Art and Politics
Life has become lot more complicated than what it was ever before in the history of mankind. Probably, even in comparison to as late as the last fifty years, life today is far more complex, communicative, and all life events seem to happen in real time. Today, there is so much knowledge about everything and knowledge is virtually free.
Knowledge no longer endows a strategic advantage on the holder of knowledge. There is so much complexity that everything seems specialize. Knowledge is so freely available today that everyone acquires it at all levels and therefore carry an opinion of everything. Everybody today has an opinion on everything. It does not matter whether it is the truth, a lie, or even bullshit.
Harry G. Frankfurt’s ‘On Bullshit’ and the use of narratives
What was formerly an obscenity, has been given a sense of respectability by Harry Frankfurt. What detail today we consider as inconsequential and ignore has been placed on a mantel and projected as a virtue. What is considered as being nothing but bullshit could be of specific special interest to a specialist.
Something as irrelevant, to the world of knowledge, as human excreta has been researched upon. The researcher has identified seven different kinds of poop and excreta and goes on to describe at length and in detail. This is the level of complexity and comprehension of modern life. What is shit to somebody is of research interest to a researcher in one of the world’s leading universities that upholds body of human knowledge and has been at the forefront of human knowledge and acquisition for several millennia now. Now, is this bullshit? Rather, it is human shit.
Frankfurt seems to have developed several convincing scenarios that differentiates between a truth, lie, and bullshit. He goes on to explain over several pages why bullshit is of a greater crime and of negative impact than a lie.
Bullshit, according to him, is a greater crime because it ignores deliberately, the honesty of truth. While a bullshitter, most of the times, ignores the truth unconsciously, a liar does so consciously. Frankfurt develops fine level of detail between a lie, truth and bullshit.
Now, this is a degree of complexity that Frankfurt has added to the human body of knowledge and he goes on at great length, using extensive narratives to differentiate between these three. There is also amazing degree of clarity in Frankfurt’s argument.
At a super micro level, this looks exemplary and even amazing that such a concept could actually exist. However, viewing it from a bird’s eye level, it definitely is a lot of bullshit. Finally, what seems to be Frankfurt’s stance is not a comprehension of what bullshit is all about.
Frankfurt says that bullshit is all about identification of obfuscations, a systematic creation of intentional confusion, and going further, even misleading and misrepresentation. He says that bullshitting is difficult since there is no theoretical stance for it, and that we are so immersed in it, that we fail to recognize it.
Frankfurt takes the stance that a liar has an interest in truth and its idea and that the liar actually acknowledges the truth, but hides it in the same breath while also keeping away from the truth, very deliberately at his heart. The liar acknowledges the fact that there is something else other than what he is saying, which is the truth, whereas, a bullshitter has no such concept at all. This translates to the fact that the bullshitter has no regard for truth and the objective of a bullshitter is to confound and confuse the audience.
However, as Frankfurt explains, the common thread between a liar and a bullshitter is that both of them have exactly the same objective and it is that they want the audience to believe that they are speaking nothing but the truth. It is only that because of the complexity of life as well as the availability of knowledge in this age of digital technology that the bullshitter has a much wider body of knowledge or its subset at his disposal and focus.
Frankfurt also goes on to state that the creativity of a bullshitter is at a far higher level and even has the ability and room for further development, adding color and complexity, and even creating highly fertile imaginative plays and scenarios. It is like that bored school child sitting next to the school garden, screaming out in the class – ‘I saw hundred rabbits racing across the field.’ When the master confronts the child, he says, ‘No, may not be hundred, probably, definitely ten.’
He is led to the Principal who is worried that wolves could follow rabbits and decides to question the child and the response of the child to the Principal is that maybe there were not ten, but definitely two. The teacher alerts the local police and forest officials who decide to question the boy and they identify that there were not two but just one rabbit that darted across the field and decide to quarantine the school.
The father confronts the child in the evening at home with a stick in attendance and conducts an extensive enquiry on how rabbits would come into the school and the final analysis is there was breeze and a crumpled paper rolled across the field, which became a single rabbit in the child’s mind that was not impressive enough and eventually multiplied to hundred. This is a classic case of creative confusion and fertile imagination at play with an ability to convince either with a deliberate or an inadvertent attempt to confuse. A lot of bullshit ultimately.
Frankfurt’s analysis on why there is so much of bullshit is actually interesting. He even wonders if there is actually more bullshit going around today than in any other period of time in the human history and he goes to acknowledge that there is no true method of evaluating such because bullshit cannot be measured. There is no real way of measuring or knowing it.
Frankfurt sheepishly points to growth in communication technology and possibly, also to a need for people to speak about a variety of things that appear to be knowledgeable as well as a need for impressing others, while creating a semblance of positive aura about themselves, is the fundamental reason for why people bullshit.
This, he claims, is the prima facie reason for bullshitting. There is a lot of lament towards the end of this astounding essay and he seems to be explaining why he focused on bullshit and the motivation towards it.
Frankfurt concludes that correctness has been replaced by sincerity and goes on to claim that sincerity is bullshit. There could be a lot of debate on how extensively Frankfurt has applied usage of narratives in his seminal essay ‘On Bullshit.’
The Simpsons television series and the use of narratives
The Simpsons episodes is a popular cartoon show, which portrays contorted realities of the contemporary society. The creator of this cartoon series portrays all that in Springfield. The depiction is tongue in cheek. There is virtually no dimension of society that is not touched by the Simpsons.
The range of characters in this cartoon series is imply huge and they reflect the pluralism of the society in a symbolic manner. The narratives cleverly merge the opposites of the society, eventually creating a myriad landscape of chaos and diversity in Springfield. The Simpsons cartoon series is a virtual melting pot. There is no specific genre that the Simpsons could be attributed to.
Narratives have been used extensively in a variety of art and literature forms to portray and communicate the artist’s view of reality. However, reality is something different to everybody; reality is essentially viewed from each individual’s perception, experiences, beliefs and various other environmental factors. What each one of us believe as being the reality is actually our own individual perception of it.
However, all of us generally tend to sit on the seat of judgement and tend to impose our own individual perception of reality upon others, eventually leading to several conflicting situations and scenarios. This creates, many a time, intentional or inadvertent un-truths, which could be a lie, bullshit, or simply a un-truth. When all of these meet in the great melting pot called life, several inconsequential things look like they matter greatly. A terrible bullshit of all!
Continental Philosophy on Justice
Justice is majorly an individual’s perception of fairness. It could be distributive, procedural, or even interactional at times. There is very little theoretical inquiry into justice, ethics and morality from a philosophical point of view. A philosophical enquiry into justice is the work of social scientists. Philosophers have predominantly maintained normative and prescriptive stances while dealing with justice. It has been the work of social scientists to be descriptive as well as explanatory while dealing with justice, and this is a distinction that would substantiate any scholarly endeavors.
Philosophers have been thinking on justice in an effort to develop ways of treating justice through individual conduct, personal virtues, as well as social arrangement. Philosophy, on the other hand, has explored the very fundamental meaning of justice without implying any form of normative intent.
Continental philosophy can actually question many assumptions of justice research and specifically organizational justice research as evident from the work of Levinas. The work of Levinas cannot be classified as normative or prescriptive philosophy. Levinas, at best, can be perceived as a moral perfectionist. He has theorized the relationship between ethics and justice.
Levinas states that ethics needs to have foundation on basic existential commitment, going beyond all theoretical structures of justice or ethical code. He further states that justice must be specifically based on comprehension of ethics. Levinasian notion of justice needs a clear understanding of what ethics essentially means.
Levinas did not intend ethics as a series of procedures or practices, which could sense righteousness of those adhering to them. Levinas has also not develop any kind of any kind of prescriptions which he intended to guide the ways in which human life needs to be led or responses be made to situations in which people find themselves in.
The work of Levinas has been to delve into the fundamental aspect of the meaning of ethics. He has recorded his lack of intention towards construction of ethics. Instead, he records his intentions as an effort to find the meaning of ethics.
According to Levinas, it does not start with an individual who has been treated unjustly. The treatment of ethics according to Levinas starts with “The Other” a real another person who is different and unknowable. Levinas extensively differentiates knowledge from ethics.
Levinas opines that ethics is not a reduction to an act of knowledge where truths are constituted. Therefore, ‘the other’ cannot be reduced to objective knowledge and thus individuals are not a mere subject of categorization and thus comparison, but each person is treated in terms of their real particularity and incomparability, which is clearly is at an infinite distance from the self, while the person is in physical or social proximity.
Hence, managers could categorize people and employees by their occupation or job function or gender or even age. People could be subject to a variety of tests for ascertaining their suitability for different jobs. All these exercises serve the purpose of making employees comparable and manageable.
However, a Levinasian approach towards this style of management knowledge would not be about ethics. This is simply because, it is putting employees into several pre-established categories.
According to Levinas, any ethical approach to another person should be devoid of categorization and it must also be so open that it must acknowledge the fact that the other person is unique and any form of categorization can never be adequately be able to capture them.
It is also that identification of people by categorization is treated as unethical. Instead of taking that approach, the face of ethics is fundamental to the assumption that such categories can only get, in a limited fashion, to the heart of who the other person is.
Levinasian description of the other person, in terms of face and ethics is an expression of face to face relationship. This is a relationship where the other person can never be totalized as a completely known entity that can be fully identified by different categorizations and categories of knowledge. It is the stance that an individual can be face to face with the other; however, that the other is always infinitely different and can never be able to completely known.
What drives the notions of Levinas is essentially the awe that is inspired and fueled by the infinity, which roots ethics as well as a relationship with the other. Such a relationship can never be based on an intention of reciprocity or self-advantage or even exploitation.
According to Levinas, this face to face relationship must be based in generosity, respect, and as well as humility. Levinas opines that an ethical relationship is exactly like a relationship of love, which never lead to pursuit of will own advantage or furthering of own needs and not even having an expectation of reciprocity. The ethical self therefore, does not adopt a judgmental stance of the other on any of these terms.
The Levinasian idea of ethics is based on the idea of an individual who is never self-sufficient, but is always a hostage to the other, to which he himself is responsible. In his seminal work totality and infinity is explored in terms of enjoyment.
Enjoyment is an individual’s pursuit of own needs, without any form of concern for anything or anybody outside of self, which is an example of egoism. However, enjoyment is essential and this is where a separation is enabled and itself treats a self with a distinct identity for itself that has been obtained from other individuals.
This is actually an affirmation of a form of independence that does not owe anything to other, which is further transcendent to itself. This separated self has no concern for any other people. Other people pursue their own enjoyment. On the other hand, enjoyment for self is absolute in itself. However, this pursuit of happiness is in many ways ruptured by the presence of the other.
With an invocation of desire for things outside of self, which goes beyond selfishness and is an acknowledgement of not being alone. Ethics predominantly is, calling into question, spontaneity by the very presence of the other.
This is nothing but a questioning of selfish enjoyment. This is where ethics contrasts with enjoyment because the former is a generosity. It is the welcoming as well as a form of hospitality.
Ethics is normally not motivated by the pursuit of selfish pleasures in any form. Ethics, therefore, does not lead to seeking an unfair share of selfish pleasure. It is not even pursuit of justice for oneself. Ethics always puts the other person first and the self would come later. Thus, the other person cannot be exploited for one’s pursuit of enjoyment, pleasure, or happiness.
Ethics is not all about self in enjoyment, but is rather about the relationships between people engaging with each other, where one becomes vulnerable to the other and even desirous of other. Ethics is when self in pursuit of enjoyment and freedom is therefore called into question.
Goodness, hence, is nothing but adopting a stance in which the other counts more than own self. Therefore, in ethics, pleonexia is in a reverse form. My share is what I have to give freely and generously.
In conclusion, continental philosophy is not just about abstraction and theorization of ethics or justice in relationship with others. It has a direct purpose with the function of work of organizations at large.
Continental philosophy also differentiates between work, labor and commerce – in the sense that any organized form of work is a confrontation to ethics. Commerce and language of money can reduce everything to a form of symbolism and economic exchange. This makes everything comparable. Therefore, with work and commerce, the face of the other tends to dissolve with that of the same. This is a form of imperialism, wherein, the right of each person to be unique is not found.
In organized work scenario, the other person is reduced to comparative categorization. Even modern diversity management practices can at most tend to capture the elementary experience of self through managerial control and therefore, allocate each individual into comparable groups that can further be differentiated, instead of regarding each individual as unique.
Works Cited
Belfiore, Eleonora. "On bullshit in cultural policy practice and research: notes from the British case." International Journal of Cultural Policy (2009): 343-359. Web. 15 February 2016. <http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/41199/7/WRAP_Belfiore_10286630902806080.pdf>.
Corvellec, Herve. "An Endless Responsibility for Justice - For a Levinasian Approach to Managerial Ethics." Levinas, Business, Ethics. Ed. Centre for Philosophy and Political Economy. UK: University of Leicester, 2005. 27-29. Web. 15 February 2016. <https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/management/documents/research/research-units/cppe/conference-pdfs/levinas/corvellec.pdf>.
Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005. Web. 15 February 2016. <https://books.google.co.in/books?id=bFpzNItiO7oC&printsec=frontcover&dq=on+bullshit&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=on%20bullshit&f=false>.
O'Brien, Tony. "Review - On Bullshit." Metapsychology Reviews 22 May 2005. Web. 15 February 2016. <http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=2593>.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Emmanuel Levinas. 03 September 2006. Web. 15 February 2016. <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/>.
