Thursday 18 June 2020

Bullshit

Bullshit – "an indifference to the truth" – pervades our world, our political world, our corporate world.

Aggregate Industries’ planning application to quarry Straitgate Farm, for example, has contained various amounts of it over the years – as we have so often highlighted.

Greenwashing is another example of bullshit. Aggregate Industries and parent LafargeHolcim engage in plenty of that too:




How do we tackle climate change in an age of bullshit? Here’s one answer, published this month:


For those unfamiliar with Harry Frankfurt, professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University, author of On Bullshit:


On Bullshit is a 2005 book (originally a 1986 essay) by philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt which presents a theory of bullshit that defines the concept and analyzes the applications of bullshit in the context of communication. Frankfurt determines that bullshit is speech intended to persuade without regard for truth. The liar cares about the truth and attempts to hide it; the bullshitter doesn't care if what they say is true or false, but rather only cares whether their listener is persuaded.