Category: Theory Article Summaries

🧠 Truth as Intrinsic and Instrumental Value

“Truth has considerable intrinsic and instrumental value that should be protected and respected” (MacKenzie & Bhatt, 2019, p. 1).
Truth is not only useful for practical decision-making but also essential for democratic life, institutional legitimacy, and personal integrity.

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📉 The Post-Truth Era Undermines Democracy

“‘Post-truth’ politics poses a serious challenge to the values of truth, and consequently trust” (p. 1).
“Brexit is one of the greatest victories… by the forces of illiberal authoritarianism” (Dougan & O’Brien, 2019, p. 203).
Misinformation, fantasy, and scapegoating used during Brexit expose a broader erosion of democratic principles.

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📱 Digital Information Ecosystem Amplifies Falsehoods

“Our often unwitting reliance on algorithms to curate our newsfeeds can also be problematic” (p. 3).
“Bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he is talking about” (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 63).
The postdigital condition accelerates the spread of lies and bullshit via social media, aided by platform algorithms.

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🧩 Distinguishing Lies, Bullshit, and Truth

“The liar intends… to deceive… The bullshitter… is not guided by the authority of truth” (Frankfurt, 2005, pp. 51–54).
“Lies… pollute personal and public life, and place a limit on what we can effectively and reasonably do” (p. 3).
While lies are intentional deceptions, bullshit is indifferent to truth altogether—yet both are corrosive to public discourse.

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🧪 The Epistemological Foundations of Truth

“Rather than formally engaging in a precise account of what truth means… it entails qualities such as ‘sincerity’, ‘accuracy’, ‘trust’” (p. 4).
“We need the right reasons to believe that something is true… respect for facts, for accuracy, and for honest, objective reporting” (p. 5).
Truth is difficult to define, but foundational to epistemology. The article supports a pragmatic, fact-responsive approach.

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🧱 Erosion of Trust in Experts and Institutions

“We are being asked to distrust the authority of experts to speak on issues about which they know a great deal” (p. 6).
“Michael Gove… ‘we have had enough of experts’” (cited in MacKenzie & Bhatt, 2019, p. 6).
Political rhetoric has dangerously devalued expertise, fostering suspicion and intellectual relativism.

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⚖️ Ethics of Lying and the Moral Demand for Truthfulness

“When we lie, we intentionally deceive by stating something we know to be untrue” (Bok, 1989, p. 12).
“To deny obvious facts is to succumb to irrationality” (MacKenzie & Bhatt, 2019, p. 8).
The ethical domain demands that we respect truthfulness. Lying damages both interpersonal and societal trust.

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🔍 Truth vs. Relativism and Subjective Narratives

“What marks something as a truth… is that a truth embodies facts and value judgements” (p. 10).
“Truth… is not mysterious… We know what it means to seek and state the truth” (Williams, 2002, cited on p. 4).
The authors reject extreme relativism. While interpretation is inevitable, there are still standards for verifying truth.

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🧱 Historical Manipulation as a Tool of Power

“Orwell was alarmed that the reporting… was not only factually wrong, it was intentionally wrong” (p. 12).
“The lie would become truth” (Orwell, 1968, p. 258).
Using Orwell’s fears, the article warns against the rewriting of history and how manipulated truths can become dominant narratives.

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🧭 The Role of Education and Reflexivity

“Educators have a vital role to play in helping an informed public navigate what it encounters online” (p. 13).
“We must continue to advance knowledge and understanding, as truthfully, critically and rigorously as we possibly can” (p. 14).
Educators must not only teach critical literacy but also model truthfulness, resilience, and reflexive inquiry in the postdigital age.

📚 Narrative Theory: Reconstructing Truth in Competing Storyworlds

“Narratives that make up Brexit, for example, were animated by disinformation, scapegoating, fantasy and blame” (MacKenzie & Bhatt, 2019, p. 1).
The article contributes to narrative theory by showing how false narratives in political discourse (e.g. Brexit) are structured and deployed. It reveals how truth and lies function as narrative strategies, constructing competing “realities” for ideological purposes.

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🧠 Epistemological Criticism: Truth, Knowledge, and Textual Authority

“Rather than formally engaging in a precise account of what truth means… we follow Williams… who argues for sincerity, accuracy and trust” (p. 4).
The work adds to epistemological literary criticism by arguing for a moral and structural need for truth in interpretation, pushing back against radical textual relativism. It affirms that not all interpretations are equally valid, especially in politically charged narratives.

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🕵️ Ideology Critique: Language, Power, and Manipulation

“Post-truth… has created a toxic brew of fantasy, denial, and propaganda” (p. 1).
“Orwell was alarmed… that the reporting of events was intentionally wrong and that the lie would become truth” (p. 12).
Aligning with Marxist and ideological criticism, the article shows how language is weaponized to distort reality, normalize deceit, and consolidate political power. The invocation of Orwell strengthens the critique of hegemonic discourse.

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🗣️ Discourse Theory: Postdigital Communication and the Production of Meaning

“The postdigital is already here… We rely on algorithms to curate our newsfeeds” (p. 3).
The article expands discourse theory by exploring how truth claims are now formed within digitally mediated discourses, shaped by platforms, algorithms, and echo chambers. This advances literary theory’s understanding of contextualized meaning-making.

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📺 Media Theory: Intersections of Text, Truth, and Technology

“Fake news is not only a symptom of failing democracies, it is also a digital affordance of post-truth politics” (p. 2).
The work enriches media and cultural theory by framing fake news as a media-textual phenomenon, produced and consumed within specific postdigital infrastructures—inviting literary scholars to treat digital texts as critical objects of study.

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🧱 Ethical Criticism: Moral Responsibilities of the Writer and Reader

“Truthfulness is a virtue, a basic requirement of political and ethical life” (p. 4).
The authors reassert the place of ethical literary criticism, urging scholars and educators to reclaim the value of truth as a narrative and pedagogical commitment—countering postmodern tendencies to view all texts as equally valid expressions.

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📖 Historiographic Metafiction: Fictionalizing the Past

“The past was whatever the Party chose to make it… the lie would become truth” (Orwell, 1968, cited p. 12).
The article indirectly contributes to historiographic metafiction theory by analyzing how history is re-narrated in the image of political interests—blurring fact and fiction in ways that resonate with postmodern literary concerns.

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🎭 Poststructuralism: The Limits of Relativism

“Not all truths are created equal… truth and trust are necessary if we are to live with others peacefully” (p. 13).
While engaging with poststructuralist debates on truth and meaning, the authors push back against total relativism, reinforcing that language may be unstable, but ethical and factual constraints still matter in interpretive acts.

⚖️ Moral Absolutism: Oversimplifying Complex Epistemologies

The article leans toward a morally absolutist view of truth, potentially dismissing nuanced postmodern and poststructuralist arguments that truth is socially constructed and contingent.

While aiming to defend truth, the authors risk ignoring the productive ambiguity that drives much of literary, philosophical, and cultural theory.

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🧭 Lack of Engagement with Opposing Philosophical Theories

The article references Frankfurt and Williams approvingly but largely ignores or glosses over counter-theories, such as Foucault’s or Derrida’s critiques of power-knowledge and truth regimes.
This weakens the academic depth of the argument by not grappling with the full spectrum of truth-related discourse.

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🕹️ Technological Determinism: Blaming the Medium, Not the Message

The authors tend to frame digital technologies as key enablers of lies and bullshit, which could be criticized as technologically deterministic.

Social media algorithms are not inherently deceptive; it is their usage and regulation that matters.

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🧱 Binary Framing of Truth vs. Falsehood

The article adopts a binary opposition—truth vs. lies/bullshit—which may not capture the messy, contested space of political and literary truth-claims.

Truth can exist in gradations, provisional forms, or culturally embedded frames, which the article does not fully acknowledge.

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📉 Limited Empirical Support for Claims

Although rhetorically persuasive, the article lacks empirical evidence to support broad statements (e.g., on Brexit, public trust, digital epistemologies).

Critics may argue that the authors’ claims are more philosophical than data-driven, which limits practical applicability.

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🧠 Underexploration of Emotional Truths and Lived Experience

The emphasis on factual truth could be critiqued for excluding the legitimacy of emotional or experiential truths, especially in marginalized communities.

Not all truths can be empirically validated; affective and subjective dimensions of truth deserve recognition in postdigital societies.

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📚 Educational Overreach: Idealism over Realism

While calling on educators to model truthfulness is inspiring, some may argue the authors place too much burden on education to counter systemic propaganda, without addressing broader political or economic reforms.

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🔁 Circular Justification of Truth’s Value

The article sometimes asserts that truth is valuable because democracy needs it—without fully justifying why democracy should be the benchmark system.

This can be seen as circular reasoning: democracy needs truth, therefore truth is good.

🔍 Truth as Instrumentally Valuable

• ✅ Frankfurt champions the objective distinction between truth and falsehood, rejecting postmodern relativism: even denying truth presupposes it (Olsson, 2008, p. 94).
• 🛠️ Truth is practically necessary for making everyday decisions—about health, engineering, and relationships—because it helps us “negotiate… the thicket of hazards” (Frankfurt, 2006, as cited in Olsson, 2008, p. 95).
• 💡 “Truth… possesses very considerable practical utility” (OT, 15; as cited in Olsson, 2008, p. 94).

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🧠 Confusion Between Truth and Knowledge

• 🤔 Frankfurt slides between valuing truth and valuing knowledge, treating them almost synonymously without clarifying the difference (Olsson, 2008, p. 95).
• 🧭 This lack of precision raises epistemological issues, particularly when addressing the value of knowledge beyond mere true belief (Olsson, 2008, p. 95).

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📜 Revisiting Plato’s Meno Problem

• 🚶‍♂️ Using Plato’s example of a traveler to Larissa, Olsson argues that even non-knowledgeable true belief can be practically helpful (Olsson, 2008, p. 96).
• 🎯 Thus, truth—even when not constituting knowledge—can have instrumental value: “We have reason, then, to love truth in general, not just to love knowledge” (Olsson, 2008, p. 96).

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🔁 Reliabilist Solution to the Value of Knowledge

• 🧪 Olsson proposes a reliabilist theory: knowledge is true belief formed via a reliable method (Olsson, 2008, p. 97).
• ☕ Against Zagzebski’s espresso analogy, he argues that reliability matters, because a reliable method tends to reproduce true beliefs over time (Olsson, 2008, pp. 97–98).
• 🔄 “Knowledge will tend to multiply”—you get more truth when your methods are sound (Olsson, 2008, p. 98).

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🧷 Knowledge as Stable and Action-Ready

• 📌 True beliefs that qualify as knowledge are more stable and therefore more useful for long-term planning (Olsson, 2008, p. 99).
• 🛠️ Olsson formulates:
  • SAT – Stability Action Thesis: stable beliefs aid in successful action.
  • RST – Reliability Stability Thesis: reliable acquisition promotes belief stability.
  • → Conclusion: knowledge > true belief in instrumental terms (Olsson, 2008, pp. 99–100).

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⚖️ Truth Is Normally, Not Always, Valuable

• 🔄 Frankfurt acknowledges exceptions: sometimes truth-telling is harmful, such as when a lie prevents self-destructive behavior (Olsson, 2008, p. 101).
• 🤝 Still, truth is normally valuable in a defeasible way: “This is true” → “This is valuable,” unless exceptional conditions apply (Olsson, 2008, p. 101).

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🤯 Frankfurt’s Puzzle: A Prosperous Society Full of Bullshit?

• 📉 Frankfurt warns: bullshit—disregard for truth—is a deeper threat than lying because it erodes one’s capacity to engage with reality (Olsson, 2008, pp. 102–103).
• 🧱 But this leads to a paradox: how can our society flourish despite being saturated with bullshit? (Olsson, 2008, p. 103).
• ❗ Frankfurt offers a contradictory answer: first claims we detect bullshit well (OT, 72), then admits we’re “rather easily fooled” (OT, 73; as cited in Olsson, 2008, p. 104).

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🌐 Social Epistemology to the Rescue

• 🤝 Olsson proposes a model based on Hegselmann & Krause (2006): a society can reach the truth even if only some individuals are reliable (Olsson, 2008, p. 106).
• 🧬 Bullshitters can be indirectly connected to the truth via social mechanisms like opinion averaging (Olsson, 2008, pp. 107–108).
• ⚖️ Truth seekers exert influence across social networks, enabling society to approximate truth collectively without everyone being epistemically virtuous (Olsson, 2008, p. 109).

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🧩 Final Insight: Society Can Survive Bullshit

• 🛡️ Even in the presence of widespread deception, convergence on truth remains possible—not through perfect detection, but through socially structured epistemic exchange.
• 💬 “Pace Frankfurt, communal convergence on the truth does not require… [ability] to discriminate… deception” (Olsson, 2008, p. 109).

1. Postmodernism & Truth-Relativism

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: Offers a robust defense of objective truth, directly countering the postmodernist tendency toward relativism and epistemic skepticism.
• 💬 Quote: “To reject the distinction between truth and falsity is… to reject the idea that there is a way things are” (Olsson, 2008, p. 94).
• 📚 Relevance: Challenges postmodern literary theorists (e.g., Lyotard, Baudrillard) who argue that truth is socially constructed or linguistically contingent.
• 🧠 Theoretical Impact: Encourages literary theory to re-evaluate the ontological status of meaning and interpretation, suggesting not all textual claims are equally valid.

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🧠 2. Epistemic Critique in Reader-Response Theory

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: Emphasizes the importance of reliable knowledge processes in distinguishing valid interpretation from subjective reaction.
• 💬 Quote: “Reliabilism… holds that knowledge is reliably produced true belief” (Olsson, 2008, p. 97).
• 📚 Relevance: Adds an epistemological framework to debates within reader-response theory by foregrounding the processes by which interpretations are validated, not just the interpretations themselves.

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💣 3. Frankfurt’s Bullshit Concept in Cultural Criticism

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: Deepens Frankfurt’s idea of “bullshit” as a mode of communication that erodes epistemic standards—relevant to media studies and literary discourse.
• 💬 Quote: “Bullshit is speech aimed at manipulation without regard for the truth” (Olsson, 2008, p. 102).
• 📚 Relevance: Speaks directly to cultural studies and critical discourse analysis, exposing how discourse divorced from truth (e.g., advertising, propaganda, bad-faith literary critique) undermines genuine understanding.

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🧩 4. The Paradox of Interpretation in Deconstruction

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: Challenges the deconstructive claim that meaning is endlessly deferred and truth inaccessible, by showing that truth is practically indispensable.
• 💬 Quote: “Truth is normally instrumentally valuable, even if this is subject to exceptions” (Olsson, 2008, p. 101).
• 📚 Relevance: Calls into question the ethics of interpretation in deconstructive literary theory—suggesting that truth, while elusive, must remain an ethical ideal.

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🔄 5. Ethical Criticism & Moral Value of Truth

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: Affirms Frankfurt’s moral vision that truth is a precondition for ethical life, suggesting that literature must engage responsibly with truth.
• 💬 Quote: “The individual who is indifferent to how things really are is, therefore, deeply deprived” (Olsson, 2008, p. 95).
• 📚 Relevance: Supports ethical literary criticism (e.g., Martha Nussbaum) by emphasizing how truthful orientation in literature contributes to moral knowledge and civic integrity.

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🌐 6. Social Epistemology & Collective Meaning-Making

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: Uses social epistemology models to explain how truth persists in culture—even when bullshit is widespread—through networks of trust and influence.
• 💬 Quote: “Even if most people are not truth seekers, truth may still win out if enough people are” (Olsson, 2008, p. 106).
• 📚 Relevance: Provides a conceptual framework for literary publics, interpretive communities, and the role of the critic as a truth-seeker in meaning dissemination.

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🔍 7. Relevance to Ideology Critique (Althusserian/Marxist Theories)

• 🔍 Olsson’s Contribution: While not Marxist, Olsson’s account of how bullshit perpetuates non-truths aligns with ideological state apparatuses that reproduce distorted social narratives.
• 💬 Quote: “The very possibility of a life guided by reason depends on… access to the truth” (Olsson, 2008, p. 94).
• 📚 Relevance: Resonates with ideology critique, suggesting that control over epistemic standards is a form of cultural power that can be analyzed in literature and media.

❗ 1. Overreliance on Process Reliabilism

• 🔍 Critique: Olsson’s defense of reliabilism may overcommit to an externalist theory of knowledge that sidelines internal justification and epistemic agency.
• 🧠 Philosophers from the virtue epistemology or evidentialist camps might argue that Olsson reduces knowledge to mechanistic reliability, overlooking intellectual character and rational reflection.

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🤔 2. Limited Engagement with Frankfurt’s Intent

• 📘 Critique: Frankfurt’s work is more moral-philosophical and rhetorical than epistemological. Critics may argue Olsson forcibly epistemologizes ideas that Frankfurt presented in a broader ethical-cultural frame.
• 🧾 Frankfurt does not attempt a theory of knowledge—so Olsson’s analytic extension, while illuminating, may misrepresent the scope of Frankfurt’s project.

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🌀 3. Narrow Interpretation of Truth’s Value

• ⚖️ Critique: Olsson emphasizes the instrumental value of truth—what it does for us practically—but does not engage deeply with its intrinsic value (truth for its own sake), which is central to many moral, religious, and aesthetic philosophies.
• 🌟 This leaves open the critique that Olsson’s framework is overly pragmatic or utilitarian.

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🌐 4. Idealized Model of Social Epistemology

• 🧮 Critique: Olsson’s use of the Hegselmann–Krause model relies on idealized assumptions about agents, rationality, and information sharing.
• 🔧 In real societies, communication is noisy, asymmetric, and power-laden—raising doubts about whether his mathematical optimism applies to real-world bullshit cultures.

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📚 5. Lack of Literary, Rhetorical, or Discursive Analysis

• 🖋️ Critique: Though the article is cited in literary theory contexts, it does not itself engage with literary form, language, or rhetoric. Critics may find it too analytically dry or removed from cultural practice.
• 📘 Readers from critical theory or cultural studies traditions may feel the piece overlooks how language generates power, not just (mis)information.

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🚫 6. Insufficient Response to Postmodernism

• 📉 Critique: While Olsson criticizes relativism, his engagement with postmodern theory is too brief and abstract. He does not cite or directly argue against thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, or Lyotard, whose views he implies are flawed.
• 📚 This may weaken the force of his critique, making it seem like a strawman of postmodernism rather than a robust rebuttal.

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🧩 7. Fragmented Integration of Bullshit and Knowledge

• 🔗 Critique: The article attempts to weave together two of Frankfurt’s essays—On Truth and On Bullshit—but the thematic integration is uneven.
• 🧠 While the knowledge/truth section is tightly reasoned, the bullshit/social epistemology portion feels loosely attached, with a shift in tone and method.

⟨1⟩ Kitsch and Bullshit as Parallel Aesthetic-Ethical Phenomena

• Kitsch and bullshit both construct alternative realities that exaggerate or distort truth rather than outright falsifying it.
• Drawing on Frankfurt, Botz-Bornstein distinguishes bullshit from lies: the bullshitter “does not try to deceive” but “pays no attention” to truth (Frankfurt, ⟨p. 34⟩).
• “Kitsch does not consistently transgress the limits… but plays with them” – like bullshit, it is phony but not fake (⟨p. 2⟩).

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⟨2⟩ Aesthetic Enjoyment and Sympathy for Kitsch/Bullshit

• Both can be appreciated if the audience maintains critical distance, e.g., enjoying “a sentimental song” while acknowledging its kitschiness (⟨p. 5⟩).
• Botz-Bornstein outlines three responses: rejection, naive acceptance, or conscious, ironic acceptance (⟨p. 3⟩).
• Frankfurt suggests sympathy arises when bullshit “expresses secondary claims” better than plain truth (⟨p. 2⟩).

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⟨3⟩ Self-Indulgence, Narcissism, and the Kitsch-Bullshit Nexus

• Kitsch and bullshit share an aesthetic narcissism—what Giesz calls “self-enjoyment in which the enjoyer enjoys himself” (⟨p. 8⟩).
• Wittgenstein’s critique of Pascal’s dramatic metaphor (“like a dog run over”) is an example of aesthetic excess, not ethical error (⟨p. 6⟩).
• This “excessive particularity” signals kitsch-like misuse of language, emotion, and context (⟨Frankfurt, p. 29⟩).

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⟨4⟩ Pretentiousness as the Aesthetic Crime

• Pretentious bullshit arises when aesthetic strategies mask mediocre or deceptive content.
• Kundera calls kitsch the “denial of shit” — i.e., the exclusion of all unpleasantness to create artificial wholesomeness (⟨p. 9⟩).
• Example: using “excellence@tfu.edu” as an email address becomes pretentious when “excellence” is emptily aestheticized (⟨p. 11⟩).

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⟨5⟩ Self-Deception and Playful Reality Blurring

• Frankfurt argues bullshit differs from lies because it invites indifference to truth, not active falsehood (⟨p. 34⟩).
• People may “half-believe” in bullshit or kitsch for aesthetic comfort—e.g., believing in “German craftsmanship” while knowing parts are Turkish (⟨p. 14⟩).
• Max Black defines this as “second-degree humbug”: a self-deluded state that blurs ethical and aesthetic lines (⟨p. 143⟩).

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⟨6⟩ Cheating and Ethical Gray Zones

• Kitsch and bullshit occupy a fluid space between error and deception.
• The “cheating student” or “kitsch-promoting realtor” is not lying, but engaging in a low-stakes form of aestheticized deception (⟨p. 13⟩).
• When kitsch or bullshit is forced upon an audience (as in authoritarian propaganda), it crosses the line into fraud (⟨p. 16⟩).

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⟨7⟩ Seduction Through Weakness (Baudrillard’s Theory)

• According to Baudrillard, kitsch and bullshit seduce not by strength but by appearing weak, open, and ambiguous (⟨p. 17⟩).
• “Seduction is the annulment of signs… their pure appearance” – hence, both become powerful when they appear harmless or ironic (⟨Baudrillard, p. 76⟩).
• The “beauty of artifice” lies in their refusal to fully engage with reality (⟨p. 17⟩).

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⟨8⟩ Coolness and Risk Management

• McLuhan’s contrast of “hot” (explicit) and “cool” (ambiguous) information explains why bullshit can be cool when it takes risks with irony (⟨p. 18⟩).
• Coolness is about nonchalance under pressure, which applies to both ironic kitsch and stylish bullshit (⟨p. 19⟩).
• Frankfurt’s “stance” theory: what makes bullshit cool is the speaker’s bold detachment, not sincerity (⟨Black, p. 118⟩).

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⟨9⟩ Cuteness and Childlike Naivety

• Kitsch often connects to cuteness, not coolness—“round, warm, soft, fluffy” qualities (⟨p. 20⟩).
• Bullshit can also be cute, especially when naive or unintentional, e.g., a child’s excuse that turns into charming nonsense (⟨p. 21⟩).
• Kitsch and bullshit are forgivable when innocent, annoying when manipulative.

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⟨10⟩ Self-Conscious Kitsch and Postmodern Irony

• Kitsch can be “cool” when it is consciously aestheticized, as in the art of Jeff Koons who merges kitsch with deliberate bullshit (⟨p. 21⟩).
• Milan Kundera rejects this possibility, but critics like Lebensztejn and Cooper argue that collecting kitsch can signify elite taste (⟨p. 21⟩).

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⟨Conclusion⟩ Kitsch, Bullshit, and the Politics of Style

• Kitsch and bullshit are tools of aesthetic manipulation, increasingly embedded in neoliberal culture and social media.
• “Pseudo-profound bullshit” (like Twitter aphorisms) thrives in environments where brevity and style replace substance (⟨Pennycook et al., p. 549⟩).
• Aesthetic analysis can reveal hidden ideological operations, uncovering what Botz-Bornstein calls “integral kitsch behavior” (⟨p. 22⟩).

📚 🎭 Contribution to Aesthetic Theory

• Botz-Bornstein reconceptualizes kitsch and bullshit not as aesthetic failures but as modes of stylized reality, showing their ambiguous ethical positioning.
• He challenges the binary view of “authentic vs. artificial” by analyzing kitsch as a “playful transgression” rather than mere falsity.
• He writes, “Kitsch does not consistently transgress the limits… but plays with them” (p. 2), emphasizing aesthetic ambivalence over rigid judgment.
• Introduces “integral kitsch behavior” (p. 22) as a condition where aesthetics fully infiltrate identity.

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🧠 🌀 Contribution to Postmodern Theory

• The article aligns with postmodern skepticism toward truth and meaning, treating bullshit as aestheticized indifference to truth, akin to Baudrillard’s simulacra.
• Botz-Bornstein: “Bullshit expresses an alternative reality that avoids lying while still misleading” (p. 3).
• He references Baudrillard’s theory of seduction (p. 17) to show how signs lose their referents, and how both kitsch and bullshit seduce through appearances.
• The text critiques the neoliberal aesthetic economy, where style and performance replace content—an essential postmodern condition (p. 21–22).

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🧠 🎩 Contribution to Cultural Studies

• By applying kitsch and bullshit to branding, email addresses, identity presentation, and consumer culture, the paper reveals their cultural pervasiveness.
• Example: “The email address excellence@tfu.edu becomes bullshit when ‘excellence’ functions aesthetically rather than substantively” (p. 11).
• This contributes to Cultural Studies by exposing the commodification of language, performance, and virtue signaling as aesthetic behaviors.

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📖 📺 Contribution to Media & Communication Theory

• Draws on Marshall McLuhan’s “cool/hot” media to examine how bullshit functions as “cool” communication—detached, ambiguous, and risk-oriented (p. 18–19).
• The idea that Twitter and social media facilitate “pseudo-profound bullshit” (Pennycook et al., 2015) critiques digital media’s aesthetics of shallowness (p. 549).
• The text argues: “Bullshit thrives where form dominates message—especially on platforms where brevity equals wit” (p. 22).

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🎓 🧱 Contribution to Ethical Literary Criticism

• Frankfurt’s philosophy of bullshit becomes a lens through which aesthetic insincerity is treated ethically.
• Kitsch and bullshit are evaluated not just in aesthetic terms but based on intent, pretentiousness, and reception (p. 13).
• The author distinguishes between playful aesthetic distortion and dangerous manipulation (e.g., authoritarian propaganda kitsch) (p. 16).
• Ethical reception becomes central: whether one knows something is bullshit/kitsch and how one responds.

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🧠 🪞 Contribution to Reader-Response Theory

• Botz-Bornstein highlights how audiences engage with kitsch and bullshit differently: some naively, others ironically, and others critically (p. 5).
• He identifies three types of engagement: rejection, naive acceptance, and self-conscious enjoyment—an application of reader/audience positioning.
• This implies that meaning is constructed not just by the text but by the aesthetic stance of the reader.

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🌀 🖼️ Contribution to Identity & Performance Theory

• Explores how kitsch and bullshit function as performative self-representations, blending Judith Butler’s performativity with aesthetic self-construction.
• “The bullshitter’s stance is not falsehood but style” (p. 14), implying that identity becomes a kind of stylized bullshit.
• The term “integral kitsch behavior” (p. 22) implies an entire aesthetic identity built from sentimentality, false virtue, and pleasant illusions.

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📚 💬 Contribution to Literary Language Theory

• Invokes Wittgenstein and Pascal to show how aestheticized language (e.g., metaphors) can become bullshit when used inappropriately or manipulatively (p. 6).
• E.g., the critique of Pascal’s dog metaphor: “This is not an ethical but an aesthetic error” (p. 6).
• The text shows how style can violate sincerity, opening discussions on literary decorum, excess, and poetic falseness.

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🧩 🪧 Contribution to Ideology Critique / Political Aesthetics

• Builds on Milan Kundera’s concept of kitsch as “the denial of shit” (p. 9)—the political aesthetic of erasing unpleasantness.
• Kitsch becomes ideological when it is used to aestheticize authoritarianism, nationalism, or sanitized virtue.
• “The problem is not kitsch’s inaccuracy, but its enforced positivity”—a critical insight for ideology critique (p. 9–10).

⚖️ 🎯 Overgeneralization of Aesthetic Categories

• Botz-Bornstein stretches the terms “kitsch” and “bullshit” to cover too many cultural forms—from emails to social theory—risking conceptual dilution.
• Critics might argue the terms lose explanatory precision when applied so broadly to literature, politics, marketing, and emotion simultaneously.

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🔬 📏 Ambiguity in Ethical Evaluation

• The article wavers between aesthetic and ethical criticism, sometimes praising irony and “cool” bullshit, while elsewhere condemning pretentiousness.
• The lack of clear ethical criteria makes it difficult to judge when bullshit or kitsch is harmless, cool, or ideologically dangerous.

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🧩 🌀 Reliance on Philosophical Abstraction

• Heavy dependence on Frankfurt, Baudrillard, and Wittgenstein leads to dense theoretical language that may be inaccessible or under-contextualized.
• The argument could benefit from more grounded literary or empirical examples to support these abstract philosophical claims.

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📚 🔍 Underuse of Literary Case Studies

• While the article references literature (e.g., Kundera, Pascal), it lacks sustained close reading or detailed textual analysis of actual literary works.
• This limits its direct contribution to literary criticism, especially for readers seeking application beyond conceptual framing.

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🎭 💬 Vagueness in Audience Psychology

• The analysis of audience reception (naive, ironic, or critical) is insightful, but lacks empirical or psychological depth.
• How do real readers or viewers recognize bullshit or kitsch? The article assumes awareness, but doesn’t explore mechanisms of detection or belief.

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🧠 🪧 Political Blind Spots

• While touching on propaganda and ideology, the article avoids in-depth discussion of how kitsch and bullshit serve power structures.
• More engagement with critical theory (e.g., Adorno, Žižek, Foucault) could strengthen this dimension.

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🛠️ 💭 Conceptual Blurring Between Terms

• Bullshit and kitsch, though related, are not interchangeable, yet at times the article conflates their mechanisms—particularly around self-deception and style.
• Critics may ask: is a bullshit email (e.g., “excellence@tfu.edu”) truly analogous to a sentimental painting?

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🧾 📉 Limited Interdisciplinary Dialogue

• While the essay spans philosophy, aesthetics, and culture, it rarely engages with existing literary theory traditions such as:
  • Reader-response theory
  • New Historicism
  • Affect theory
  • Feminist critiques of sentimentalism

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🧪 ⚠️ Unclear Methodological Position

• The article oscillates between normative critique and phenomenological description, but does not clearly position itself within a research tradition.
• Is this cultural critique, philosophy of language, or literary theory? The boundaries remain somewhat ambiguous.

🧠 Feminism as a Moral and Political Worldview

• Ideological Lens: Feminism framed as a belief system, ethical stance, or theoretical paradigm by 39.2% of participants.
• Ethos, Not Just Politics: Feminism seen as an ethical commitment to equity and justice.

“Feminism is the view that people should never be limited… on the basis of their perceived or real sex or gender identity” (Feminist, white, female; p. 8).

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👎 Negativity and Misconceptions

• Limited Negativity: Only 10.5% of the sample expressed negative views; 96.6% of feminists provided positive definitions.
• Critique of Misandry: Non-feminists who did express negativity often framed feminism as “anti-men” or exclusionary.

“Feminism is now an excuse for misandry” (Non-feminist, 45, non-binary, white; p. 11).

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📊 Quantitative Results: What Predicts Feminist Identity?

• Key Predictors (Hoskin et al., 2017, p. 13):
  • Being female: 3.08× more likely to identify as feminist.
  • Not defining feminism negatively: 11.6× more likely.
  • Defining feminism as intersectional: 4.24× more likely.
• No Significant Impact: Ethnicity did not significantly predict feminist identification in this sample.

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💬 Mainstream vs. Intersectional Feminism

• Celebrity Influence: High-profile feminists may reduce stigma but risk simplifying feminism into a consumer identity.
• Critique of Pop Feminism: Often fails to center systemic oppression or intersectional struggles (Zeisler, 2016).

“Mainstream representations… continue to benefit from a privilege-based, white, heteropatriarchal society” (p. 14).

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📢 Conclusion: “My Feminism Will Be Intersectional or It Will Be Bullshit”

• Thesis of the Paper: Intersectionality is not optional but essential for meaningful feminist identity and solidarity.
• Feminism’s Credibility: Without intersectionality, feminism risks becoming exclusive and ineffective.

“When we understand feminism as exclusively ‘equality for women’… feminist teachings are lost” (Zinn et al., 1986, as cited in Hoskin et al., 2017, p. 15).

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📝 Critique

• ✅ Strengths:
  • Mixed methods approach provides rich insights.
  • Highlights disconnect between ideology and identification.
  • Adds to scholarship on evolving feminist identities.
• ❌ Limitations:
  • Sample lacks racial and socioeconomic diversity.
  • Self-selection bias likely (participants drawn to a gender-focused study).
  • Little exploration of how media narratives shape feminist definitions.

📚 1. Feminist Literary Theory

Contribution: Reinforces the need to move beyond essentialist, white-centric feminist narratives in both literary and sociocultural discourses.

• Challenges the reductive definition of feminism as “equality for women” alone, urging a redefinition that includes race, class, sexuality, and gender identity.
• Critiques the mainstream or “whitewashed” representation of feminism that often dominates literature and media.
• Calls for more inclusive feminist epistemologies that reflect diverse lived experiences.

“When we understand feminism as exclusively ‘equality for women’… feminist teachings are lost and the struggles of minoritized populations are diminished” (p. 15).
“These fractures gave way to modern feminist critiques of ‘global sisterhood’” (p. 2).

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🔀 2. Intersectionality Theory (Black Feminist & Critical Race Theory)

Contribution: Applies and empirically validates intersectionality as a core component of feminist identity construction—shaping how feminism should be theorized and practiced.

• Demonstrates that people who define feminism in intersectional terms are 4.24× more likely to identify as feminists.
• Reaffirms Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory by showing how race, gender, class, and sexuality must be co-considered in any valid feminist framework.

“True feminism is intersectional” (Participant quote, p. 10).
“Intersectionality… requires an intersecting approach in order to elicit social change” (p. 12).
“Dzodan questioned Slutwalk’s failure to address systemic racism within their movement…” (p. 15).

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🎭 3. Poststructuralist Theory

Contribution: Challenges fixed, monolithic meanings of feminism by emphasizing its discursive fluidity and multiplicity.

• Views feminism as mutable, evolving, and context-dependent, resisting essential definitions—core to poststructuralist thought.
• Encourages interrogation of dominant narratives and recognition of power-laden identity constructs.

“There is no single ‘Feminism’ but rather there are multiple feminisms rooted in the desire for equal treatment” (p. 9).
“Feminism is a set of multiple theories” (p. 9).

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🧱 4. Queer Theory

Contribution: Challenges cisnormative and heteronormative boundaries of mainstream feminism, reflecting queer theoretical concerns.

• Includes genderqueer, trans, and non-binary perspectives as central to feminist discourse—not as peripheral.
• Highlights critiques of feminism’s failure to include trans voices and queer perspectives.

“Feminism… often very exclusionary towards trans people” (Genderqueer participant, p. 11).
“Fractures transpire when those whose identities have been marginalized… carve out space…” (p. 2).

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🎬 5. Media and Cultural Theory

Contribution: Critiques the commodification and celebrity branding of feminism in pop culture—especially in how it flattens the political into a digestible aesthetic.

• Warns that mainstream feminism’s visibility in media often comes at the cost of ideological depth and political intersectionality.

“Mainstream representations… continue to benefit from a privilege-based, white, heteropatriarchal society” (p. 14).
“Perhaps it would be more beneficial to focus on the complex and accountable politic into which feminism has grown” (p. 14).

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📖 6. Reader-Response Theory (Sociological Turn)

Contribution: Highlights the gap between individual understandings of feminism and collective textual (or cultural) representations.

• Shows how lay definitions shape, accept, or reject feminist texts and ideologies.
• Encourages scholars to examine how audiences perceive and internalize feminism based on lived experiences.

“We cannot completely understand the reasons why people may or may not identify as a feminist if we do not have a complete understanding of how people conceptualize and define feminism” (p. 3).
“Participants were asked to provide their definition of feminism…” (p. 5).

🔍 Limited Racial Diversity in the Sample

• Despite the study’s intersectional goals, the participant pool was 81.7% white, potentially limiting the generalizability of findings related to race and intersectionality.

“Although there were no significant group differences based on ethnicity…” (p. 12) – this may reflect sample homogeneity rather than actual equality in feminist understanding.

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📉 Overreliance on Self-Reported Definitions

• Definitions of feminism were self-reported and unprompted, which can reflect participants’ rhetorical knowledge more than their actual ideological commitment or action.
• Participants might articulate politically correct definitions that don’t reflect deeper beliefs or behaviors.

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🧪 Methodological Constraints of Thematic Analysis

• Thematic analysis, while rich, is subjective, and the study offers limited transparency about how final themes were resolved among coders beyond quoting inter-rater reliability.

Possible bias in the categorization of what counts as “intersectional” vs. “non-intersectional.”

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📊 Ambiguity Around Intersectionality Definition

• The study does not operationalize “intersectionality” with precision. It treats it as a value in participant responses without interrogating how deeply or consistently it is understood.

One can claim “feminism is for everyone” without meaningfully engaging with systems of racial, class, or queer oppression.

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🧭 Neglect of Transnational and Decolonial Feminist Voices

• The critique of mainstream Western feminism is valid, but the paper centers U.S. and Canadian perspectives, missing broader transnational feminist frameworks (e.g., Mohanty, Spivak).
• This risks reinforcing the Western academic gaze even while critiquing it.

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🧱 Underdeveloped Engagement with Queer and Trans Feminist Theory

• While the study includes gender-diverse participants, the engagement with queer theory and trans feminism is underexplored conceptually.

Trans inclusion is mentioned, but not deeply theorized beyond participant responses.

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🪞 Binary Framing of Feminist Identity

• The study operates within a binary of “feminist vs. non-feminist”, which may oversimplify nuanced identities such as “pro-feminist,” “feminist-leaning,” or “post-feminist.”

Risk of flattening complexity in political identity formation.

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🎯 Potential Overshadowing of Other Feminist Goals

• By focusing heavily on identity (i.e., who calls themselves a feminist), the study risks decoupling feminist identity from action or organizing.

Structural goals like policy change, labor rights, and bodily autonomy are largely sidelined.

🧠 Doxasticism vs. Non-Doxasticism in Faith

• Doxasticism (DOX) holds that “faith that p” necessarily entails belief that p.

“Necessarily, faith that p is accompanied by belief that p.” (Scott, 2020, p. 1)

• Non-doxasticism challenges this, allowing faith without belief—only acceptance, assent, or trust in p.
• Catalysts for non-doxasticism include William Alston (1996), who proposed that “faith does not require belief but merely acceptance,” and Cohen (1992), who distinguished acceptance as a pragmatic, voluntary stance.

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📚 The Rise of Non-Doxastic Theories

• Non-doxasticism has gained dominance due to:
  • Its compatibility with faith amid doubt (Howard-Snyder, 2013).
  • Alston’s empirical observation that “many sincere Christians are accepters, not believers” (Alston, 2007, p. 136).
  • Its strategic value in defending faith from accusations of irrationality by avoiding evidential demands of belief.

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⚖️ The Dilemma for Non-Doxasticism

Scott introduces a philosophical dilemma based on three key assumptions:

1. (BN) Belief Norm of Assertion:

“In asserting p, the speaker should believe that p.” (Bach, 2010, p. 131)

2. (BS) Bullshit Definition:

“Asserting an indicative sentence without believing it to be true or believing it to be false is, prima facie, bullshitting.” (Scott, 2020, p. 3)

3. (AF) Affirmation Norm in Faith:

“A speaker may affirm a religious proposition r if that speaker has faith that r.” (Scott, 2020, p. 4)

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💣 Horn 1: Religious Bullshit (Non-Doxasticism-A)

• If affirmations of faith are assertions, but don’t involve belief, they violate BN and become bullshit.
• Scott writes, “Non-doxasticism-A has the consequence of legitimising what is, prima facie, religious bullshit” (p. 5).
• Frankfurt’s notion of bullshit applies here: it’s not lying, but speaking with “indifference to the truth” (Frankfurt, 2005, p. 54).
• Assertoric honesty, a proposed solution, fails:
  • It reintroduces belief as a norm for affirming faith.
  • It conflicts with religious practice, which doesn’t distinguish acceptance from belief in speech acts (cf. Wittgenstein, 1966, p. 56).

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🎭 Horn 2: Hermeneutic Fictionalism (Non-Doxasticism-B)

• Alternatively, if affirmations are not assertions, they may be quasi-assertions (Burgess, 1983)—like statements in fiction.
• This yields hermeneutic religious fictionalism: the faithful speak “as if” they believe, without actual belief.
• Scott warns this is “a substantive, contentious and little explored theory about religious discourse” (p. 2).
• But this creates problems:
  • Logical tension: e.g., affirming (1) and (5) but rejecting (6) looks illogical (p. 6).
  • Paradoxical utterances become acceptable:

“God exists but I don’t believe it.” (p. 6)

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🧠 Imagination ≠ Faith

• Can faith be like imagination?
  • Imagination explains logical discipline in fiction.
  • But propositional faith behaves differently:
    • Faith prompts action, unlike imagination (Festinger et al., 1956).
    • Faith implies truth-commitment; imagination doesn’t.
    • Faith resists inconsistency more than imagination does.

“Propositional faith seems to behave more like belief.” (Scott, 2020, p. 7)

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🛠️ Responses to the Dilemma

1. Against Non-Doxasticism-A:
   • Adding emotions or desires (e.g. desiring that p) fails to prevent bullshitting.
   • Frankfurt’s objection stands: desire doesn’t fix norm violation (p. 8).
2. Defending Non-Doxasticism-B:
   • Religious affirmations as confession, praise, or prayer (D.Z. Phillips, Derrida, Marion).
   • But this strategy falters:
     • Many affirmations don’t occur in liturgical contexts.
     • Raises interpretive challenges (e.g. what does denying “God is benevolent” mean if it’s just praise?).

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🧩 Conclusion

• Michael Scott’s central contribution is to shift the faith debate into the realm of speech act theory and semantic integrity.
• He reveals non-doxasticism’s linguistic and ethical costs, urging a reconsideration of belief’s role in faith.
• The paper challenges religious philosophy to reckon with the implications of language, assertion, and sincerity.

“Non-doxasticism, while epistemologically attractive, may either undermine the integrity of religious speech or reduce it to a kind of fictionalist performance.” (paraphrased)

🧾 1. Contribution to Speech Act Theory in Religious Discourse

• Applies norms of assertion to literary/religious utterances, connecting linguistic acts with ethical and epistemic standards.
• Builds on Williamson’s (2000) idea that assertion is norm-governed, like rule-based games.

“The speech act, like a game and unlike the act of jumping, is constituted by rules.” (Scott, 2020, p. 3)

• Challenges literary and theological critics to consider when religious language is assertion, confession, or something else—expanding the domain of speech act theory in literary contexts.

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🧠 2. Challenges Fictionalism in Religious Language (Hermeneutic and Revolutionary)

• Introduces a philosophy of language dilemma into religious discourse:
  Is faith speech truth-committed assertion or fictional, quasi-assertion?
• Connects to hermeneutic fictionalism—a concept common in literary theory, suggesting that religious utterances are akin to fictional storytelling or narrative play.

“Hermeneutic fictionalists propose that speakers already are not committed to believing what they affirm in the discourse.” (Scott, 2020, p. 6)

• Calls into question the literary assumption that fictional language is harmlessly performative, by comparing it to epistemic negligence or bullshitting in serious discourse.

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💩 3. Frankfurtian Bullshit and Literary Integrity

• Integrates Frankfurt’s theory of bullshit to critique religious/literary statements lacking truth-commitment.
  • Suggests that fiction-like faith affirmations in religious literature can risk the ethical decay of discourse.

“What the bullshitter says is not guided by a proper concern with what is true… Bullshit is a greater enemy of truth than lies are.” (Frankfurt, 2005; Scott, 2020, p. 3)

• Raises literary-theoretical questions about the moral status of literary speech that appears “true-like” but is not truth-directed.

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📚 4. Contribution to Theories of Fiction and Imagination

• Engages deeply with imaginative discourse, drawing from Currie, Ravenscroft, Sainsbury, and Sinhababu.
• Challenges literary models that equate faith with imagination, by pointing to logical and motivational differences.

“In contrast, propositional faith seems to behave more like belief.” (Scott, 2020, p. 7)

• Argues that faith-driven discourse is more truth-regulated than imaginative fiction, with logical constraints and real-world implications—a key distinction often blurred in literary treatments of belief systems.

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🗣️ 5. Contributions to Religious Language Games (Wittgensteinian Analysis)

• Builds on Wittgenstein’s insights into religious forms of life by noting how actual believers affirm propositions without meta-linguistic reflection.

“One does not tend to find a religious disagreement where one speaker affirms a religious proposition and the other says ‘Well, possibly.’” (Wittgenstein, 1966; Scott, 2020, p. 5)

• Encourages literary theorists to examine the ritual, communal, and pragmatic norms governing faith-language, rather than treating it as merely propositional or expressive.

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📖 6. Ethical Critique of Postmodern Playfulness in Religious Language

• Challenges Derridean and Marionian views that religious affirmations are like poetic praise or mystical language.

“These theories provide no roadmap for how to interpret affirmations… where there is no identified addressee.” (Scott, 2020, p. 8)

• Warns that such postmodern non-doxastic interpretations can obscure truth-claims in religious literature, undermining sincerity, inferential coherence, and ethical responsibility.

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🔗 7. Interdisciplinary Bridge Between Analytic Philosophy and Literary Theory

• Offers a rare analytic intervention in domains usually governed by continental and theological hermeneutics.
• Invites literary theorists to adopt analytic tools (assertion norms, bullshit analysis, inferential logic) to evaluate the rhetoric of belief in literature and theology.
• Shows how literary theory can benefit from precision in evaluating sincerity, faith, and truthfulness in narrative discourse.

❗ Over-Reliance on Norms of Assertion

• Scott presupposes that the belief norm (BN) governs all meaningful assertions, including religious ones.
• Critics may argue that religious discourse operates under alternative norms—such as expressive, communal, or symbolic functions—not reducible to propositional belief.

This risks a category error: applying the logic of scientific assertion to spiritually performative utterances.

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🧩 Limited Treatment of Non-Western or Non-Propositional Faith

• The article focuses almost entirely on Christian propositional faith, neglecting embodied, mystical, or non-discursive traditions (e.g., Eastern spiritualities, indigenous practices).
• Such traditions may express faith through ritual, story, or silence, not propositional affirmation, making the dilemma less applicable.

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🧠 Underestimation of the Role of Imagination and Narrative

• Scott downplays the cognitive sophistication of imaginative faith, assuming it lacks inferential discipline or truth concern.
• However, philosophers like Currie and Sainsbury show that imaginative discourse can maintain logical order and sincerity, even without literal belief.

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🔄 False Dilemma Between Bullshit and Fictionalism

• The core argument rests on a binary dilemma: either faith statements are bullshit (if asserted without belief) or fictionalism (if quasi-asserted).
• Critics may argue for a third option: expressivist or non-doxastic sincerity, where one expresses trust or existential commitment without propositional belief.

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🧬 Neglect of Emotional and Volitional Dimensions of Faith

• Scott reduces faith to either belief or acceptance, overlooking desire, hope, affective trust, and practical orientation, which many theologians (e.g., Kierkegaard, Evans) argue are essential to faith.
• Thus, the model may be too narrow to account for the psychological and existential richness of faith.

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🧘 Insensitivity to Liturgical and Performative Language

• In religious rituals, faith expressions (e.g., “Christ is risen”) often function like performatives or communal affirmations, not individual assertions.
• Scott treats all affirmations as potentially deceptive unless belief is present, ignoring the social-linguistic reality of religious practice.

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🧱 Philosophical Rigour vs. Practical Faith

• While analytically sharp, the article may fail to appreciate the lived reality of faith communities, where doubt, metaphor, and narrative are not epistemic failures but spiritual depth.
• The critique risks being seen as academically rigorous but pastorally tone-deaf.

🔁 Critique of Traditional Accounts (e.g., Frankfurt)

• Cova critically examines Harry Frankfurt’s seminal account of bullshit, which defines it as speech indifferent to truth—neither lying nor telling the truth, but simply unconcerned with accuracy.
• He argues this process-based approach, focused on the speaker’s intention, fails to explain real-world cases where we judge something as bullshit without knowing or caring about the speaker’s mindset.
• Examples include anonymous advertising slogans, bureaucratic jargon, or philosophical prose, which can seem like bullshit regardless of authorial intent.

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🧾 Proposal of an Output-Based Account

• Cova shifts the focus from speaker’s intent to the epistemic quality of the content itself—a claim’s effect on inquiry rather than how it was produced.
• Bullshit, in this model, is defined as a claim that initially appears insightful, but upon minimal critical inspection by a competent thinker, is revealed to be:
  • ❌ Trivial: offers no new insight.
  • ❌ Misleading: skews or misrepresents reality.
  • ❌ Meaningless: uses complex language without content.
  • ❌ Unsubstantiated: lacks evidence or coherence.

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🧠 The Concept of “Truth-Tracking Bullshit”

• Cova introduces a nuanced category: statements that are technically true, yet function epistemically as bullshit.
• These claims create the illusion of insight or depth while contributing nothing substantial to understanding.
• Examples:
  • A job applicant says “I led key cross-functional synergy alignment” – likely true but epistemically empty.
  • A philosophy paper that is semantically correct but inflates trivialities using dense language.

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🔍 How Bullshit Harms Inquiry

• Cova emphasizes bullshit’s epistemic danger: it discourages deeper questioning.
• Even if the statement is not false, it disguises its vacuity, making listeners feel as if they’ve learned something, when they haven’t.
• This erodes the norms of truth-seeking—especially dangerous in academia, media, or politics.

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🪞 Implications for Evaluating Discourse

• Cova’s model applies not only to philosophy but also:
  • 📚 Literature: When language masquerades as profound without coherent meaning.
  • 🗳️ Politics: Empty rhetoric dressed as insight.
  • 🎓 Academia: Overly technical prose masking trivial arguments.
  • 📺 Media: Buzzwords with little content.

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✍️ Benefits of the Output-Based Model

• It offers a practical tool: even when speaker intent is unknown, we can still assess the epistemic value of statements.
• It accounts for phenomena ignored by Frankfurt’s view:
  • Bullshit written by AI or PR teams.
  • Claims passed on without belief (e.g., influencers reading scripts).
  • Passive bullshit, like algorithmically generated texts or buzzword-laden resumes.

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💬 Three Stimulating Critical Questions

1. How does the output-based definition challenge traditional views of responsibility and deception in communication?
   • It shifts moral and epistemic judgment from who says it to what is said—a potentially radical move in ethics of discourse.
2. Can “truth-tracking bullshit” be more insidious than lies, precisely because it appears trustworthy?
   • This raises a profound question: is epistemic harm worse when disguised as truth?
3. How might Cova’s framework be operationalized in real-world settings (e.g., journalism, AI content moderation, literary criticism)?
   • Could we create rubrics or detection methods for epistemically hollow claims, based on his model?

🧠 1. Post-Structuralism & Semantic Instability

• Cova’s analysis of meaningless statements—those that appear profound but collapse under scrutiny—aligns with post-structuralist concerns about the instability of meaning.
• Cova echoes Derrida: just as deconstruction reveals textual contradictions, Cova’s “output-based account” shows how texts can simulate insight without actual substance.
• 📌 “Bullshit exploits linguistic form to simulate depth without delivering coherent content.”

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🧾 2. Reader-Response Theory & Interpretive Competence

• Cova’s invocation of the “minimally competent inquirer” resembles reader-response critics’ focus on the reader’s role in constructing meaning.
• Just as Stanley Fish emphasizes “interpretive communities,” Cova implies that readers’ competence determines whether bullshit is revealed or remains hidden.
• 📌 “Bullshit’s vacuity is detectable only when the reader subjects it to minimal scrutiny.”

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🎭 3. Rhetoric and Performance Theory

• Cova’s account contributes to performance theory by framing bullshit as a performative strategy—a rhetorical act focused on impression over truth.
• Literary language, like bullshit, may prioritize aesthetic or affective resonance rather than factual communication.
• 📌 “Bullshit functions rhetorically by signaling profundity, regardless of content.”

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🔍 4. Critical Theory & Ideological Critique

• Cova’s claim that bullshit erodes inquiry intersects with Frankfurt School critiques of ideology and commodified discourse (e.g., Adorno, Horkheimer).
• Bullshit in literature or media can serve as an ideological smokescreen, obscuring power structures while simulating engagement.
• 📌 “Bullshit often serves to maintain the status quo by discouraging real investigation.”

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🧪 5. Structuralism & Epistemic Form

• By shifting the analysis to the structure of claims, not the speaker’s intention, Cova mirrors structuralist approaches that focus on underlying forms and functions in discourse.
• His definition identifies a pattern of vacuity across genres, styles, and contexts.
• 📌 “Output-based bullshit can be systematically detected across different texts by examining structure, not authorship.”

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🧠 6. Cognitive Poetics and Psychological Processing

• Cova introduces the “illusion of insight”, a term resonant with cognitive literary studies examining how readers mentally process language.
• Bullshit generates heuristic satisfaction—feeling like understanding has occurred—even when none has.
• 📌 “The illusion of insight explains why even intelligent readers may find bullshit convincing.”

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🪞 7. Metafiction and Reflexivity

• His argument supports the metafictional tradition in literary theory by revealing how texts can become self-aware simulations of meaning.
• Authors such as Borges or Calvino deliberately toy with the fine line between insight and nonsense—a line Cova philosophically defines.
• 📌 “Some bullshit is intentionally constructed to reflect the limits of interpretation itself.”

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🛑 8. Ethics of Interpretation

• Cova’s notion of epistemic harm introduces an ethical framework into literary theory: What happens when a text pretends to inform, but misleads?
• This has direct implications for critical pedagogy, literary journalism, and scholarly writing.
• 📌 “The danger is not falsity, but the discouragement of thought.”

⚖️ 1. Over-Reliance on the “Minimally Competent Inquirer”

• Cova’s framework hinges on what a “minimally competent inquirer” would conclude.
• ❗ Criticism: This standard is vague and highly subjective—what qualifies as “minimal competence” varies by context, education, and culture.
• Some critics argue this turns his theory into a circular or elitist standard.

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🤐 2. Neglect of Speaker Intention

• While Cova criticizes Frankfurt for being too focused on intention, his own model dismisses speaker motivation entirely.
• ❗ Criticism: This may overcorrect—ignoring intentions can be problematic, especially in moral or legal contexts (e.g., satire vs. propaganda).
• Bullshit uttered maliciously is surely epistemically worse than accidental nonsense.

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🧩 3. Ambiguity in Epistemic Value Judgments

• Cova’s test rests on whether a statement is trivial, misleading, meaningless, or unjustified.
• ❗ Criticism: These categories are blurred in practice—many works of literature or art thrive precisely in ambiguity or open meaning.
• What one reader finds meaningless, another may find profound.

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🌀 4. Possible Misapplication to Aesthetic Discourse

• The framework can be misused to condemn literary, poetic, or spiritual language as “bullshit” merely because it resists strict logical unpacking.
• ❗ Criticism: This risks reducing aesthetic, emotional, or symbolic expression to a rationalist checklist.

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🧠 5. Risk of Promoting Over-Skepticism

• Cova’s model encourages critical scrutiny—but some fear it could lead to hyper-skepticism or dismissive cynicism, especially toward complex language.
• ❗ Criticism: Not all complexity is bullshit. Encouraging shallow dismissal of hard ideas may undermine genuine learning.

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🔁 6. Potential Redundancy with Frankfurt

• Though Cova offers a different angle, some argue that his output-based view still overlaps with Frankfurt’s theory when applied.
• ❗ Criticism: Both models often converge in practice—statements that fail epistemic standards are often intended to mislead or impress.

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🔎 7. Lack of Empirical Testing

• Cova’s theory is philosophical, not empirical.
• ❗ Criticism: There’s little data or experimental support showing that “minimally competent” readers reliably detect bullshit using his criteria.
• Psycholinguistic studies may be needed to back up his model.

🧠 1. Bullshit as Disconnected from Belief

• Frankfurt’s theory frames bullshit as “a lack of concern for truth” rather than lying (p. 468).
• Bullshit is a rhetorical action focused on achieving a goal, not on expressing belief:

“For the bullshitter, what matters is whether or not his or her goal is accomplished” (p. 468).

• Rice illustrates this through a student who writes “This answer is bullshit” as a quiz response—possibly bluffing, possibly rejecting the question’s premise (p. 468).

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🧱 2. Bullshit as Rhetorical Blockage

• Rice introduces the metaphor of blockage—bullshit congeals discourse, obstructing rhetorical flow.
• Describes the anti-vaccine movement as an example of this blockage, where pro-vaccination messages paradoxically deepen resistance:

“Bullshit might also be imagined as a blockage… most relevant to those of us interested in discourses that become calcified” (p. 469).

• Uses earwax impaction as analogy: rhetorical deafness caused by hardened bullshit (p. 469).

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🤢 3. The Aesthetics of Disgust

• Rice invokes Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror to explain disgust as a response to blocked flow:

“I experience a gagging sensation… the body, provoke tears and bile” (Kristeva qtd. p. 470).

• Disgust arises not just from what is blocked, but from the unnatural presence of the blockage itself.

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🔇 4. Bullshit Silences Mutual Exchange

• Rhetoric, according to Rice, is marked by “porousness”—an openness to being changed in dialogue.
• Bullshit halts this possibility:

“Bullshit blocks this mutuality, this exchange of porousness” (p. 470).

• James Fredal is cited:

“Bullshit happens… when one side of a dialogue is unjustly disregarded” (p. 470).

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🧱 5. Bullshit’s Danger Lies in Its Ethical Obstruction, Not Factual Inaccuracy

• Frankfurt cares about truth, but Rice argues rhetoricians should worry about blockage of ethical response:

“Any attempts to question, engage, or respond… are obstructed by this layer of hardened desire” (p. 471).

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🤮 6. Disgust as a Rhetorical Strategy

• Disgust may be a productive rhetorical tactic, highlighting how bullshit can only be addressed on its own aesthetic terms:

“Disgust is a refusal to accept the blockage… a response that exploits blockage as fundamentally unacceptable” (p. 471).

• Connects to David Hume’s theory:

“All sentiment is right… because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself” (Hume qtd. p. 471).

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📢 7. Response as Ethical Imperative in Rhetoric

• The real challenge of bullshit isn’t philosophical—it’s ethical and rhetorical.
• Citing Michael Hyde’s The Call of Conscience, Rice emphasizes:

“We are bound to hear the call within the context of our everyday being-with-others” (Hyde qtd. p. 472).

• Rhetoricians must strive to maintain the possibility of response, even when faced with obstruction.

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💬 8. Final Anecdote: The Bullshit Answer Revisited

• Revisiting the student’s quiz answer, Rice suggests the gesture was not deception but revulsion—a rejection of a system that silences real voice:

“Gagging on the quiz, maybe on the waxy surface of quizzes in general… trying to be heard in yet another professor’s impacted eardrum” (p. 472).

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📚 Key References Cited in the Article

• Frankfurt, H. G. On Bullshit (2005)
• Kristeva, J. Powers of Horror (1982)
• Fredal, J. “Rhetoric and Bullshit” in College English (2011)
• Hyde, M. J. The Call of Conscience (2001)
• Ahmed, S. The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2013)
• Tavris, C., & Aronson, E. Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) (2008)
• Hume, D. “Of the Standard of Taste” in The Rhetorical Tradition (2001)
• Nyhan, B. et al., “Effective Messages in Vaccine Promotion” in Pediatrics (2014)

📢 1. Contribution to Rhetorical Theory

• Reframes bullshit as a rhetorical phenomenon rather than simply a philosophical or epistemological concern.
• Moves beyond Harry Frankfurt’s focus on truth and deception to examine how bullshit functions as a disruption in rhetorical ethics and exchange.
• Rice writes:

“Whereas Frankfurt and his fellow philosophers debate the exact composition of bullshit, bullshit’s response is a particularly unique problem for rhetoric” (p. 472).

• Introduces “response” and “porousness” as defining rhetorical values that are obstructed by bullshit, making rhetorical blockage the core issue.

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🎭 2. Contribution to Affect Theory

• Uses disgust as an aesthetic and rhetorical affect—not just a physical reaction but a meaningful mode of refusal.
• Incorporates Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection (Powers of Horror) to explain the revulsion felt toward rhetorical blockages:

“Blockages themselves are so frequently cause for disgust… provoke tears and bile, increase heartbeat” (Kristeva qtd. in Rice, 2015, p. 470).

• Disgust becomes a strategic emotional response to unethical or manipulative discourse.

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🧱 3. Contribution to Critical Discourse Theory

• Applies discourse theory to institutional and public communication (e.g., anti-vaccine rhetoric), showing how bullshit calcifies argument and prevents productive deliberation.
• Example: Parents reject pro-vaccination information not because they disbelieve it, but because it increases cognitive dissonance—leading them to dismiss it emotionally and rhetorically (p. 469).
• Rice explains that:

“Information about the benefits of vaccinations and the belief in their harm cannot easily co-exist” (p. 469).

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🗣️ 4. Contribution to Dialogic Theory

• Echoes Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism by emphasizing how rhetoric requires openness to others—bullshit blocks that reciprocity.
• Describes bullshit as a violation of mutual rhetorical exchange:

“Bullshit blocks this mutuality, this exchange of porousness” (p. 470).

• Draws on Michael Hyde’s idea of the “call of conscience” as the basis of ethical dialogic engagement:

“We are bound to hear the call within the context of our everyday being-with-others” (Hyde qtd. in Rice, 2015, p. 472).

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🎨 5. Contribution to Aesthetic Theory

• Challenges rationalist aesthetics by exploring how bullshit thrives through sentimentality, appealing not to truth but to affect, surface, and cleverness.
• Connects this to David Hume’s notion that sentiment has no external referent and thus resists rebuttal:

“All sentiment is right… always real… but all determinations of the understanding are not” (Hume qtd. in Rice, 2015, p. 471).

• Proposes that aesthetic responses like revulsion may be more rhetorically effective than rational argument against bullshit.

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🧠 6. Contribution to Ethical Literary Criticism

• Rice reorients attention from what bullshit is to how we respond to it, linking literary/rhetorical ethics to the conditions of response.
• This aligns with a broader movement in literary theory that focuses on responsibility, voice, and engagement rather than abstract judgment.
• She notes:

“Conditions of response—creating the ongoing possibility of responding to every call—is precisely the work for rhetoric” (p. 472).

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🚪 7. Contribution to Post-Structuralism

• Implicitly engages with post-structuralist ideas of instability and blockage in language, but pushes further by theorizing why discourse fails—not because of language itself, but because of willful obstruction.
• Rice’s metaphor of bullshit as a “fatty buildup” critiques the closure of meaning-making spaces, offering a more materialist view of rhetorical dysfunction (p. 469–470).

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🧰 8. Contribution to Pedagogical Theory

• Uses classroom experience to theorize the limits of conventional assessment, where even a student’s ironic answer may reveal more rhetorical insight than standardized expectations allow.
• Reflects:

“His response—‘This answer is bullshit’—seemed to not be a particularly strong example of bluffing… but a rejection of what was, by all accounts, a bullshit question” (p. 472).

🎯 1. Overextension of the Metaphor of “Blockage”

• Rice’s use of bodily and physiological metaphors (earwax, milk skin, arterial clogging) may be seen as overwrought or excessively figurative.
• Critics might argue these metaphors obscure clarity, making rhetorical analysis feel anecdotal or performative rather than rigorous.
• The metaphor of “cerumen impaction” (p. 469) risks trivializing complex discursive dysfunctions through sensational imagery.

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📏 2. Lack of Clear Methodological Framework

• The essay reads more like a philosophical meditation or personal reflection than a structured academic argument.
• Critics could point out a lack of empirical evidence or formal rhetorical analysis, which may weaken the essay’s theoretical authority.
• There’s minimal engagement with opposing theories of bullshit beyond Frankfurt, limiting dialogic robustness.

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🔄 3. Redundant with Frankfurt’s Theory

• While claiming to move beyond Frankfurt, Rice’s framework is arguably still deeply tethered to his definition of bullshit.
• Her central claim—that bullshit is unconcerned with truth but focused on effect—is already present in Frankfurt’s original thesis.
• Critics may question whether the essay adds enough theoretical novelty beyond metaphor and affect.

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⚖️ 4. Ambiguity Around Ethical Judgments

• Rice suggests that disgust can be a rhetorical tactic, but this raises ethical concerns.
• Disgust is a morally loaded and culturally contingent emotion, which has historically been used to justify exclusion and oppression (as Sara Ahmed and Kristeva have also noted).
• Encouraging its rhetorical use may risk endorsing reactionary or exclusionary responses, especially in polarized political discourse.

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🧱 5. Problematic Idealization of “Porousness”

• The essay valorizes rhetorical “porousness” as inherently good—but porousness is not always safe or productive.
• In high-stakes political or ethical contexts, openness to dialogue may enable harm or disinformation rather than mutual understanding.
• Critics may argue that not all discursive engagements deserve mutuality, especially when rooted in bad faith.

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🌀 6. Ambivalence Toward Power and Agency

• Rice identifies “bullshit” as a symptom of power-driven disregard, yet doesn’t fully theorize who has the power to deploy or resist it.
• There’s limited analysis of institutional structures that generate bullshit—e.g., media, government, corporate PR.
• The result is a critique of discourse without an equally strong critique of systems.

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💬 7. Undeveloped Pedagogical Application

• Although it begins with a teaching anecdote, Rice does not offer a clear educational takeaway.
• Some readers may find her acceptance of the student’s sarcastic response overly generous or pedagogically uncritical.
• This raises questions about the role of academic authority and standards in evaluating bullshit.

💥 Bullshit as a Modern Pollutant

• Gunderman argues that bullshit is a more dangerous contaminant than physical pollutants like chemicals or emissions.
• It corrupts the social and psychological environment, eroding trust and belief.
• “This pollutant is known colloquially as bullshit… it takes an immense toll on our capacity to trust, to believe what we hear and say.”

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📚 Philosophical Foundations: Frankfurt’s Theory

• Builds on Harry Frankfurt’s definition from On Bullshit (2005).
• Bullshit ≠ Lie: Liars acknowledge the truth to conceal it; bullshitters are indifferent to truth.
• “To tell a lie, it is necessary to know the truth, but to bullshit it is only necessary not to care about it.”
• “Bullshitters merely do not want to be revealed as unknowing… They care most about appearances.”

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📖 Literary Illustration: Tolstoy’s War and Peace

• Uses a character from Tolstoy to show unintentional bullshit through embellished storytelling.
• Rostov’s narrative shifts from factual to what sounds good, reflecting how easily truth is displaced by expectation.
• “He began his story meaning to tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly… he lapsed into falsehood.”

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🧪 Bullshit in Professional Fields

• Even medicine and academia are not immune; professionals feel pressure to appear all-knowing.
• The fear of admitting ignorance leads to more bullshit, particularly among those in authority.
• “When we begin to feel that we cannot admit ‘I don’t know’… we have joined the ranks of the bullshitters.”

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🧠 Silence vs. Speech

• Sometimes, silence or admitting ignorance is the more truthful act.
• Speaking just to fill silence or distract can promote false impressions and suppress truth.
• “Rather than allow a lull in the conversation… someone chimes in with an inapposite point that merely distracts.”

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📺 The Rise of Antirealism and Postmodern Influence

• Frankfurt (and Gunderman) critique the postmodern rejection of objective truth, which fosters bullshit.
• This leads to a focus on sincerity over accuracy, undermining meaning.
• “In forsaking truth and falsehood and being merely sincere, we are admitting that we no longer care what is true or false.”

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🔍 The Cost of Bullshit: Erosion of Trust

• Once trust is lost due to bullshit, it’s difficult to regain, especially in education and professions.
• Communication depends on shared respect for meaning and truth.
• “Trust is perhaps the most fundamental of all virtues in the professions.”

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🧭 Ethical Call: Embrace Ignorance and Seek Truth

• Gunderman calls for intellectual humility: acknowledging ignorance as the start of learning.
• He invokes Socrates, who was wise for recognizing what he did not know.
• “The quest for knowledge begins in the recognition of ignorance.”
• “Instead of helping clarify matters, we render ourselves major polluters who merely cloud the understandings of others.”

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🔄 Consequences for Individuals and Organizations

• Bullshit creates a false self-image and encourages a culture of pretense and obscurity.
• It hampers critical thought, alienates people from their own ignorance, and undermines discovery.
• “We nod when we should question… It also promotes a culture of obscurity.”

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🧪 Scientific and Educational Implications

• Real learning in science comes from questioning and recognizing what we do not know.
• Bullshit undermines the progress of knowledge and clouds the distinction between truth and falsehood.
• “Biomedical science marches forward… by identifying what the textbooks got wrong.”

📚 1. Postmodernism

• Contribution: Gunderman critiques postmodernism’s rejection of objective truth, which aligns with Harry Frankfurt’s concern about a culture where sincerity replaces accuracy.
• He exposes the danger of antirealism, where statements are judged not by truth value but by emotional or performative sincerity.
• “This is the view that there is no objective reality… Instead the only determination we can make is whether the statement is sincere or not.” (Gunderman, 2010, p. 14)
• Gunderman warns that this leads to a condition where even sincerity becomes bullshit—a central postmodern tension.

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🧠 2. Epistemological Criticism / Philosophy of Knowledge

• Contribution: The essay reinforces the Socratic model of epistemic humility, aligning with literary theory that values the interrogation of knowledge systems and the limits of knowing.
• It champions intellectual honesty and the idea that recognizing one’s ignorance is the beginning of authentic discourse.
• “The quest for knowledge begins in the recognition of ignorance.” (p. 14)
• Challenges the trend in theory and discourse that equates opinion with truth, a common critique in epistemological debates.

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🎭 3. Reader-Response Theory

• Contribution: Gunderman’s use of Tolstoy’s War and Peace shows how readers and speakers reshape narratives based on expectations and audience response, not fidelity to events.
• Rostov alters his story to fit the “script” of heroism listeners desire—mirroring how readers construct meaning from textual performance.
• “They would either not have believed him or… thought that Rostov was himself to blame… And so he told them all that.” (p. 13)

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🗨️ 4. Rhetorical and Discourse Theory

• Contribution: The essay provides a critique of discursive authority and performativity—particularly how language is used to project authority without substance.
• It identifies bullshit as a communicative strategy that mimics authority, echoing concerns in rhetorical theory about the manipulation of discourse.
• “They care most about appearances, and they will say what they need to say to maintain the impression of authority.” (p. 13)

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🧩 5. Deconstruction

• Contribution: While Gunderman critiques postmodern relativism, he simultaneously highlights inherent contradictions in communication, reminiscent of deconstruction.
• The article touches on paradoxes like the Epimenides paradox (“Everything I say is a lie”) and the instability of meaning when truth is abandoned.
• “If we habitually mislead… even when we seek earnestly to tell the truth, we will not be believed.” (p. 13)
• This reflects deconstructive ideas about the unreliability of signifiers and the breakdown of trust in language.

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🧪 6. Ethical Criticism

• Contribution: Gunderman advocates for truthfulness as a moral imperative in both speech and writing, echoing ethical literary theories that link form and meaning to ethical responsibility.
• He stresses the duty of professionals and communicators to preserve clarity and honesty in language.
• “It is vital that we commit to veracity. From a professional point of view, it is more important to rescue the understanding than to save face.” (p. 15)

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🌫️ 7. Structuralism

• Contribution: The essay indirectly affirms the importance of shared meaning systems (a central structuralist idea) in maintaining communication.
• When bullshit proliferates, the semiotic structure breaks down, and communication becomes unmoored from any stable signified.
• “Communication is only possible when we can assume a shared system of meaning respected by both parties.” (p. 13)

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🏛️ 8. Cultural Criticism / Ideological Critique

• Contribution: Gunderman critiques cultural norms that reward omniscience and authority, often at the expense of truth.
• He links the prevalence of bullshit to institutional pressures and professional roles that discourage honest ignorance.
• “Taking on formal authority can augment this impulse… promoting any preexisting inclinations in this direction.” (p. 14)

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📺 9. Media and Popular Culture Studies

• Contribution: The essay connects the spread of bullshit to media-driven discourse, where sincerity and image outweigh truth.
• This aligns with theories about the spectacle of knowledge in talk shows, branding, and performative identity.
• “A view that seems to permeate many television talk shows… we can be true to ourselves.” (p. 14)

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These contributions demonstrate that Gunderman’s “Bullshit” is more than a commentary on speech ethics—it is a theoretically rich critique of post-truth discourse, resonant across epistemology, rhetoric, literary ethics, and cultural theory.

🧩 Overreliance on Frankfurt’s Framework

• Gunderman heavily depends on Harry Frankfurt’s binary of lying vs. bullshit, without sufficiently challenging or extending it.
• Critics may argue that this makes the essay derivative, offering limited philosophical innovation.

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🧠 Dismissal of Postmodernism as Oversimplified

• The essay critiques postmodernism as a cause of truth erosion but overgeneralizes it, reducing complex theories to cultural nihilism.
• It treats postmodern thought as a singular force promoting insincerity, overlooking internal diversity and self-critical elements in thinkers like Foucault, Derrida, or Lyotard.

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🛑 Lack of Nuance in Professional Contexts

• The claim that professionals (like doctors) often engage in bullshit to maintain authority may underestimate the ethical deliberation many undertake.
• This could be seen as unfairly cynical toward institutions or individuals navigating complex communication demands.

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🕳️ Absence of Empirical Support

• The article is rich in anecdotal and philosophical insights but lacks empirical data or case studies to support its claims about the prevalence or effects of bullshit in medicine, academia, or public discourse.

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📚 Limited Literary Engagement

• Though it references War and Peace, the article doesn’t deeply analyze literature beyond surface examples.
• Literary theorists may see this as a missed opportunity to more rigorously integrate narrative theory or stylistics.

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🔄 Binary Framing: Truth vs. Bullshit

• Gunderman implies that one is either truth-telling or bullshitting, which ignores the complexities of ambiguity, uncertainty, or poetic discourse.
• Not all language that lacks full truth-value is deceptive or meaningless.

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📣 Moralizing Tone

• The tone, particularly in the concluding sections, leans toward didactic moralism.
• Critics might argue this reduces philosophical depth in favor of professional lecturing, weakening its resonance with broader literary or cultural theory.

🧠 1. Conceptual Reframing of Bullshit

• Core Thesis: Bullshit is not primarily an offense against truth (as per Frankfurt), but against reason—the rational process by which people form beliefs and justify actions (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 1).
• Redefinition: Sarajlic proposes that bullshit consists of assertions lacking truth-value, made intentionally to persuade or manipulate (p. 2).
• Contextual Necessity: Bullshit requires an intentional communicative context where the speaker seeks to influence the listener’s actions or beliefs, not merely to misinform (p. 10).

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🔍 2. Frankfurt vs. Cohen: Competing Definitions

• Frankfurt’s View (Speaker-Centered):
  • Bullshit arises from indifference to truth.
  • It is a mental-state-based concept: the speaker doesn’t care whether what they say is true or false (Frankfurt, 2005; Sarajlic, 2018, p. 3).
• Cohen’s View (Text-Centered):
  • Bullshit is a property of propositions or texts themselves, not of speaker intention.
  • Criteria: unclarifiable clarity, speculative or logically weak assertions (Cohen, 2002; Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 4–5).
• Sarajlic’s Critique:
  • Argues against both extremes: bullshit is not only speaker- or text-based.
  • Instead, bullshit is rooted in pragmatic intent and epistemic asymmetry (p. 11).

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⚖️ 3. Normative Theses on Bullshit

Sarajlic articulates four normative theses about bullshit to refine the definition:

📌 Thesis 1: Intentional Context

• Bullshit must occur in a persuasive context where the speaker uses assertions to move the listener toward a conclusion or action (p. 11).

📌 Thesis 2: Strategic Ambiguity

• Contrary to Frankfurt, the bullshitter does care about truth—but deliberately avoids it to manipulate reasoning (p. 13).
• Vagueness serves to mask weak arguments, not due to indifference but strategic evasion.

📌 Thesis 3: Context Constitutes Bullshit

• Isolated propositions are insufficient; intentions, speaker identity, and consequences matter (p. 17).
• Introduces first-order bullshit (deliberate) vs. second-order bullshit (sincerely believed but originally deceptive content) (p. 17).

📌 Thesis 4: Offense Against Reason

• Bullshit disrupts the construction of reasons—while liars offer false reasons, bullshitters offer none at all, undermining rational deliberation (p. 25).
• Uses Skorupski’s framework of practical reason to show how bullshit fails epistemic accessibility and disrupts action justification (Skorupski, 2010; Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 25–26).

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🧱 4. Bullshit vs. Lying: Moral Economy

• Frankfurt’s Moral View: Bullshit is worse than lying because it shows total disregard for truth (Frankfurt, 2005; p. 20).
• Webber’s Counterpoint: Lying is worse because it damages the speaker’s credibility more (Webber, 2013; p. 21).
• Sarajlic’s Response:
  • Bullshit can be more blameworthy because it dodges accountability, preserves deniability, and exploits epistemic inequalities (p. 22).
  • It causes deeper harm by corrupting rational discourse over time (p. 26).

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🧭 5. Epistemic and Social Consequences

• Disruption of Reasoning: Bullshit replaces argument with semantic noise, disabling the audience’s capacity to distinguish truth from falsehood (p. 28).
• Emotional Exploitation: It exploits biases (e.g., confirmation bias, risk aversion), fostering irrational belief formation (Taylor, 2006; Sarajlic, 2018, p. 28).
• Erosion of Democratic Discourse: Prolonged exposure to bullshit impairs public reasoning, making societies more susceptible to manipulation and populism (Law, 2011; p. 30).

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🤝 6. Respect and Epistemic Inequality

• Lying: Violates mutual truth-telling norms but respects the listener’s rational capacity (p. 31).
• Bullshitting: Disrespects the listener’s status as an epistemic equal by implying they are not capable of evaluating reasons (p. 32).
• Bullshit is often paternalistic, demanding epistemic submission without offering justifications (p. 33).

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✅ 7. Final Definition and Implication

“Bullshit is an act of communication by which the speaker, without the mutual suspense of the aim to communicate truth, intentionally makes assertions that have no truth-value in order to hamper the listener’s ability to construct relevant epistemic and practical reasons…” (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 35)

• Importance: This definition emphasizes intent, epistemic disruption, and moral culpability.
• Sarajlic argues for reassessing bullshit as morally and conceptually significant, particularly in a post-truth society.

🧠 1. Reader-Response Theory

• Sarajlic highlights how context, intention, and interpretation determine whether a proposition is bullshit, echoing reader-response theory’s claim that meaning is constructed through reception.
• A statement’s bullshit status depends not only on content but on the interpretive role of the audience, e.g., Deepak Chopra’s tweets may seem profound or vacuous based on the reader’s context.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 17–18)
• The concept of second-order bullshit (where a duped listener repeats vacuous claims) reinforces the idea that readers may reconstruct and circulate meaning they did not originate.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 17)

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🧱 2. Structuralism and Semiotics

• The distinction between truth-value and sentence structure (e.g., Pennycook’s examples) supports a semiotic analysis of bullshit as syntactically correct but semantically hollow.
• Bullshit operates on the level of signifiers detached from referents (cf. Frege’s sense/reference distinction), destabilizing the usual function of language.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 6–7; Frege, 1948)
• This aligns with structuralist critiques of how language systems produce meaning independently of empirical reference.

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📉 3. Postmodernism and Critical Theory

• Sarajlic critiques G.A. Cohen’s use of French postmodern philosophy (e.g., Derrida, Baudrillard) as examples of bullshit, suggesting their opacity can obscure rational meaning.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 6; Sokal & Bricmont, 1998)
• The article reinforces concerns in critical theory about obscurantism, pseudo-profundity, and ideological manipulation in academic and literary discourse.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 17; Ivankovic, 2016)

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🎭 4. Rhetorical and Discourse Theory

• Sarajlic’s work contributes to rhetorical theory by showing how bullshit functions as a manipulative mode of persuasion—replacing sound reasoning with persuasive vagueness.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 10–13)
• It reveals how speakers exploit discourse structures to appear rational while subverting the logic of argument, a topic central to discourse ethics and analysis.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 26)

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⚖️ 5. Ethical Criticism (Moral Literary Theory)

• The article offers a new framework for evaluating ethical dimensions of language in literature and speech: lies violate truth, but bullshit violates reason and autonomy.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 30–33)
• This helps refine ethical criticism of texts that may persuade through manipulation, especially in political or ideological narratives (e.g., populism or propaganda).

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👁️ 6. Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory

• Builds on Austin’s constative vs. performative distinction to argue that bullshit occupies a unique pragmatic space: constative in form, performative in effect.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 8; Austin, 1962)
• Expands speech act theory by showing that bullshit asserts premises in order to drive actions, thus linking propositional structure with pragmatic manipulation.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, p. 11)

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📣 7. Ideology and Cultural Criticism

• The paper shows how bullshit operates ideologically, especially in contexts where epistemic asymmetry is weaponized (e.g., advertisers, influencers, pseudo-experts).
  (Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 13–14; Taylor, 2006)
• It aligns with cultural criticism in analyzing how power structures create discourses that evade accountability while shaping public belief.

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🧍‍♂️ 8. Narrative Ethics and Voice

• Through analysis of speaker-intention and epistemic control, the article contributes to narrative theory by exploring the ethical stance of narrators and characters who may bullshit.
  (Sarajlic, 2018, pp. 30–32)
• This is relevant in literature where the narrator’s credibility is ambiguous, and actions are based on manipulative or vacuous justifications.