Bullshit as a Politics of Discourse - Essay Example

2). All throughout his paper, he argues that bullshit has been used in most cases and varies in purpose. Politically speaking, lying and truth can be an issue of public trust and affects the manner of governance. Bullshit can be used in both cases. The bullshit can be considered as a truth depending on the manner of rhetoric. At the same time, it is also a lie which becloud. It can be considered that bullshit is a mechanism of truth and lie. It can be about lying about a lie or lying about the truth.

In these cases, it can be seen that the events of the past has made the American government appear to be bullshitting people for the purpose of telling an invented truth and denying the real truth by political manipulation and possibly after of their own personal agenda as well by making such falsified truth statement. How would this be possible, especially in connection to bullshit? This is the matter that I shall delve into in this paper. BODY Bullshit as a Threat to Society Can bullshit be a threat towards society and the value of truth?

Frankfurt mentioned that “bullshit is disconnected from a concern with truth” and is “untruthful” (Frankfurt 1986, p. 12). In a personal sense, this cannot be considered a threat because bullshitting can be considered as a pastime. . Regarding the 9 / 11 attacks, a lot suspicion came from the people, abruptly criticizing the government for its lack of engagement with the truth regarding the matter. America, as one of the highly advance countries, a lot of people have been wary about the non – interception of the planes that have been “hijacked” supposedly (BBC 2011).

The government, back then, has been arguing that it was the terrorists, particularly, the group of Osama Bin Laden, who has been responsible for such horrendous attack. However, upon thorough investigation by people who have been concerned about what has really happened, there is an assumption that the planes used are not powerful enough to ensure the crash of the World Trade Center (BBC 2011). Some have assumed that the government has played a role in this debacle. They could have been the ones who have implanted the bombs in the tower that paved way for its collapse (BBC 2011).

However, the blame has been diverted to the terrorist as the government provided: an escape mechanism. Political Discourse as a Mechanism to Assess Bullshit Political discourse, in a simpler sense, would mean an interpolation of the roles and functions of political institutions in doing its roles and functions accordingly to service of the people especially for the leaders. In this case, truth has a crucial role because it serves as a bastion for democracy, transparency and accountability. The discourse on politics and truth provides a condition for assessment of certain actions of institutions, more importantly; the government where most of politicking and power hunger occurs that exemplifies a distortion of truth.

Bullshitting, as a dangerous