“Steering Clear of Bullshit? The Problem of Obscurantism” by Viktor Ivanković: Summary and Critique

🧠 Overview: Addressing Gaps in Bullshit Theory

• Ivanković critiques existing definitions of “bullshit” by Harry Frankfurt and G.A. Cohen.
• He introduces obscurantism as a distinct and under-theorized form of bullshit.
• The central claim: “Obscurantist bullshit pushes the envelope of the current conceptual frameworks” (Ivanković, 2016, p. 2).

---

👤 Frankfurt’s Producer-Oriented Account

• Frankfurt defines bullshit by the intent of the speaker: the bullshitter “is indifferent to how things really are” (Frankfurt, 1988).
• Bullshit is worse than lying because it disregards truth entirely.
• Ivanković critiques this view as too narrow: “Frankfurt’s essentialism… is insufficiently inclusive” (Ivanković, 2016, p. 3).

---

📦 Cohen’s Product-Oriented Account

• Cohen focuses on the product of bullshit, particularly unclarifiable unclarity.
• He targets philosophical texts (e.g., Althusser, Hegel) that appear deliberately incomprehensible.
• Ivanković aligns with Cohen but notes a lack of emphasis on the bullshitter’s intent:

“What Cohen wants to look at is bullshit taken independently from the producer” (p. 6).

---

🧩 Introducing Obscurantism

• Defined as the deliberate use of opacity to deceive or elevate trivial claims.
• Not all obscure writing is obscurantist; intent matters.
• Quote: “There is an important normative difference between being an obscurantist and someone who merely writes obscurely” (p. 4).

---

🎭 Bullshit as a Three-Part Relation

• Ivanković introduces a triadic framework:
  1. Bullshit (the product),
  2. Bullshitter (the producer),
  3. Bullshittee (the audience).
• This model expands on both Frankfurt’s and Cohen’s accounts by emphasizing the audience’s interpretive role.

---

🧪 Mechanisms of Obscurantism (via Boudry & Buekens)

• Ambiguity as virtue: vagueness perceived as profundity.

Example: Lacan’s “the Other” — a term so multivalent it becomes meaningless (p. 14).

• Immunizing strategies: use of relativism or constructivism to deflect critique.

“Truth is always relative to a discourse” (p. 15).

• Authority and seduction: leveraging academic status or obscure jargon to “insulate arguments from criticism” (p. 16).

---

🧰 The Practical Challenge of Intent

• Ivanković argues for the importance of identifying intentional deception.
• But intent is hard to detect: “A more narrow conception that I offer… brings up the practical difficulty of identifying authors as bullshitters” (p. 17).
• Nevertheless, intention remains central to moral fault.

---

🧾 The “Obscuria” Thought Experiment

• Hypothetical society where obscure writing is the norm.
• He presents 4 types of philosophers in Obscuria:
  1. Deliberate obscurantists (clear bullshitters).
  2. Unaware mimics (merely obscure).
  3. Culturally conditioned defenders (borderline cases).
  4. Regretful conformists (morally permissible obscurantism).
• Concludes: intent and context both matter, but not all obscurants are equally blameworthy.

---

📏 Clarity as a Normative Principle

• Obscurantism must be scrutinized, but mere avoidance of bullshit is not enough.
• Clarity demands “self-criticism, effort, and pedantry” (p. 20).
• Quoting Williamson:

“The fear of boring oneself or one’s readers is a great enemy of truth” (Williamson, 2006, p. 185).

---

✅ Conclusion

• Obscurantist bullshit is a normative and epistemic problem.
• Both the producer’s intent and the audience’s receptiveness must be considered.
• The proposed framework offers a more comprehensive lens to identify and challenge academic bullshit.

🧠 1. Critical Theory / Frankfurt School

• Connection: Engages with Harry Frankfurt’s foundational work On Bullshit, expanding it to challenge ideological and epistemic manipulation in intellectual discourse.
• Contribution:
  • Ivanković criticizes Frankfurt’s essentialism for excluding obscurantist forms of academic manipulation.
  • He re-frames bullshit as part of a broader ideological structure, where language is used not just to mislead but to establish power.
  • “Frankfurt’s essentialism… is insufficiently inclusive” (Ivanković, 2016, p. 3).
• Relevance: Adds nuance to ideological critique by addressing how intellectual obfuscation reinforces epistemic authority without substance.

---

📜 2. Post-Structuralism

• Connection: Challenges the celebration of ambiguity found in postmodern and post-structuralist texts (e.g., Lacan, Derrida, Žižek).
• Contribution:
  • Argues that not all ambiguity is emancipatory or profound—some is strategically obscure to resist falsifiability and critique.
  • Discusses “ambiguity as value”: the view that interpretive multiplicity = profundity.
  • “Obscurantists rely on loose and undefined concepts in equally loosely configured systems…” (p. 14).
• Relevance: Critiques deconstructionist aesthetics when they cross into intentional mystification; calls for a normative check on opacity in theoretical language.

---

✍️ 3. Rhetorical and Discourse Theory

• Connection: Explores how rhetoric and style function as tools of deception in philosophical and theoretical texts.
• Contribution:
  • Identifies rhetorical strategies like “hermeneutic overinvestment” and “immunizing strategies” (e.g., appeals to relativism).
  • Reveals how obscurantist writing manipulates the audience’s cognitive and interpretive biases.
  • “Immunizing strategies consist of general and theory-independent arguments… such as radical relativism about truth” (p. 15).
• Relevance: Deepens rhetorical theory by introducing moral dimensions to discourse analysis—when obscurity is used for manipulation.

---

🔎 4. Reader-Response Theory

• Connection: Positions the bullshittee (audience) as an active participant whose interpretive charity and bias are exploited.
• Contribution:
  • Emphasizes how readers’ own assumptions and “principle of charity” are co-opted into validating nonsense.
  • Highlights the role of hermeneutic effort in the production of meaning—often in vain.
  • “…the reader’s charitableness remains effective until other cognitive biases become operative” (p. 16).
• Relevance: Challenges the assumption that meaning is always co-constructed; alerts to asymmetries of intent and interpretation.

---

🧰 5. Structuralism / Semiotics

• Connection: Considers how language structures and signifiers are sometimes intentionally emptied of meaning.
• Contribution:
  • Analyzes terms like Lacan’s “the Other” as floating signifiers with excessive ambiguity.
  • Critiques when signs are used not for sense-making but for impression and mystique.
  • “This testifies only to the ‘rich’ and ‘profound’ character of the insights we have been offered” (p. 14).
• Relevance: Reinforces structuralist critique of semantic instability and connects it to moral and epistemic responsibility in theory-making.

---

🧾 6. Marxist Literary Theory

• Connection: Reflects the concerns of analytical Marxists like G.A. Cohen in exposing vacuous ideological jargon in academic Marxism.
• Contribution:
  • Targets “Althusserian Marxism” and similar trends for cloaking trivial insights in pompous, obscure prose.
  • Defends a Marxism free from obfuscation—“Marxism without bullshit.”
  • “Cohen specifically targets Althusserian Marxists… as bullshit” (p. 6).
• Relevance: Reorients Marxist criticism toward conceptual clarity, rational accountability, and anti-elitism in theory.

---

💬 7. Philosophy of Language & Literary Style

• Connection: Questions what makes writing obscure vs. obscurantist, and how style becomes a tool of deception.
• Contribution:
  • Proposes a normative distinction: “writing obscurely” ≠ “writing to obscure.”
  • Introduces “Obscuria” as a fictional academic setting to explore the ethics of stylistic conformity.
  • “There is an important normative difference between being an obscurantist and someone who merely writes obscurely” (p. 4).
• Relevance: Offers tools for evaluating style, precision, and authorial responsibility in literary and academic prose.

---

🧭 8. Ethics of Interpretation / Clarity as a Virtue

• Connection: Engages with literary ethics—how clarity itself is a moral stance in writing.
• Contribution:
  • Advocates for the principle of clarity as a normative goal in scholarly discourse.
  • Rejects the idea that aesthetic complexity should override truth-seeking or intelligibility.
  • “Avoiding bullshit is not conducive to an exhaustive principle of clarity” (p. 4).
• Relevance: Pushes literary theory to recognize clarity and sincerity as critical virtues, not just stylistic preferences.

⚖️ 1. Over-Reliance on Authorial Intent

• Ivanković insists that intentionality distinguishes obscurantism from mere obscurity, but:
  • Intent is notoriously difficult to verify in academic writing.
  • Risk of subjectivity: readers might project intent without sufficient evidence.
  • Undermines the practicality of the theory: “To identify obscurantists, we must infer intention—an unstable criterion.”

---

📉 2. Undermines Value of Complexity

• The article risks conflating complexity with deception, implying that opaque language is suspicious by default.
  • Philosophical or literary works may be complex due to the subject, not due to bad faith.
  • For example, works by Heidegger or Derrida often require dense terminology for ontological nuance.

---

🔄 3. Circularity in Defining Bullshit

• Ivanković criticizes Frankfurt’s essentialism but does not clearly escape it himself:
  • His expanded model still hinges on mental states and normative assumptions.
  • The term “bullshit” remains slippery despite the three-part structure (bullshit–bullshitter–bullshittee).

---

🔍 4. Under-theorized Audience Role

• While Ivanković introduces the “bullshittee”, the analysis of audience psychology is limited and simplified.
  • More engagement with reader-response theory or cognitive linguistics could enhance this part.
  • The model underestimates cultural literacy and interpretive competence among readers.

---

🧪 5. Selective Targeting of Theoretical Traditions

• The critique is implicitly biased against continental/postmodern thinkers, e.g. Lacan, Žižek, Althusser.
  • Neglects to critique obscurity in analytic philosophy, despite acknowledging it.
  • Risks appearing as an ideological defense of analytic clarity rather than a balanced philosophical inquiry.

---

🚫 6. Incomplete Conceptual Boundaries

• The distinction between “merely obscure” and “obscurantist” remains unstable:
  • Some hypothetical cases (e.g., the “Obscuria” philosopher) show that moral fault is gradient, not binary.
  • No clear criteria to consistently classify authors into categories.

---

🧭 7. Pessimism Toward Clarity

• Despite endorsing the principle of clarity, Ivanković ends with a pessimistic conclusion:
  • Suggests that even avoiding bullshit does not lead to clarity.
  • This may weaken the normative thrust of the entire argument.