Some Remarks on Bullshit

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Monday February 14, 2005 · 5:37 PM PST

2005/02/14 · 17:37

Reading the Times today, I came across a non-promotion-promotion of a slim volume from Princeton University Press reprinting the philosopher Harry Frankfurt's essay "On Bullshit". I'd read the essay perhaps a decade ago, and enjoyed it, but didn't think much about it until early this afternoon. Rereading the essay today, I was struck by how perfectly it characterizes today's mainstream political culture. For example, the current discussion on Social Security "reform" that's taking place in the MSM is a perfect example of bullshit.

On the flip, I'll have a longish preamble explaining what Frankfurt means by "bullshit", followed by some remarks on how well the word describes much mainstream political discourse. Read More

The PIPA Poll, Revisited

zinnyard

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Wednesday January 19, 2005 · 3:34 PM PST

2005/01/19 · 15:34

One of my favorite polls was the PIPA poll concluding that Bush supporters were, ahem, resistant to information: they had all sorts of incorrect views about Bush's beliefs. But this afternoon I was reading Chomsky's article on the 2004 elections--worth reading, by the way, though if you know Chomsky at all you won't be surprised by what he says--when I came across this tidbit:

The most careful studies (PIPA) found that voters had little idea of the stand of the candidates on matters that concerned them. Bush voters tended to believe that he shared their beliefs, even though the Republican Party rejected them, often explicitly. Investigating the sources used in the studies, we find that the same was largely true of Kerry voters, unless we give highly sympathetic interpretations to vague statements that most voters had probably never heard.

What was that again? Kerry voters had a similar misrepresentation of candidates' beliefs? But I thought PIPA had concluded that Bush voters were "resistant to information" and that Kerry voters weren't; how could this be? Say it ain't so, Noam!

More below the fold .... Read More

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