I don’t recall Frankfurt making this point, but bullshit functions as a mechanism to destabilize context. When you are being precise in your rhetoric and paying appropriate attention to true/false distinctions, it’s much harder to be taken out of context.
-
-
It’s insulting to argue about the precise logic of bullshit being deployed by someone with clear FUD intentions that had no intention of coherent argumentation, only unambiguous behavioral effects. Count the damn masks. And tell me this group took Covid seriously on 9/26.pic.twitter.com/DCnVMxUKIT
Show this thread -
Throughout the early days, the 2 democrat politicians I was listening to, Newsom and Garcetti, were both doing careful and serious daily briefings. Very little they said could be taken out of context. Right or wrong, it wasn’t bullshit. They played it straight. It wasn’t hard.
Show this thread -
On the other coast, Cuomo delayed and made some tragic tactical errors, and paid for some early genuine confusions about how the virus worked, but again didn’t stream bullshit designed to sow skepticism about the reality and seriousness of the threat.
Show this thread -
Biden is in many ways like Trump (and unlike Garcetti or Newsom). He’s not a naturally precise speaker or thinker. He too is a bit of a bullshitter. But his bullshitting comes across as hair-trigger emotionalism. Not cynically calculated demagoguery.
Show this thread -
He lacks charisma. He can’t paint sentiment panoramas. He can’t create general moods of skepticism. You’ll get a vague sense of what he believes and a clear sense of what he’s mad/happy about, but you won’t go where he’s pointing, to the extent he’s pointing consistently at all.
Show this thread -
In general, people who think careful use of language is an effete mark of elite weakness don’t deserve careful analysis of their own words. Only of the cumulative effect of those words over time, on general sentiment and behavioral dispositions. Because that’s all they intend.
Show this thread -
Ie if your attitude is “fuck nuance” be prepared to be judged on broad contours and evidence of strategic intent, not the details you clearly don’t care about. https://kieranhealy.org/files/papers/fuck-nuance.pdf …pic.twitter.com/jF2GC2kWZH
Show this thread -
There’s a syndrome here you could call “stochastic offense, deterministic defense.” When his bullshit works, oh my, he’s a master manipulator illusionist magician beating the elites at their own word games and owning the libs. When it fails “he was taken out of context!”
Show this thread -
Trump apologist trolls like Scott Adams do this a lot. When it works for them, they are masters of postmodern subjectivist solipsism, deftly weaving bullshit force fields. The only way they can be “taken” at all is “out of context.” When the bullshit blows back, whine and moan.
Show this thread
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.