Bullshit in political communication

1
Bullshit in political communication

• Definition of humbug and bullshit
• Indifference to truth the essence of bullshit
• Replacing correctness with sincerity
• Narrowing the concept
• Bullshit and sophism
• Bullshit and spin
• Endemic prevalence of bullshit in political
  speech
• Intrinsic necessity to bullshit in politics
• Irrationality of political leadership
• Political communication as enchantment

2
Humbug

• Max Black
• The Prevalence of Humbug (1983)
• F.G. Baily
• Humbuggery and Manipulation. The Art of
  Leadership (1988)
• HUMBUG deceptive misrepresentation, short of
  lying, especially by pretentious word or deed, of
  somebodys own thoughts, feelings, or attitudes
  (Black 1983 143)
• Conscious deception when humbuggers say what
  they themselves disbelieve, evading the risks of
  lying while reaping its benefits, the gross
  discrepancy between utterance and actual belief
  (the speakers stance) I shall call such
  conscious deception first-order humbug (137-8)
• Self-deception a self-humbugged humbugger
  producing what I shall call second-order humbug
  (138)

3
Humbuggery vs. lying

• Criteria of lying
• Truth
• Falsifiability of a claim
• Knowledge about factual untruth
• Deliberate intent to deceive about the truth
• Criteria of humbuggery
• Belief
• Impossibility to realize (or to define) a claim
• Disbelief of the speaker in his claim
• Deliberate intent to deceive (to generate an
  impression) about oneself

4
Bullshit and humbug

• Harry G. Frankfurt
• On Bullshit (2005)
• It is more polite, as well as less intense to
  say Humbug! than to say Bullshit!. For the
  sake of this discussion, I shall assume that
  there is no other important difference between
  the two. (5)
• Consider a Fourth of July orator who goes on
  bombastically about our great and blessed
  country, whose Founding Fathers under divine
  guidance created a new beginning for mankind.
  This is surely humbug. (16)
• It is clear that what makes Fourth of July
  oration humbug is not fundamentally that the
  speaker regards his statements as false. Rather,
  just as Blacks account suggests, the orator
  intends these statements to convey a certain
  impression of himself. He is not trying to
  deceive anyone concerning American history. What
  he cares about is what people think of him. He
  wants them to think of him as a patriot, as
  someone who has deep thoughts and feelings about
  the origins and mission of our country, who
  appreciates the importance of religion, who is
  sensitive to the greatness of our history, whose
  pride in that history is combined with humility
  before God, and so on. (17-8)

5
Defining bullshit

• It is just this lack of connection to a concern
  with truth this indifference to how things
  really are that I regard as of the essence of
  bullshit. (34-5)
• Hot air Speech that has been emptied of all
  informative content (43)
• Bluff bullshitting is closer to bluffing,
  surely, than to telling a lie. Unlike plain
  lying, it is more especially a matter not of
  falsity but of fakery (46-7)
• Lying is craft particular, sporadic, designed
  under guidance of truth (52)
• Bullshitting is art panoramic, a program,
  serial, expansive
• What he the bullshitter does necessarily
  attempt to deceive us about is his enterprise.
  His only indispensably distinctive characteristic
  is that in a certain way he misrepresents what he
  is up to (54)

6
The worst enemy of truth

• What combines the bullshitter with the liar is
• That both represent themselves falsely as
  endeavoring to communicate the truth. The success
  of each depends upon deceiving us about that
  (54)
• What divides them is
• A person who lies is thereby responding to the
  truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it
  (55-6)
• The bullshitter does not care whether the things
  he says describe reality correctly. He just picks
  them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose
  (56)
• Bullshitting is relativistic with regard to truth
• Through habitual and deliberative ignorance
  towards truth, the bullshitter undermines the
  foundations of reasoned debate

7
Proliferation of bullshit

• No systematic evidence about relative or absolute
  amount of bullshit in public communication, or
  about the rise or decline of it over time
• Reasons to believe that bullshit is on the rise
• Bullshit unavoidable when speaker required to
  talk about matters he has no knowledge/expertise
  about
• Rise of punditry in journalism (especially in
  US), requires opinionated debate without required
  expertise
• Complexity of economic, social, political world
  requires
• Simplification for public presentation
• Breadth of party political programmes superseding
  expertise of staff
• Appointments to office are political, not based
  on policy expertise
• Recruitment of celebrities for political causes

8
Sincerity

• Deeper source of current proliferation of
  bullshit
• Skepticism, anti-realism questioning whether
  the reality has any inherent nature
• Retreat from
• discipline required by dedication to the ideal
  of correctness
• To discipline, which is imposed by pursuit of an
  alternative ideal of sincerity (65)
• Being true to oneself
• Assumes that our human nature is more determinate
  than the object world
• Pretending that truth about ourselves easier to
  know than truth about anything else
• Sincerity itself is bullshit (67)

9
Bullshit and the art of crap-detection

• Neil Postman (1969)
• Taxonomy of bullshit
• Pomposity
• Bigotry
• Eichmannism
• that form of bullshit which accepts as its
  starting and ending point official definitions,
  rules and categories without regard for the
  realities of particular situations
• Inanity
• ignorance presented in the cloak of sincerity
• Superstition
• ignorance presented in the cloak of authority

10
Bullshit in political speech

• The realms of advertising and of public
  relations, and the nowadays closely related realm
  of politics, are replete with instances of
  bullshit so unmitigated that they can serve among
  the most indisputable and classic paradigms of
  the concept. And in these realms there are
  exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who with
  the help of advanced and demanding techniques of
  market research, of public opinion polling, of
  psychological testing, and so forth dedicate
  themselves tirelessly to getting every word and
  image they produce exactly right (Frankfurt, On
  Bullshit, p.23)
• The nation's hopes are in our hands. People's
  hopes. Your hopes. My hopes. In eight days' time
  I will be forty years old. I have so much to look
  forward to. My young family. They have so much to
  look forward to. The world I want for them is the
  world I want for every family and every
  community. If you want to know what I'm all
  about, I can explain it one word. That word is
  optimism. I am optimistic about human nature.
  That's why I will trust people to do the right
  thing. Labour are pessimists. They think that
  without their guidance, people will do the wrong
  thing. That's why they want to regulate and
  control. So let us show clearly which side we are
  on. Let optimism beat pessimism. Let sunshine win
  the day. (David Cameron, Conservative Party
  Conference (1/10/2006)

11
Bullshit in political speech (cont.)

• Our rising investment in every school, every
  pupil, every teacher, so that all our children
  get the best start in life. (Tony Blair, 5 April
  2005)
• I believe that Britain has a great future within
  our reach. We are poised to embrace that future
  if we have the confidence and self belief to do
  it. (Tony Blair, 5 April 2005)
• I am deeply proud of being British so I suspect
  are all of you here today. Were proud of our
  history, our traditions. Were proud of the
  contribution our country has made to the world.
  And were proud of that essential British value
  fair play. Fair play is at the heart of what it
  means to be British.(Michael Howard, 15 April
  2005)
• So the Liberal Democrats will fight this campaign
  based on real solutions to the real problems
  people face everyday. We're going to address
  people's hopes, not play on their fears. We're
  going to be the positive force for good in this
  general election. (Charles Kennedy, 5 April 2005)
• Our values are strong. Our mission is clear. Our
  vision is compelling. Civic pride based on a new
  age of civic power, not for some of the people,
  but for all of the people, all of the time.
  (David Miliband, Labour Party Centenary
  conference, 12 February 2006)
• New Labour is a party of ideas and ideals but
  not of outdated ideology. What counts is what
  works. The objectives are radical. The means will
  be modern. (Labour Election Manifesto, 1997)
• So let's build together a new generation of
  Conservatives. Let's switch a new generation on
  to Conservative ideas. Let's dream a new
  generation of Conservative dreams. (David
  Cameron, Conservative Party Conference 2005)

12
Bullshit and spin

• Putting a positive spin on some political
  event, process, outcome
• Show it in a desirable light
• Neglecting disadvantages/costs emphasizing
  advantages/benefits
• Spin (doctoring) is a defensive form of bullshit
• Aim is to create a perception, irrespective of
  reality
• Secondary task, after the fact of policy making
• But policy making is instrumental activity for
  office seeking politicians hence the emphasis
  lies on creating a beneficial perception of the
  policies made, rather than on generating
  beneficial policies
• Spin-doctoring mainly serves to hide potentially
  negative aspects or consequences of
  policy-making it is hence engaged in to avoid
  lying (implying truth-awareness of the
  bullshitter)

13
Leadership requires humbuggery

• Bullshit/humbuggery is not just endemic in
  politics, but intrinsic to politics
• Politics is about providing leadership
• Essentially compromising enlightenment
• Admitting the unassailability of rational
  self-government
• Enlightenment project was originally about
• Freeing individuals from superstition and
  oppression
• Disenchantment of the world
• Leadership and political competition is
  enchantment
• Remedy amidst complexity of modern world
• Artificial differentiation of converging
  political platforms

14
Complexity, convergence and leadership

• Normative idea of legal/rational authority
• Reducing leadership to management function
• Representation assumed to be responsible,
  responsive, reflective of public demands and
  needs
• Complexity requires guidance and/or
  simplification
• The end of ideologies does not result in
  professionalization of politics as a
  quasi-bureaucratic function
• Political campaigns are not about disenchantment
• Not purely informational
• Not presenting with policy positions
• Need for enchantment, enthusing supporters,
  providing leadership, vision, direction
• Emphasising candidate qualities over product
  qualities (sincerity over correctness)

15
Leadership strategy and morality

• Strategies of leadership
• Numenical
• Emphasizing the exceptional (the divine) of the
  leader that which sets him apart from followers,
  and other leadership contenders
• Familial
• Emphasizing familiarity with followers either
  fraternising with or patronising followers
• Required strategy in the face of abject failure
• Leadership and deception
• Leader is by definition beyond conventions
  (morals, values, rationality) of society
• Leader is the main authority in
  restating/upholding morals, values
• Charisma is a display it cannot be established
  as an objective occurrence it is mediated
  perceived charisma

16
Impression management and relativism

• Identity
• Not a material property of the individual
• But socially realized
• Impression management in job interviews
• Manipulation, deception
• forms of impression management may be authentic,
  that is, the applicant presents an identity that
  closely matches his or her self-image (Rosenfeld
  1997)

17
Political impression management

• Realizing party identities
• Tony Blair (Labour Party conference, 2005)
• New Labour was never just a clever way to win
  it was a fundamental recasting of progressive
  politics so that the values we believed in became
  relevant to the time we lived in. In the late
  20th century, the world had changed, the
  aspirations of the people had changed we had to
  change. We did. We won. And Britain is stronger,
  fairer, better than on 1st May 1997.
• David Cameron (Conservative Party conference,
  2005)
• We have to change and modernise our culture and
  attitudes and identity. When I say change, I'm
  not talking about some slick rebranding exercise
  what I'm talking about is fundamental change, so
  that when we fight the next election, street by
  street, house by house, flat by flat, we have a
  message that is relevant to people's lives today,
  that shows we're comfortable with modern Britain
  and that we believe our best days lie ahead.

18
Sophism and marketing

• Sophism
• Rejection of objective truth
• Purpose of debate not to find truth, but to win
  argument
• Not to prove truth of a cause, but its
  superiority
• Marketing
• Tendency towards oligopolistic markets in late
  19th/early 20th century
• Marketing is a strategy of demand generation in
  the absence of self-regulating, perfect markets
• Models of buying behaviour and consumer
  psychology
• Dispensing with homo economicus

19
Political marketing theory

• Clinging to Downsian voter
• Assuming exogenous preferences
• Assuming that market research reveals rational
  preferences
• Adaptive and responsive party model suggestive of
  democracy-enhancing potential, towards more
  citizen input
• Prescriptive recommending move from
  product-oriented through sales-oriented to
  market-oriented party

20
Simulating legitimacy

• Post-representative politics
• Decline of ideology
• Decline of partisanship
• Replacing representation of sectional interest
  which are organized into politics with CHOICE
• Politics of choice
• Choice requires information
• In absence of political information, use of cues
  (like ideology and partisanship)
• Disappearance of cues to substitute for
  information
• Simulation of cues BRAND LOYALTY and PRODUCT
  DIFFERENTIATION

21
The bullshit of choice

• Representative politics functions through belief
  in ideology which creates legitimacy of political
  projects, manifesting in the form of (partisan)
  loyalty
• Choice politics simulates belief in the form of
  perceived policy matches (product
  differentiation) that is aimed to create
  potentially long-term, but conditional commitment
  (brand loyalty)
• Model of choice hides the fact that political
  system remains representative, only organizing
  narrower and fewer interests into politics,
  through lobbying and party funding