Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels

Note:  I use an asterisk to show that there’s a corresponding footnote at the bottom of the post.  So make sure to scroll down for an extra-special treat!  Let’s try it out.*

I can’t say enough good things about Harry Frankfurt’s postmodern treatise, On Bullshit, available in a limited edition from Princeton University Press.  The 67 page book, which is little more than an essay, offers some entertaining insights into “bullshit” as a 20^th century phenomenon.  The first part of the book is the wind up before the pitch.  Professor Frankfurt establishes his argument by examining the origins of the word itself, launching into a fairly dry, rhetorical exercise.  But afterwards, the book really takes off as a piece of analytical satire.  Frankfurt first states that we have a knack for creating an abundance of bullshit out of an imposed sense of civil responsibility:

Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic.  This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled . . . to speak extensively about matters of which they are . . . ignorant.  Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything (63-64).

 

I feel like I could write an entire book based only on that block quote.  It doesn’t just speak to me; it BOOMS to me in the voice of John Huston.  It’s one of the truest passages I have ever read.  We pump out bullshit like little industrial factories.  I agree with the author that much of it is a product of our liberal sense of obligation, and  I would couple with that the media’s influence on us; not only from a score of news (and news-like) shows, all pointing at important issues with the attitude that any educated/moral person should be thoroughly knowledgeable about them, but also from interview/forum shows (Oprah, Inside the Actors Studio, etc.) that demonstrate you don’t have to know what you’re talking about in order to have an opinion.** Our media is constantly showing us that important, interesting people all have strong opinions about . . . well, everything!  So, if we want to be like them, then we, as individuals, also need to have lots and lots of important opinions.  “I think that . . . I believe . . . It seems to me . . . If you ask me . . . , “on and on and on as the bullshit piles up in the streets.

“Yeah, and you’re one of them, Mr. Smartybutt!”

Yes I am.  Except for three important distinctions:  1)  I am me, and thus less annoyed by my own ranting than I am by other peoples’; 2) I try to restrict generalizations to myself, rather than making blanket statements about groups of people of whom I am ignorant; 3) I am constantly trying to educate myself so that when I do have the need to express an opinion, or exhort a belief, it’s based upon research and not just something that was told to me by somebody some time ago.

This is one of my pet peeves.  This here, check it out:

Men are one way and women are another way. 

How do I know so much about all men and women?  Well, I don’t.  So let me rephrase that statement.

Men are this way.    

That’s much better, isn’t it?  No?  Well, why not.  I am a man after all.  Therefore I should be able to sum up the thoughts and feelings of all those who belong to MY gender.  Let me be more specific.

Men are sex-crazed weasels who love football.

There!  That has to be the absolute truth.  How do I know?  Have I tested this hypothesis?  Have I personally conducted a scientific survey of the earth’s population?  Well . . . no. 

Theoretically, an assertion like that is no different than saying “all black people like fried chicken and watermelon.”  Or, “all gay men have great fashion sense.”*** Or, as our friend Mel Gibson told us, the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.  Even a neutral statement like “all women love fragrant soaps” isn't any better.  It’s not the specific implication of these statements that’s so harmful, but the blissful ignorance out of which they’re conceived.

Let me try, again.

I am a sex-crazed weasel who loves football.

Well, now we're getting somewhere.  I can speak with great authority on the subject of me.  Except, honestly, I'm a bigger basketball fan than football.  Also, I'm more of a fuzzy bunny than a weasel.  We don't have time to go into the sex crazed part.  Me-yeow!

Frankfurt challenges the popular notion that bullshitting is less harmful than lying.  We all know that to be called a liar carries a lot more negative weight than to be called a bullshitter.

(T)he consequences of being caught are generally less severe for the bullshitter than for the liar.  In fact, people do tend to be more tolerant of bullshit than of lies, perhaps because we are less likely to take the former as a personal affront.  We may seek to distance ourselves from bullshit, but we are more likely to turn away from it with an impatient or irritated shrug than with the sense of violation and outrage that lies often inspire (49-50).

He defines lying and bullshitting as two, slightly varying types of misrepresentation.  A lie is a conscious effort to distort the truth.  The liar for that reason must be aware of an established truth in the beginning in order to distort it.  Bullshit, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be intentional; it can, and often does, come about due to a lack of information.  The liar sets out to dissuade you from the truth, and the bullshitter simply creates the truth.  

Let’s say that I conduct a study of the world's male population in order to prove that All Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels.  I then discover that exactly 98.9% of the men in China are not sex crazed weasels.  Many of them professed in interviews that if they had a penis transplant, and their wives didn’t like it, they would actually give it back to the donor!  Amazing!  But, despite the evidence, I go ahead and present my study as showing that All Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels.  That is a bold face lie.  But assume that I had set out to prove that All Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels based only on the fact that I believe it to be so.  I have no need for research, since I know that I am a sex crazed weasel, and I am a man, so it only stands to reason that all men feel and think exactly like me.  Bullshitting seems harmless until you consider that at least the liar knows which facts are true and which are false.  The bullshitter doesn’t know the difference, and doesn’t care.

Not to be misunderstood, let me say for the record that I hold a sincere love in my heart for many types of bullshit.  Fiction, for instance, is pure bullshit, but that doesn’t keep it from ringing of solid gold truth.  (Well, if it’s any good.)  All storytellers, regardless of the medium, are weaving bullshit.  Chris Rock is a fantastic bullshitter.  Why this doesn’t offend my fragile sensibility is because of poetic license.  I know that an artist is manipulating tangible truths in order to convey an often more elusive, intangible truth.  I’m down with that.  The bullshitters I’m waving pointy sticks at are those who take their own bullshit way too seriously.  I suppose they crave recognition and praise so urgently that they can’t take the time to read a book, or whatever other actions are necessary, in order to develop some modicum of expertise to put behind their words.  And that, my bros and sissies, is nothing but bullshit.

*Jesus that was an obnoxious thing for me to do.  I’m such a pretentious dick.

** I like Oprah, btw.  But if you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time someone on her show spouted off about something that they know absolutely nothing about, how far off the intoximeter do you think you would score?

*** Believe it or not, I know gay men who have horrible fashion sense.  Are they the exception to the rule?  No, it’s just that no one cares what they have to say, so they don’t get their own show on Bravo.  As much as I applaud Bravo’s balls in producing a show like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, I also have to wonder how much harm it’s done in reinforcing stereotypes of gay males.