Bullshit Influences Our Beliefs

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted.

People are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted must sustained inquiry.

Since bullshit need not be false, it differs from lies in its misrepresentational intent. The bullshitter may not deceive us, or even intend to do so, either about the facts or about what he takes the facts to be.

What he does necessarily is attempt to deceive us about his enterprise. His only indispensably distinctive characteristic is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he is up to.

Princeton Professor Harry G. Frankfurt wrote the 2005 bestseller, On Bullshit. The professor's small book packs a powerful awareness punch. There is an element of Professor Frankfurt's topic incorporated into our belief structure. And we use it in everyday communications. It is one of those hidden belief birds. Hidden belief birds are the unverifiable thoughts that fly around our belief birdcage.

Bullshit helps create choices, perceptions, and experiences. It’s easy to use, and we do an excellent job of camouflaging it. But it’s not hidden in the inner messages we send to other people. We all subjectively pick up elements of bullshit in conversations.

Bullshit influences our consciousness. It is a vibrational disruptor. We use it to answer questions. Questions we know nothing about—Or may only know a little about. When that strategy appears to work, the routine continues. Then we add more bullshit to those thoughts.

Those disruptive thoughts come from fear. And from the fear, we develop an unhealthy form of accomplishment. Then we internally celebrate our disrupting victory by continuing to add more bullshit to the mix. Bullshit may not be false, as Frankfurt points out. But it is an exaggeration of an impulse or a group of impulses. Bullshit paints an attractive perception where none exists.

So, in one sense, Bullshit is a tool of awareness that helps close a perceived gap in conformity. We try conforming, but our type of consciousness has innate individuality in its perceptual organization. Events rise out of each other in a profusion of creativity. Bullshit can be a main ingredient in that spontaneous expansion of awareness.

Nobody Wins

Thick Plus Rich Life’s Your Titch.

War Has Flavor When Hate Sets The Table.

Bits Of Rage Like That Religious Haze.

Anger Steps In— The Exodus Begins

Because Exploding Souls Leave Lots Of Holes.

Children See It All— Some Live

To Relive Rocket Brawls—

And Then Try To Avenge It All.

But Battling For Peace Is Like

Sexting For Sheep.

Nobody Wins When Vengeance Rules

And Fear Lives In Mental Pools.

Hybrid Form Of Democracy

The first and foremost aim of each political party is to prevail over the other in order to get into power or to stay in it. But, no leadership is absolute.

Political leadership exerted according to the democratic method is even less so than are others because of that competitive element which is of the essence of democracy.

Professor Joseph Schumpeter wrote those thoughts in his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. From 1925 to 1932, Schumpeter was the Department of Economics chairman at the University of Bonn. He fled Nazi rule in 1932 and became a professor of economics at Harvard. He taught at Harvard until he passed in 1950.

In his book, Schumpeter talks about the political structure of democracy. He said the primary function of the popular vote is to produce a government in a democracy. We all have the right to object to political leadership. But only the elected few get the chance to change the government's social direction. Political leaders from both parties usually respond to political threats by taking a middle course, which includes subtly insisting on discipline and putting up backdoor roadblocks that thwart political enemies.

Political leaders temper pressure using judicial concessions, a thirst for compliments, and half-baked promises. Those political maneuvers usually result in a considerable amount of media attention. Media attention motivates politicians to act in a ritual-heavy way while other issues sit in a boiling pot of political rhetoric.

The two-party system is an ever-changing structure. Our elected officials may not focus on issues that promote public welfare even though they believe in and agree on fixing blaring issues. Both parties create flexible principles that promote the success of their party. But those principles may not enhance the success of democracy.