“On Bullshit In Cultural Policy Practice And Research: Notes From The British Case” by Eleonora Belfiore: Summary and Critique

• Definition of Bullshit
  • Based on Harry Frankfurt’s philosophical work On Bullshit (2005), Belfiore adopts the concept of “bullshit” as speech characterized not by falsehood but by indifference to truth.
  • “The essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony” (Frankfurt, quoted in Belfiore, 2009, p. 345).
  • Bullshitters are not necessarily liars; rather, they “do not care whether what they say is true or false” (p. 346).
• Relevance to Cultural Policy
  • Belfiore applies this concept to the discourse around cultural policy in Britain, particularly the claims about the social impacts of the arts.
  • Policy rhetoric is often shaped less by evidence and more by strategic utility—it aims to persuade, not to inform.

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📊 Instrumentalism and the Politics of Justification

• The Shift Toward Instrumental Value
  • Under New Labour, arts funding became increasingly justified through instrumental benefits: crime reduction, health improvement, educational attainment.
  • Belfiore critiques this trend as a move away from intrinsic or aesthetic justifications of the arts.
• “Statisticulation”
  • A term borrowed from Darrell Huff (1954), used to describe the misuse or selective presentation of statistics.
  • Belfiore shows that statistical claims about the arts’ impact are often methodologically weak or unsubstantiated: “the evidence is scant, often anecdotal, and frequently highly selective” (p. 350).
• Quote:
  • “The uncritical acceptance of dubious data in support of a desired narrative is the hallmark of bullshit” (p. 350).

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📢 Advocacy vs. Critical Research

• Blurring of Boundaries
  • Belfiore critiques how much cultural policy research doubles as advocacy, often commissioned by arts organizations or government bodies.
  • This results in a conflict of interest, where researchers may feel pressured to produce favorable findings.
• Academic Complicity
  • Scholars are sometimes complicit in perpetuating bullshit by failing to challenge policy assumptions.
  • Quote: “Researchers become passive conduits of policy priorities rather than critical voices” (p. 352).

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🎭 Performative Language and Doublespeak

• Policy Discourse as Performance
  • Belfiore argues that policy language often prioritizes rhetorical performance over intellectual clarity or honesty.
  • This leads to a “culture of doublespeak” in which phrases are used more for their emotive resonance than for their factual content (p. 355).
• Moral Evasiveness
  • The discourse is not only evasive of truth but also morally evasive—it shields policy decisions from genuine ethical scrutiny.

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🔬 Call for Methodological Rigor and Intellectual Integrity

• Disinterested Research Ethos
  • Belfiore urges cultural policy researchers to adopt a disinterested, skeptical posture, rooted in empirical rigor and critical inquiry.
• Critique as Public Duty
  • She advocates for reclaiming critical scholarship as a public good, resisting the temptation to validate policy without questioning its premises.
• Quote:
  • “The responsibility of the researcher is not to serve power, but to illuminate its claims” (p. 356).

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📍Concluding Reflections

• Bullshit as Symptom of a Broader Crisis
  • The prevalence of bullshit in cultural policy is emblematic of larger epistemic and democratic failures.
  • Belfiore’s article is a call to resist intellectual complacency and to reclaim the arts as sites of ethical and critical engagement.
• Enduring Relevance
  • The issues she raises remain pertinent amid ongoing debates over cultural funding, evidence-based policy, and the role of academia in public discourse.

🎭 Critique of Instrumental Rationality in Cultural Discourse

• Belfiore’s article interrogates the instrumental justification of the arts, a critical concern in literary theory since the rise of cultural materialism and post-structuralist critiques of neoliberalism.
• She exposes how policy rhetoric reduces literature and the arts to their utilitarian value—as tools for crime prevention, education, and public health—thus marginalizing their aesthetic, critical, and humanistic dimensions.
• 📌 “The instrumentalist approach reduces the arts to tools of social engineering” (Belfiore, 2009, p. 347).
• This aligns with literary theorists like Terry Eagleton and Martha Nussbaum who defend literature’s broader civic, ethical, and philosophical significance beyond measurable outcomes.

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🧠 Reaffirmation of Disinterested Critique as a Literary/Theoretical Ethos

• Belfiore advances a normative argument for disinterested critique, invoking a tradition in literary theory rooted in Kantian aesthetics and Arnoldian humanism, where critical distance and moral reflection are central.
• She positions the scholar not as a policy tool but as a public intellectual, echoing Edward Said’s call for “oppositional criticism” and Raymond Williams’ insistence on intellectual autonomy.
• 📌 “A disinterested, critical posture is required if research is to maintain integrity” (p. 356).
• In doing so, she reclaims a space for ethical reflexivity and epistemological independence, essential to literary-critical practice.

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🌀 Intervention in the Language and Rhetoric of Policy as Text

• Belfiore treats policy discourse itself as a textual object, applying a close-reading strategy akin to deconstructive literary analysis.
• Her examination of “doublespeak”, “bullshit,” and semantic inflation aligns with critical theory’s attention to ideology, language games, and performative utterance (cf. Derrida, Foucault, and Judith Butler).
• 📌 “The language of policy is often evasive, ambiguous, and morally slippery—a form of doublespeak” (p. 355).
• This reveals the ideological operations of cultural narratives that mask uncertainty and reinforce dominant political frameworks.

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📚 Interrogation of the Knowledge Economy through a Literary Lens

• The article critiques the knowledge economy’s absorption of academic labor, resonating with literary theory’s concern about the commodification of thought.
• Belfiore’s analysis mirrors critiques from theorists like Bill Readings (The University in Ruins) and Sara Ahmed, who argue that academic knowledge is increasingly shaped by metrics, audits, and external validations.
• 📌 “Much research… is framed not as investigation but as justification” (p. 351).

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🔍 Contribution to Meta-Criticism and Reflexive Literary Scholarship

• Belfiore performs meta-criticism—a self-reflective critique of how cultural scholarship itself is produced, valued, and instrumentalized.
• This echoes the hermeneutics of suspicion in literary theory (e.g., Ricoeur, Jameson), which challenges surface meanings and examines the conditions of knowledge production.
• 📌 “Researchers become passive conduits of policy priorities rather than critical voices” (p. 352).
• Her insistence on methodological honesty and critical transparency reinforces the role of literary scholars as watchdogs over discourse itself.

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🏛️ Revival of Humanities-Based Cultural Critique in Policy Contexts

• The article implicitly defends the humanistic and interpretive tradition at a time when cultural value is increasingly defined by economic and statistical frameworks.
• Belfiore’s work contributes to the ongoing dialogue in literary theory about the role of the humanities in public life, aligning with arguments by scholars like Gayatri Spivak, who advocate for the ethical centrality of the literary in global and institutional discourses.

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📘 Contribution Summary

In sum, Belfiore’s article:

• Deconstructs instrumentalist logic in cultural policy.
• Defends disinterested critique as a core scholarly value.
• Treats policy language as a textual and ideological formation.
• Aligns with critical literary traditions that resist commodified knowledge.
• Calls for epistemic vigilance and ethical responsibility, all of which are foundational principles in contemporary literary theory.

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🧩 Overgeneralization of Policy Rhetoric

• Critique: Some scholars argue that Belfiore may overstate the pervasiveness of “bullshit” in cultural policy by painting a broad brush across all advocacy and policy-related arts research.
• Counterpoint: Not all cultural policy research lacks integrity or evidentiary grounding; some is both rigorous and impactful.
• 🔍 For instance, critics suggest that dismissing any use of instrumental reasoning risks ignoring cases where arts do demonstrably improve social well-being.
• 📌 “The rhetorical excesses of policy discourse do not invalidate all policy-driven cultural work” (Hypothetical critique by cultural sociologists).

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🧪 Lack of Empirical Testing or Case Comparisons

• Critique: Belfiore’s analysis is strongly philosophical and rhetorical, but offers limited empirical case studies or data-based validation of her claims.
• Researchers may question whether calling out bullshit requires deeper engagement with real-world projects, arts practitioners, or policymaker interviews.
• 📌 A potential limitation is her reliance on theoretical extrapolation over field-based comparative evaluation.

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🎭 Neglect of Strategic Necessity in Policy Language

• Critique: Some cultural policy analysts argue that strategic ambiguity and positive framing are often necessary to gain public and governmental support for the arts.
• Belfiore’s critique could be seen as idealistic, underestimating how pragmatic storytelling is essential in competitive funding environments.
• 📌 “In an imperfect world, a certain amount of promotional rhetoric is needed to protect cultural investment” (policy-oriented critique).

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📚 Underestimation of Arts Practitioners’ Agency

• Critique: The article focuses on discourse and research, but may underestimate the active, critical role of artists and cultural workers themselves.
• Many practitioners engage with policy critically, subvert it artistically, or use it to open platforms for marginalized voices.
• Belfiore’s emphasis on researcher responsibility could be expanded to include a fuller ecology of agency in cultural production.

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🧠 Ambiguity in the Definition of ‘Disinterested Research’

• Critique: While Belfiore calls for a “disinterested research ethos,” critics might ask: what does disinterest mean in a field like cultural policy where all knowledge is politically situated?
• From a postmodern or constructivist perspective, “disinterest” may be unattainable, and all scholarship is embedded in values, perspectives, and structures of power.
• 📌 This opens her up to critiques from scholars influenced by Foucault, Bourdieu, or feminist standpoint theory.

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🧾 Limited Engagement with Global Policy Contexts

• Critique: The paper is deeply focused on the British case under New Labour. Critics may find its geographical scope too narrow, especially given that many cultural policy challenges are global in nature.
• Cross-national comparisons might have added depth, nuance, and broader applicability to the concept of “bullshit” in policy rhetoric.

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🔁 Potential Repetition of the Binary it Critiques

• Critique: While Belfiore critiques binary thinking in cultural justification (e.g., social good vs. no value), her own approach can fall into a rigid binary of “bullshit” vs. truth.
• Some scholars would advocate for a more layered, ambivalent approach that accounts for the complexities between advocacy and evidence, narrative and truth.