The “No Labels” Party Threatens America

Once upon a time I advocated for a centrist third party, as a way out of our polarized partisan impasse. Even suggested a presidential candidate (Bill Gates). That was in a different Universe.

Comes now the new “No Labels” party aiming to field a 2024 candidate. Seemingly a challenge to both major parties, with a Trump-Biden rematch turning off many voters. But “No Labels” is the ultimate in either naivety or manipulation.

Voter enthusiasm for an inspiring charismatic candidate seems a thing of the past, in our age of alienation, cynicism, and political disconnect. Yet it’s a bizarre irony that in this environment there’s actually one political figure — Trump — who attracts a cultish devotion without precedent.

In an extended interview with a “No Labels” leader, former Republican North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, David Remnick struggled to get him to explain what, if anything, the party actually stands for. McCrory kept mouthing the words “common sense” without applying that to any actual issues. But where the rubber meets the road, what’s common sense may be debatable.

Another “No Labels” leader is former Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who’d previously pretty much fallen out with the Democratic Party. If “No Labels” isn’t saying what it stands for, nor is it hinting at a candidate. (Though Joe Manchin’s name comes up.) But Lieberman assures us the candidate will be no “spoiler.”

Well, do they foresee actually electing their nominee? No third party candidate has ever won the presidency (unless you count Lincoln). Ross Perot did manage 19% of the 1992 popular vote, more than halfway to winning. And I could see how my old Gates idea might have flown. But not in 2024 with our frozen-in-place partisan divide. Enough people might nevertheless vote for a third candidate who looked able to win, but that’s a chicken-and-egg proposition.

While “No Labels” seemingly stakes a middle ground between the two polarized parties, an op-ed by John Crisp argues that no such U.S. political middle really still exists. Yet he doesn’t see the two main parties as ideological opposites. Democrats represent a “version of traditional business-as-usual American politics;” while Trump’s GOP is a grievance cult hell-bent on destroying perceived enemies. “There is,” Crisp says, “no comfortable middle ground,” democracy itself being at stake. “Imagining otherwise imperils the nation.”

And for all the no-spoiler assurances, “No Labels” is obviously a set-up to elect Trump. His voters are his voters no matter what. Whereas some Biden voters could be lured away to another alternative, especially one trying to appear sensible. In fact, “No Labels” organizers — funded largely by right-wingers — are tellingly concentrating on blue states. This is a highly dishonest scheme to divide the anti-Trump vote and thereby get him back in power (despite less voter support than ever).

The Economist recently analyzed plans afoot for Trump’s second term. There’s a whole ecosystem of right wing think tanks and organizations laying the groundwork. His surprise first election caught them unprepared. They won’t let that happen again, seeing this as their chance to remake America. No more Mister Nice Guy.

Their plan is to make the presidency even more powerful than it already is. The Economist focused on “Schedule F,” a first term Trump edict, little used then, but which could permit the peremptory firing of something like 50,000 federal officials. Don’t ask me how this end-run against our 140+ year civil service independence could possibly be lawful. But it would be the Steve-Bannon-far-right’s long dreamed coup-de-grace against its bogeyman, “the administrative state” (a/k/a “the deep state”).

That would be one slice in the death of a thousand cuts for our democracy. We’ve seen this authoritarian playbook too many times in too many countries. America has long been the global avatar of democracy. Fail here, can it endure anywhere?

Further still, what would a Trump return portend for the West’s solidarity against his friend Putin in Ukraine? Or regarding a Chinese attack on Taiwan? The ancient rule-of-the-jungle global order would be back with a vengeance. The end of the world.

Could American voters really be so insane? Or enough of them? To elect so demonstrably wicked a man? Who — beyond so many other grotesqueries — literally attempted, through blatant lies, to overthrow his previous election loss?

I often wonder how history will portray this period. Perhaps that will depend upon how it turns out — what forces and voices come top. It’s said history is written by the winners. Or will there even be such a thing as “history” in the future?

The Republican pathology is shown by their moves in the House of Representatives to expunge from the record Trump’s two impeachments. As though they never happened. And to sanitize our history of slavery.* If there’s history you don’t like, just change it. Like in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

* Florida now officially mandates schools teaching that slaves learned beneficial job skills. (Don’t mention the pervasive torture.)

What is Life About? The Radicalization of David Brooks

In David Brooks’s 2018 book, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life, climbing a mountain is his metaphor for living. You build a career, a family, a place in the Sun. However, many get to the summit, or near it, and feel (as the song goes) is that all there is? Or they’re knocked off the mountain. Bringing them to their second mountain. Centering on something both deeper and yet outside the self; serving not one’s own ego but something larger.

Brooks says he wrote this book as a corrective to his previous one, The Road to Character — written while “still enclosed in the prison of individualism.” He’s since “become radicalized,” by upheavals both global and personal. Now believing “the rampant individualism of our current culture is a catastrophe. The emphasis on self — individual success, self-fulfillment, individual freedom, self-actualization — is a catastrophe.”

His radicalization is keyed to a scathing self-indictment. Brooks had great first-mountain success, but says it made him a lousy person, destroying his marriage. Also destroyed was the conservative political faith he’d spent his life with, leaving him unmoored. Brooks says writing this book “was my attempt to kick myself in my own rear.”

Individualism has dominated my own thought too. Mindful that through most of history, few had the freedom for personal self-realization, being confined by societal structures and institutions. Breaking free has been a key story of the last few centuries. The Berlin Wall told people where they could not go. What a thrill for me to see whooping crowds at the now-open gates on November 9, 1989. And a flowering of newly liberated individual enterprise visible as I walked Russian streets in 1995. The seeming triumph of my ideals.

But Brooks thinks the individualism thing has gone too far, and I agree. Individual flourishing does not mean society is nothing, the community is nothing — other people are nothing. Maybe some can live good lives in remote cabins. But for most of us, embedment in communities is of the essence for our thriving as individuals. Evolution made us deeply social creatures. Our modern challenge is to reconcile serving individual flourishing with our connections to others.

De Tocqueville two centuries ago already described Americans as exceptionally individualistic. On the other hand, conformism reigned as recently as the 1950s. The ’60s saw a revolt against that — “do your own thing.” Giving us the “me generation.” Our age-old way of being, deeply enmeshed in social structures, is wobbling. This is the Bowling Alone syndrome of Robert Putnam’s 2000 book. Surveys show people saying they have ever fewer close friends, and spend less time with them. Measures of societal trust, in institutions and other people, are declining. Social media, ironically — it was supposed to facilitate connections — seems to have accelerated that fraying of interpersonal bonds. A loneliness epidemic is being recognized as a major public health issue. All this Brooks sees as presaging a bleak, even violence-ridden future.

And where my own conservatism did vaunt individual freedom as against the collective, now we’ve seen that viewpoint’s reductio ad absurdum — most visibly in covidiots insisting mask-wearing and vaccination violated their personal liberty, with no concern about endangering others. For them, it seems, society is nothing, other people are nothing.

Brooks now actually says “freedom sucks.” Seeing an emptiness inside outwardly successful people. Our whole society “built around self-preoccupation, its members become separated from one another, divided and alienated.” What is life really about? He sees a “telos crisis” — not knowing what one’s purpose is. He thinks it’s not building a persona to win success and approval, but rather serving something deeper at one’s core, “where your heart and soul reside.”

What he really has in mind is devoting oneself to serving others. And to counteract the fraying of social cohesion, he more specifically urges not one-on-one efforts, but rather working to build neighborhoods and strengthen communal bonds. The book is loaded with salutary examples. But Brooks also calls us to simply be “good friends, neighbors and citizens.”

No man is an island, wrote John Donne. Yet for all our social archipelagos, each of us is locked within their own skull. However much you’re concerned with others, they cannot have a reality for you fully equivalent to your own.

And Brooks is right that defining your good in terms of how others see you — all the quest for worldly success, status, admiration — is mistaken. Because you cannot access or experience what transpires in other people’s heads. Those you love, are close to, share relationships with — their thoughts do affect your own well-being. But others are more like ghosts to you. Human empathy and sympathy may properly make you care how they fare. But how they feel about you needn’t concern you. Structuring your life around that is a chimera. Fame — something happening entirely in the minds of people unconnected to you — is a false snare.

What this all means is that it’s ultimately in yourself — your own self (or ego, if you will) — that fulfillment occurs. If it occurs by serving others, fine. But the dopamine or oxytocin, or whatever, that you get from it, is only in your own brain. Thus I’m dubious that somehow submerging the self in the service of others must be the route to meaning in one’s life.

I keep recalling Garrison Keillor’s quip that if one’s purpose is to serve others, then what purpose is served by the existence of those others? It’s not merely a joke. If everyone were actually selflessly sacrificing themselves to the service of others, the totality of human well-being would be diminished. Whereas everyone pursuing their own good makes for more happiness overall. So argued John Stuart Mill.

Thus the point is doing for others because it makes you feel good about yourself. To somehow put your own ego out of the picture is an impossible absurdity. Truly selfless deeds are rare. When people do generous things, it’s mainly for the sake of positive feelings created in their own brains.

Reading a book like this naturally prompts introspection. I left my professional career at 49 in 1997. Had made a great marriage; sired a great kid. And felt just what Brooks describes: that I’d come over a mountain, to the other side. But I reckoned that a good place, needing no second mountain. I confess to doing some philanthropy, which is rewarding, but to be honest, only what’s easy for me, and it’s not what I live for. What I live for is the experience of being alive, a near-miraculous gift, and the feeling that I’m living it well. I consider such “pursuit of happiness” an “inalienable right;” not hung up struggling to reconcile it with altruistic impulses.

The same evolutionary factors that made us social creatures, as part of that, also gave us moral instincts, which helped promote living in groups. Thus Brooks posits that, deep down, everyone wants to feel morally justified (even wrongdoers find self-justifications). And he adds that this often takes the form of feeling superior to others — the root of much evil. An important insight applicable, for example, to Russia’s Ukraine aggression; white supremacy; “woke” ideology’s excesses; and much else.

Asking people to subordinate their egos to serving others wars against what’s really the essence of having a self. Instead, let’s just strive for a more modest ideal — everybody leaving others alone to seek their own fulfillment. That would do plenty to make a much better world.

Brooks is religious (a Jewish/Christian hybrid); it’s a big section of the book. Beautifully, movingly written. It demonstrates how deeply religious impulses are wired into human brains and psychology. I almost envy what a source of meaning this is for many; spirituality, the idea of something more profound about life than everyday surface reality.

Brooks’s religiosity was shaped by the personal turmoil noted earlier. His discussion reflects that turmoil; intellectual groping; a constant struggle to make sense of his beliefs; to reconcile the irreconcilable. Part of him understands the beliefs are objectively absurd. Yet, as for some religious believers, that itself is an ineffable part of their appeal.

It’s been said that if God didn’t exist, we’d have had to invent him. Well, he doesn’t, and we did. I shun the word “spiritual,” being the ultimate materialist — what we see is what we get. Yet I view that material reality as itself a great gift, in the richness of our experience. Religious faith, whatever its beauty or benefits, is simply false, and one cannot live an authentically meaningful life grounded in fundamental falsity. My own understanding of reality is a profound source of fulfillment. I crave nothing more.

What’s Up With Black Republicans?

Senator Tim Scott, who’s Black, seeks the presidential nomination of what has really become the White Nationalist party. I want to say, Good luck with that.

Yet more than a token few Blacks have been prominent in the party, even in the South. The leading North Carolina GOP gubernatorial prospect is Mark Robinson, very Trumpy and Black. Georgia almost elected Herschel Walker. And after all, Scott himself did get elected statewide in Republican-dominated South Carolina — where Dixiecrat Strom Thurmond was his predecessor.

Does this demonstrate the Republican Party isn’t racist?

Of course all Republicans aren’t racist. But most racists are Republicans. How does that gibe with their voting for non-whites? They deny being racist, even to themselves, resent the accusation — and voting for a Black candidate provides a welcome opportunity to seemingly prove, especially to themselves, their non-racism.

And, importantly, they see Democrats as the party of Blacks. Something they’ll vote against, even if it means voting for a non-white. Most white Georgians held their noses and supported Walker — not only Black, but an atrocious candidate — to strike a blow against more hated Democrats. Indeed proving not that those Republicans aren’t racist, but how far they’ll go to vent their animus against Blacks and the political forces identified with Blacks.

A little history. The Republican party was born as the anti-slavery party; the early GOP stood up for freed Blacks; and for a century retained their allegiance. Then in the 1960s it was Democrats who embraced the civil rights movement while Republicans sought to exploit white resistance to it, especially in the South. But most white Americans were okay with Black progress, and race relations were improving. Until electing a Black president signaled loss of the caste dominance long taken for granted.

Which became a central political preoccupation. And whereas the GOP had previously cynically pandered to white racial anxiety, with Trump that took over the whole party. Studies have shown that such racial concern is the one factor most closely correlated with Trump support. Making Republicans today what is at heart really the white nationalist party. Hence the prominence of the Confederate flag in Republican iconography. (No, it’s not about “state rights.”)

So — how can we account for Blacks like Tim Scott cheerleading for that party? Black Republican voting, in the Trump era, has actually risen above previous lows. Are they race traitors, “Uncle Toms” (in antique parlance)? Or just deranged? For politicians, opportunism is a partial explanation. While Black Democratic politicians are a dense crowd competing for advancement, the GOP is more open territory, with Blacks having there a novelty value, and being welcomed as again seeming proof against the stain of racism.

I don’t doubt that some Black Republicans are sincere. Though I have a hard enough time fathoming how any rational American could back Trump, blind to all the lies, even given the white nationalism factor; and to understand Black supporters is harder still. Maybe it’s just the raw macho alpha-male appeal to our lizard brains.

Yet the human heart and mind are very complex and deep. People have reasons for what they believe. You or I might think them bad reasons. But it would be a dull world if everyone thought alike.

Chirp, Chirp, Chirp

Carol Quantock’s recent talk (to my local Humanist group) was for the birds — or, rather, “For the Birder: Identification, Observation, and Protection.” She’s been a longtime active birder herself.

A “bird” is a warm-blooded egg-laying vertebrate distinguished by having a beak, feathers, and (usually) the ability to fly. There are many different varieties. Quantock explained that one can see them at bird preserves, or one’s own backyard, especially if stocked with native plants or a bird feeder. She advocated buying only good bird seed, not the cheap stuff.

Quantock noted that bird activity varies during the day; she likes to go out really early. Dusk is another good time to see birds, especially owls. She deemed listening most important, because birds make distinctive sounds; and use of binoculars for a better view.

Most of the talk was about how to identify birds. Of course, the flying part is key, and birds are easily distinguished from other things that fly, like insects and airplanes. But many people like to identify the exact variety of bird. Timing is important, not just time of day, but time of year, since many birds vacation in distant places like Canada and Mexico (though “Moonbirds” do not travel to the Moon; bird wings only work in air).

Also, different habitats host different sorts of birds, giving one a clue for what to expect (though Quantock cautioned to “expect the unexpected”). For example, water birds might be expected on lakes; bluebirds like open woodlands; forests are good for thrushes, owls, and hawks — which, she noted, eat other birds, remarking, “That’s fine, it’s nature,” shocking some listeners.

Another point was that to determine what you’re seeing, size is important. Ostriches are bigger than sparrows; a downy woodpecker larger than a hairy woodpecker. But be mindful that a bird’s apparent size may vary depending on distance from the viewer; and binoculars do make them look bigger.

Color is important too. Most birds have some. A goldfinch differs in that respect from a bluebird, as the names imply. Though there are way too many birds sporting yellow-and-black color schemes. Males tend to be more showy, while females try to be less conspicuous, to avoid predators and catcalls.

Then there’s shape, and behavior. Quantock noted that robins mostly hop around on the ground, and are not seen clutching tree trunks like woodpeckers do. She also pointed out that birds move rather than standing still, so that if you watch a bird for any length of time you will be able to see different aspects of it.

As to bird safety, a big threat is cats. Quantock recommended keeping cats indoors, making it harder for them to catch birds. But the biggest danger to birds is windows, which humans thoughtlessly incorporate into their dwellings. The problem is birds thinking they can fly through windows, which they cannot; resulting in fatal injury. Bird re-education efforts have failed. Quantock suggested instead various stratagems like keeping blinds partly closed.

Notwithstanding the preceding point about birds heedlessly smashing themselves against glass, it was asserted that “bird brained” is largely a misnomer, and that birds (even while their brains are in fact quite tiny) nevertheless somehow demonstrate a lot of intelligence. Very few birds voted for Trump.

Who are the Real Patriots?

The Albany Times-Union this morning published my letter-to-the-editor (slightly edited). Here is my unfiltered text:

Jay Jochnowitz’s 6/25 commentary*, “Let’s reclaim the word ‘patriot,'” sketched many of the reasons why I too love America and feel patriotic. As distinguished from the chest-thumping self-declared “patriotism” of today’s American right. And what struck me is that those folks do not actually love this country. In fact they seem to hate it.

At least they hate America as it really is. What they love is a misguided fantasy America that does not exist, and never did. Fortunately.

In comparison against most of humanity’s history, this is an oasis of goodness. For which, unlike the global norm, certain ideals and principles are central. Ideals which, despite human imperfection, we’ve striven toward. Ideals of which few of those “patriots” have a clue. My America is the very antithesis of the homogenized, exclusionary enclave of white Christian nationalism they fantasize.

Their so-called “patriotism” is embodied in the flag so many of them flaunt — a flag of rebellion against the America of true ideals, a flag standing for the brutal subjugation of human beings in slavery. Nothing could be more at odds with the America I love.

These “patriots” showed their true colors on January 6, 2021, by trying to overthrow a democratic election. (No, it wasn’t “stolen.”)

And surely no genuine patriot would vote to disgrace their country with a despicable leader like Trump whose every pore reeks vileness. Their perversion of patriotism is insane.

* Here’s a link to it: https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/jay-jochnowitz-let-s-reclaim-word-patriot-18166395.php

WEIRD People Getting to Denmark

I am WEIRD. You probably are too. WEIRD is an acronym for Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic. This is explored in Joseph Henrich’s 2020 book, The Weirdest People in the World – How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar AND Particularly Prosperous.

This profile of people like us differs markedly from that of our forebears, and of most people in the world even today. As Henrich stresses, the difference is not just in our way of life, but in how our minds work. Literally rewiring our brains. A key concept in the book is that there isn’t one overall human psychology, our psychologies being shaped by our particular, often very different cultures. WEIRD people — beyond the five characteristics of the acronym— tend to be less conformist, less tradition minded, more individualistic, less distrustful of strangers, more honest in dealing with them, more charitable, more time conscious, and more analytical in their thinking.

Here’s another emotional/psychological dichotomy, tied to our sense of individualism. For us, guilt looms large, while for others it’s shame. The difference is that guilt is self-directed, we judge ourselves; whereas shame is all about others judging us.

Much has been written (much of it derogatory) about the West and its attitudes, their outsized role in the human story, and how that role came to be. For example, Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel argued that geographical happenstances, like the kinds of animals and plants available for cultivation during prehistory, drove subsequent cultural trajectories down to the present. Henrich assigns a similar importance to one event in 1517 — launching the Reformation, which he says sparked an explosive spread of literacy in Europe, with large consequences.

However, he posits that even before then, peculiarities of social practices involving religion, marriage, inheritance, and family life were taking shape, putting Western Europe on the path to WEIRDness: impersonal markets, urbanization, constitutional governments, democratic politics, individualistic faiths, and science and innovation.

A psychology of individualism is particularly significant. Henrich cites studies asking people to fill in the blank: “I am ______.” WEIRDos mostly answer with some personal attribute, like their profession, or a salient personality trait. Other humans mostly by reference to some social role in which they see themselves, usually kin-based. Kinship webs indeed dominated our lives through most of history.

Many lament the change, using terms like “alienation” and “anomie,” suggesting non-WEIRDness is a richer, better way to live. I’ve tended to reject such thinking, seeing our individualistic ethos as a good thing, freeing people from webs restricting their lives. Though admittedly in recent decades our solipsism has metastasized, especially with all those people fixated on their phones to the detriment of actual social interaction.

Note however that WEIRDness is clearly a societal plus in terms of prosperity, order, and stability. Take the famous marshmallow test, one way to gauge patience and ability to defer gratification. Children who score high there tend to go on to more successful lives. And high marshmallow scores correlate with high WEIRDness scores. Americans score much better on both than Zimbabweans — whose country is a mess.

But Henrich posits that perhaps the biggest reason why Western Europe leaped ahead was that getting out of kinship networks exposed more people to more diverse other people, leading to far greater cross-fertilization of ideas and innovation. Quite simply making them smarter.

The book discusses other aspects of progress that also promoted enhanced cognition. One not mentioned: better sanitation, making water safe to drink. Before, people, to be safe, drank mostly beer. Greater sobriety improved mental functioning. Helping progress build upon progress.

And the largest factor making us WEIRD may seem surprising. Henrich says it was the Christian church, during Medieval times, intervening in marriage and family customs in ways that shredded patrilineal kinship structures and blood-based tribalism. It took centuries. But statistical analysis shows that even within European countries, localities with longer/stronger exposure to the Church’s marriage and family policies are WEIRDER today.

And why did the Church push those policies? It had prudish hang-ups about anything sex-related. And Henrich emphasizes competition between Christianity and a host of other belief systems. With a big reason for Christianity’s success being its “extreme package” of marriage and family dictates, which changed people’s psychologies in ways that molded them to the church’s program more generally. In short, to prevail, it had to defeat kin-based institutions.

So: a ban on marrying even distant cousins forced people to reach outside, and thus sidelined, kin networks. In their place the nuclear family became the societal linchpin. Married couples were now expected to set up their own households. The common practice of levirate marriage (widows marrying their brothers-in-law), arranged marriages, and multiple wives, all were out too.

Stamping out polygamy, in particular, had huge impacts. In societies with polygamy, elite males tend to hog the women. Plural marriage has prevailed throughout human societies and, indeed, among all group-living primates. The topmost males have often grabbed hundreds of wives — because they could. This leaves a large underclass of deprived, sexually frustrated men, with no stake in the future, competing over the few women available. (Polygamous American Mormon communities dealt with this by effectively throwing out surplus young men.)

Monogamy makes for a much healthier social dynamic. Furthermore, WEIRD families tend to have fewer babies, thus averting the “Malthusian trap” of population outrunning resources, and enabling people to live better.

One might imagine that societies “atomized” into nuclear families, as opposed to kinship networks, with a greater sense of individualism rather than a collectivist mentality, would impair public spiritedness and social consciousness. The opposite is true. WEIRD people make, for example, more charitable donations to help poor strangers. It’s not actually counter-intuitive. The trouble with kinship systems is that non-kin are given short shrift. WEIRDos have more expansive views of their social roles.

This was a whole different way for people to see themselves in relation to others. Viewing themselves more as individuals rather than like ants in an ant hill. And that’s how we got to the American Declaration of Independence — and to Denmark.

“Getting to Denmark” is a catchphrase referencing that country as exemplifying ones that work well, enabling most citizens to flourish — and raising the question of how to achieve that nirvana. It’s not simple, and seems to endlessly bedevil a lot of countries.

In this vein I recall Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir Infidel, telling how, in fleeing to the Netherlands, the culture shock, contrasting with the several Muslim countries she’d lived in, blew her mind. No Muslim nation seems able to get to Denmark; nor any African ones. Henrich says kinship-based societies try to superimpose successful WEIRD paradigms; but without changing the psychologies, that tends to be a poor fit, and problem-ridden.

The African nation I know best is Somaliland, which actually does an awful lot right. I’ve been involved with an education project there aiming to transform the country. Numerous graduates have gone on to Western schools, and some have returned to help advance their country. But we’re learning how hard that is; there just aren’t many opportunities for them to build the kinds of rewarding lives they can in the West.

So Somaliland is still far from Denmark. Henrich would see the reason as, basically, lack of WEIRDness — that is, lacking that repertoire of cultural and psychological paradigms departing from what’s traditional for humanity. And I do note that in Somaliland, patrilineal kinship networks still figure hugely in defining society; polygamy and cousin marriage remain widespread. The father of a Somaliland gal who lived with us had multiple wives; her mother had a levirate marriage.

On Bullshit

On Bullshit is actually a serious book, by a serious philosopher, Harry Frankfurt, published in 2005, by Princeton University Press, no less. Or at least it purports to be a serious book. Maybe Frankfurt is just bullshitting us.

It’s only 67 pages. Unusually small pages. With unusually wide margins. And large type. And space between each line. So it’s hardly even a throat-clearing.

But I thought it worth a read, after what can only be described as a bullshit presidency. Well, not only. But everything about that man was bullshit. Everything. How did millions fall for it?

Naturally enough, Frankfurt starts with a definition. Taken from a 1985 book by Max Black, The Prevalence of Humbug. That’s an archaic word, perhaps not exactly synonymous with bullshit. Black’s definition: “deceptive misrepresentation, short of lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of somebody’s own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes.” Frankfurt proceeds to didactically unpack this definition. The “short of lying” bit is problematic, when falsity is really of the essence here. And while pretentiousness does tend to go with the territory, it’s not of the essence.

Then there’s the “thoughts, feelings, attitudes” bit. Thus, perpetrators would be misrepresenting themselves. Frankfurt comments that any lie would seem to misrepresent the bullshitter’s state of mind, and he goes on to pedantically parse this concept. And it’s often true that the real motive is not so much to convince hearers of the facts being asserted as to convey something they want the hearers to believe about the bullshitters themselves.

But after devoting many of those 67 tiny pages to Black’s definition, Frankfurt concludes it’s “significantly off the mark[!]”

He deems the “shit” part of the word important, saying it refers to something not carefully crafted but “merely emitted, or dumped.” And yet sometimes bullshit is crafted carefully indeed. In advertising for example, which Frankfurt mentions. One could also mention all the efforts to concoct 60 lawsuits, and even a feature film, to advance the 2020 “stolen election” bullshit.

Frankfurt inexplicably devotes much space to an incident where a hospitalized friend of Wittgenstein said she felt like a dog that’s been run over, and Wittgenstein replied that she didn’t know how a run-over dog feels. Thus notionally accusing her of bullshit. Frankfurt’s analysis considers that Wittgenstein might merely have been joking, but not the alternative hypothesis that he was being a pedantic ass. And Frankfurt’s exegesis of the woman’s utterance glides past the obvious fact that it was merely a simile.

Next comes an equally pointless disquisition on the term “bull session,” whose purpose he says is not actually “to communicate beliefs.” Likewise “shooting the bull.” He also discusses the plain word “bull” as meaning “hot air,” connoting empty speech. (But why “hot?”) Then he says similarities between hot air and excrement make the former “an especially suitable equivalent for bullshit.”

Excrement is further characterized as “matter from which everything nutritive has been removed” (but ask a dung beetle!) and as a representation of death, perhaps explaining our revulsion. Or so he says.

Then he discusses bullshit vis-a-vis bluffing, leading him to assert “the essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony.” (His emphasis) And Frankfurt quotes a fictional character advising, “Never tell a lie when you can bullshit your way through.” An important difference, Frankfurt thinks, because people react less strongly against (mere) bullshitting than outright lies. But he demurs at trying to explain why.

Whereas lying “is an act with a sharp focus,” to “bullshit one’s way through” bespeaks an ongoing enterprise. Hence “the bullshit artist.” This leads Frankfurt to posit that bullshit really misrepresents not specific facts nor the perpetrator’s beliefs concerning them, so much as misrepresenting “what he is up to.” Hiding “that the truth values of his statements are of no central interest to him.”

Frankfurt thusly goes on to distinguish the bullshitter from both the honest person and the liar. The bullshitter “does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.” Which makes bullshit “a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”

All fitting you-know-who to a “T.”

Oxford Philosopher G.A. Cohen has observed that Frankfurt omits a big category of bullshit — in academic discourse (or what passes for discourse), embodying not indifference to truth so much as indifference to meaning. Frankfurt also glaringly omits any word about religion.

He does finally address the question of why there’s been (excuse my lingo) a shitstorm of bullshit. Though since he wrote pre-Trump and even pre-smartphone, one could say, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Anyhow, he says bullshit is unavoidable whenever someone must speak without knowing what they’re talking about.

He also cites “modernist” doctrines (“post-modernism” actually) denying that we have any reliable access to objective reality. That’s the academic “discourse” Cohen was talking about.

And though Frankfurt doesn’t tackle the deep question of what is truth, he suggests people elide that issue by striving instead to being true to themselves. But he ends by saying one’s own truth is actually the hardest thing for a person to know: “sincerity itself is bullshit.”

It’s been said that if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.