of bullshit. His essay explicates
how false logic and misconceptions have been used to baffle people, including
himself:
*I found that material hard to
understand, and, because I was naive enough to believe that writings that were
attracting a great deal of respectful, and even reverent, attention could not
be loaded with bullshit, I was inclined to put the blame for finding the
Althusserians hard entirely on myself. *(Cohen 2013)
Cohen expands on Frankfurt’s philosophy to
show that bullshit must fulfil a set of requirements. To be bullshit, it must
be “(a) unclarifiably unclear, (b) rubbish, or (c) irretrievably speculative”
(Lewis 2015). From Lenin’s (1939) reworking of the term imperialism up
until contemporary issues with ‘woke’ culture, we see the introduction of
Orwellian doublespeak (Orwell 1984). Communism has been said to have failed. We
have been told that history is at an end (Fukuyama 1995)—which is the selfsame promise
that Marx and Engels promoted in their socialist utopia (Williams 2000). What
is promoted as a concept of freedom where the workingman rises to promote
equality for all is a power play. Phillips demonstrates it repeatedly (Phillips
2020a; 2020b)—not in referencing communism, but in removing the foundations of such
inconsistent creed.
At a cursory glance, it would be possible
to say that such issues remain independent of each other and are not related to
communism. How does ‘woke’ culture reflect Marxist communism? In typical
collectivist form, the Marxist idea of freedom is freedom for an elite who know
better and believe that they can rule. It was Lenin himself who characterised
communist equality.
Marx (1946) built a concept of communism
based on philosophical bullshit, saying that “the cost of production of a
workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he
requires for his maintenance, and for the propagation of his race”. Such manipulation
of truth is what we see now in many universities (Phillips 2020a). It is what
is being promoted as being politically correct, when, in fact, it is a racist
system of control, designed to separate and not to build. History has not
ended, and the propaganda promoted by Marx, along with the manner of promoting
doublespeak in constructing an equal society, continues—“but only so long as
you shuffle along obediently to the beat of their dreary, robotic drum”
(Phillips 2020a).
References
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History: A Defense. In: Politics & Society*, 9(3), pp. 371–372.
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last accessed 2020/09/01.
Cohen, G. A. 2013. Complete Bullshit.
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Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
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Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Fukuyama, F. 1995. *Reflections on the
End of History, Five Years Later. In: History and Theory*,
34(2), p.27.
Lenin, V. 1939. Imperialism.
1st edn. New York: International Publishers.
Lewis, W. S. 2015. *Is There Less
Bullshit in For Marx than in Reading Capital?. In: Crisis and Critique*,
vol 2, issue 2, pp. 143–165. Available at: http://crisiscritique.org/ccnovember/w-lewis.pdf,
last accessed 2020/09/01.
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Phillips, T. 2020a. *University
Bigots Want To Control Minorities*. [online] Thetimes.co.uk. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/university-bigots-want-to-control-minorities-j6jq5dfg5,
last accessed 2020/09/01.
Phillips, T. 2020b. *Woke Warriors
Threaten Our Sense Of Identity*. [online] Thetimes.co.uk. Available at: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/woke-warriors-threaten-our-sense-of-identity-96985xwlr,
last accessed 2020/09/01.
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