I just lied to you. This will not be about sex. But I lied to you on purpose. You see, there is a subtle difference between lies and bullshit. Because, as Harry G. Frankfurt puts it, «it is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.» In other words: Fighting bullshit is a battle you can only lose. Bullshitters don’t know any better. You can expose lies with better arguments (and, obviously, the truth) – but they don’t work with bullshit. There is just too much noise.
Frankfurt writes: «When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.»
It’s like arguing with a crazy person. There is no right or wrong. Just your word and theirs, and whoever screams louder. Which leads us back to sex.
Whatever you do these days: Confront the liars but mind the bullshitters.