Bullshit, Etc.

I was reading some artist statements recently and was reminded of a wonderful little book, 'On Bullshit', by retired Princeton moral philosopher, Harry G. Frankfurt.

I'm so grateful to Frankfurt for clearly defining this particular malady of our times.

"It is just this lack of connection to a concern with truth—this indifference to how things really are—that I regard as the essence of bullshit."

Remember Brick's complaint to Big Daddy in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'? Brick's pa demands to know why his son drinks so much. "Mendacity", says Brick, "liars and lying". Big Daddy says he has to deal with liars all day long - that's life. Brick doesn't choose life until he sees Big Daddy dying. I think we're much beyond lying now.

The cool move, the coping way of too many people sits in the warm bath of indifference to the truth value of what they express to others and, maybe, themselves. It's easier to just bullshit than make the effort to construct a verifiable reality.

Or maybe it's some kinda dissociation...

Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. During the period of time when a person is dissociating, certain information is not associated with other information as it normally would be.

Bullshit, dissociation, whatever. It's destroying us.