Showing posts with label bullshit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bullshit. Show all posts

Monday, July 22, 2019

Donald The Bullshitter



Trump isn’t lying, he’s bullshitting – and it’s far more dangerous Bullshitters, as philosopher Harry Frankfurt wrote in his 1986 essay “On Bullshit,” don’t care whether what they are saying is factually correct or not. Instead, bullshit is characterized by a “lack of connection to a concern with truth [and] indifference to how things really are.” Frankfurt explains that a 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.” ...... bullshitters don’t really care whether their audience believes what they are saying ..... bullshitters say what they do in an effort to change how the audience sees them, “to convey a certain impression” of themselves..... In Trump’s case, much of his rhetoric and speech seems designed to inflate his own grand persona. ...... misinformation is notoriously hard to correct once it’s out there, and social media, in particular, has a reputation for spreading factually inaccurate statements and conspiracy theories....... examined five years of Facebook posts about conspiracy theories. The authors found that people tend to latch onto stories that fit their preexisting narratives about the world and share those stories with their social circle. The result is a “proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumors, mistrust, and paranoia.”..... because Trump’s communication style relies heavily on anger, people who are predisposed to his message may become even less critical of potential bunk.......... Journalists, scientists, experts and even government officials who disagree with him are subject to charges of ineptitude, partisanship or conspiracy. They’re then threatened with restrictions on funding, access and speech....... people can convince themselves of things that aren’t true. ...... There’s some evidence, for instance, that he avoided information that Muslims in New Jersey didn’t actually celebrate the terrorist attacks on September 11th, as he claimed.