“A Kind Word for Bullshit: The Problem of Academic Writing” by Philip Eubanks and John D. Schaeffer: Summary and Critique

🔹 Redefining “Bullshit” Beyond Frankfurt

• The authors critique Harry Frankfurt’s rigid, checklist-style definition of “bullshit” and argue for a more flexible, graded-category approach.
  • Frankfurt defines bullshit as “a misrepresentation of the self—one’s feelings, thoughts, or attitudes” (p. 17).
  • However, the authors propose that bullshit is not an either/or concept but a spectrum: “Like game, bullshit groups together acts that can be quite varied” (p. 32).
  • They draw on Wittgenstein’s “family resemblances” to suggest bullshit should be treated as a graded category rather than an essentialist one (p. 32).

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🔹 Bullshit as a Rhetorical Phenomenon

• Bullshit in academic writing is often not about deception, but rhetorical ethos-building.
  • “Prototypical bullshit has to do with a purposeful misrepresentation of self, has the quality of gamesmanship…” (p. 379).
  • The authors stress that academic bullshit is part of a “ludic” rhetorical tradition—one that values play, performance, and reputation (p. 132).
  • Referencing Walter Ong, they argue that such rhetorical behavior is gendered, typically associated with masculine competitiveness (p. 124–125).

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🔹 Prototypical vs. Non-Prototypical Bullshit

• A key conceptual distinction is drawn between different types of bullshit:
  • Prototypical bullshit: exaggerated, insincere, self-promoting discourse that misrepresents reality for rhetorical gain.
    • Example: “Your call is important to us” – “It grates… nobody believes it” (p. 380).
  • Non-prototypical bullshit: stylistic convention, unintentional obfuscation, or identity performance that may still serve valid academic purposes.
    • “Academic writing… may be bullshit, but it is not prototypical bullshit” (p. 384).

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🔹 The Bullshit Paradox in Academic Writing

• Academics are in a contradictory position: they produce writing often accused of being bullshit, yet they value clarity, truth, and rigor.
  • “The academic writer must… prove [claims] according to the conventions of the discipline” (p. 383).
  • Yet these conventions themselves can produce writing that “enhances the ethos” more than it clarifies (p. 383).
  • The article suggests that “academic gamesmanship is liable to the charge of bullshit insofar as the persona… may be completely different from the ‘actual’ disposition of the writer” (p. 384).

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🔹 Bullshit in Student Writing

• Student writing also reflects bullshit in both cynical and developmental forms.
  • William Perry’s “bullster” writes without reading—offering “relevancies, however relevant, without data” (p. 65).
  • More troubling is the “competent but insincere cooperation” seen in Jasper Neel’s “anti-writing,” where students follow form but show “disregard for the truth” (p. 85).
  • This type of bullshit “aims to get by with something worse than a lie: disengagement” (p. 386).

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🔹 Bullshit as Pedagogical Reality and Opportunity

• The authors conclude that benign bullshit is part of academic development and genre acquisition.
  • “Productive sort of bullshit… ultimately produces better thought and better selves” (p. 387).
  • They caution, however, against the “gravitational pull” of prototypical bullshit (p. 384).
  • Teachers must remain vigilant, guiding students away from cynical manipulation and toward sincere engagement: “To do that, we need… a more precise understanding of how what bullshit is varies” (p. 386).

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🔹 Bullshit as a Structural and Institutional Issue

• The article shows how academia’s incentive systems (tenure, publishing, specialization) structurally encourage bullshit.
  • “Professional rewards come from academic reputation, and academic reputation comes from publication” (p. 383).
  • Even earnest academic writing “may be a variant sort of bullshit—bullshit on the edge of the category” (p. 384).

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🔹 Bullshit and Intra-Academic Policing

• Bullshit is also a rhetorical weapon used within academic turf wars.
  • “Theoretical frameworks probably provoke more cries of ‘Bullshit!’ than any other academic praxis” (p. 385).
  • Accusing another scholar of bullshit can be “an argumentum ad hominem that aims to excommunicate” (p. 385).

🧠 1. Poststructuralism & Constructivist Theories of the Self

• Contribution: The article supports a view of identity as constructed rather than essential, aligning with poststructuralist ideas of subjectivity.
  • “Some contemporary scholars might deny… that there is a pre-existing self to which the bullshitter is not true. They might say that the self is bullshit. It is constructed out of bullshit” (p. 377).
• Implication: The notion of rhetorical identity aligns with thinkers like Foucault and Derrida, challenging stable notions of authorial sincerity and authenticity.

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🧬 2. Rhetorical Theory and Ethos

• Contribution: Eubanks and Schaeffer expand classical rhetorical theory—particularly the Aristotelian concept of ethos—by showing how academic ethos can be performative, strategic, and even deceptive.
  • “The bullshitter attempts to misrepresent himself or herself, that is, to create an ethos that implies a character that the speaker does not possess” (p. 377).
• Implication: In literary theory, this supports an analysis of texts and authorship as performative acts, not transparent self-expressions.

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🌀 3. Prototype Theory and Linguistic Semantics

• Contribution: The article introduces prototype semantics (from cognitive linguistics) into literary and rhetorical theory, enriching how categories like “bullshit” or “literature” are evaluated.
  • “Bullshit is a graded category… one task is not to say what is bullshit and what is not but to distinguish what is prototypical bullshit from what is not” (p. 376).
• Implication: Literary theorists can apply graded categories to analyze genres, textual ambiguity, and hybrid forms without strict binaries.

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🎭 4. Performance Theory

• Contribution: Bullshit is reframed as gamesmanship or rhetorical performance, linking to Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical theories and Judith Butler’s performativity.
  • “Bullshit may be essential to the kind of rhetorical situation that Walter Ong calls ‘ludic’… these situations could be called ‘games’ and the behavior appropriate to them called ‘gamesmanship’” (p. 378).
• Implication: Academic and literary discourse are viewed as stage-managed performances, challenging assumptions of sincerity or objectivity in interpretation and criticism.

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⚔️ 5. Feminist Literary Criticism

• Contribution: The article acknowledges that the masculine, ludic nature of rhetorical games (including bullshitting) is embedded in academic discourse and writing norms.
  • “Bullshit… is almost exclusively a male game” (p. 379); “It is surely no accident that so many influential critiques of academic argument have come from a feminist perspective” (p. 379).
• Implication: Reinforces feminist critiques of academic discourse as gendered and exclusionary, validating the push toward more inclusive and ethical writing practices.

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🧾 6. Genre Theory

• Contribution: It reframes academic writing as a genre bound by institutional conventions that may foster bullshit—not as deviance but as structural necessity.
  • “Even good academic writing… may be bullshit” (p. 384); “Academic publication… aims to create an ethos that will result in tangible rewards” (p. 383).
• Implication: Enhances literary theory’s understanding of how genre functions rhetorically, especially in institutional and professional contexts.

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📚 7. Institutional Critique & Critical Theory

• Contribution: The article critiques the academic institution itself for structurally incentivizing bullshit through systems of tenure, peer review, and scholarly competition.
  • “Professional rewards come from academic reputation, and academic reputation comes from publication… a particularly rich field for bullshit” (p. 383).
• Implication: Supports the critical theory tradition (e.g., Habermas, Bourdieu) in exposing the ideological and material functions behind academic discourse.

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🤹 8. Reader-Response and Audience Theory

• Contribution: The essay emphasizes that judgments about “bullshit” are audience-dependent and context-specific.
  • “What they really mean is that the writing does not appropriately address them” (p. 382); “It matters who is making the judgment” (p. 382).
• Implication: Underscores the active role of the reader in assigning value and meaning—core to reader-response theory.

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💬 9. Metacriticism

• Contribution: The article itself is a metacritique of academic discourse, exposing its self-contradictions, performativity, and institutional constraints.
  • “If academic writing is bullshit, then bullshit is what we teach” (p. 374).
• Implication: Challenges literary theorists to critically reflect on their own practices and disciplinary assumptions.

❗ Over-Normalization of Bullshit

• Criticism: The authors risk normalizing bullshit by suggesting it is often benign or inevitable in academic writing.
• Concern: This may blur the ethical distinction between strategic rhetoric and intellectual dishonesty.
• E.g., the argument that “benign bullshit… produces better selves” (p. 387) could be misused to excuse poor scholarship.

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🔍 Lack of Clear Boundaries

• Criticism: The concept of bullshit as a graded category makes it difficult to apply in real academic assessment.
• Concern: By avoiding a firm line, the authors complicate the task of evaluating when rhetoric crosses into problematic territory.
• Frankfurt’s call for “decisiveness” is rejected, but critics might argue this renders the concept too vague to regulate.

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👓 Masculine Bias in Rhetorical Framing

• Criticism: Although the essay acknowledges Ong’s insight that bullshit is a “masculine game,” it arguably does not go far enough in critiquing this gender bias.
• Concern: The piece risks reinforcing a gendered view of rhetoric without fully interrogating its implications for feminist or inclusive pedagogies.

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🧩 Insufficient Engagement with Power Structures

• Criticism: The essay critiques individual performances and stylistic conventions more than systemic academic inequalities.
• Concern: It underplays how institutional bullshit is tied to publishing metrics, elitism, and exclusionary discourse norms.

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📉 Neglect of Student Impact

• Criticism: The discussion of student “bullshit” risks condescension or underestimation of the pressures students face.
• Concern: Descriptions of “bullsters” and “anti-writing” may frame students too harshly, ignoring the structural constraints on their agency.

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📚 Limited Theoretical Dialogue

• Criticism: The article focuses heavily on Frankfurt and cognitive semantics, with limited engagement with broader critical theory.
• Concern: The discussion could be enriched by deeper references to discourse theory, Bourdieu, or postcolonial critiques of academic language.

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🔄 Circularity in Definition

• Criticism: The authors reject checklist definitions but still rely on a prototype that often loops back to the same traits—misrepresentation, ethos inflation, gamesmanship.
• Concern: Critics may argue this makes the article circular in logic, using bullshit to define bullshit.