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A horse trailer with the words "War is bullshit everywhere"

Bullshit (also bullshite or bullcrap) is a common English expletive which may be shortened to the euphemism bull or the initialism B.S. In British English, "bollocks" is a comparable expletive. It is mostly a slang term and a profanity which means "nonsense", especially as a rebuke in response to communication or actions viewed as deceptive, misleading, disingenuous, unfair or false. As with many expletives, the term can be used as an interjection, or as many other parts of speech, and can carry a wide variety of meanings. A person who excels at communicating nonsense on a given subject is sometimes referred to as a "bullshit artist" instead of a "liar".[1]

In philosophy and psychology of cognition, the term "bullshit" is sometimes used to specifically refer to statements produced without particular concern for truth, clarity, or meaning, distinguishing "bullshit" from a deliberate, manipulative lie intended to subvert the truth.[2] In business and management, guidance for comprehending, recognizing, acting on and preventing bullshit, are proposed for stifling the production and spread of this form of misrepresentation in the workplace, media and society.[3] Within organizations bullshitting is considered to be a social practice that people engage with to become part of a speech community, to get things done in that community, and to reinforce their identity.[4] Research has also produced the Organizational Bullshit Perception Scale that reveals three factors of organizational bullshit (regard for truth, the boss, and bullshit language) that can be used to gauge perceptions of the extent of organizational bullshit that exists in a workplace.[5]

The word is generally used in a depreciatory sense, but it may imply a measure of respect for language skills or frivolity, among various other benign usages. In philosophy, Harry Frankfurt, among others, analyzed the concept of bullshit as related to, but distinct from, lying;[6] the liar tells untruth, the bullshitter aims to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true—it may be.[7]

As an exclamation, "Bullshit!" conveys a measure of dissatisfaction with something or someone, but this usage need not be a comment on the truth of the matter.

Etymology

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"Bull", meaning nonsense, dates from the 17th century, while the term "bullshit" has been used as early as 1915 in British[8] and American[9] slang and came into popular usage only during World War II. The word "bull" itself may have derived from the Old French bole, meaning "fraud, deceit".[9] The term "horseshit" is a near synonym. An occasionally used South African English equivalent, though more common in Australian slang, is "bull dust".

Although there is no confirmed etymological connection, these older meanings are synonymous with the modern expression "bull", generally considered and used as a contraction of "bullshit".

Another proposal, according to the lexicographer Eric Partridge, is that the term was popularized by the Australian and New Zealand troops from about 1916 arriving at the front during World War I. Partridge claims that the British commanding officers placed emphasis on bull; that is, attention to appearances, even when it was a hindrance to waging war. The Diggers allegedly ridiculed the British by calling it bullshit.[10]

In the philosophy of truth and rhetoric

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Assertions of fact

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"Bullshit" is commonly used to describe statements made by people concerned with the response of the audience rather than with truth and accuracy. On one prominent occasion, the word itself was part of a controversial advertisement. During the 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, the Citizens Party candidate Barry Commoner ran a radio advertisement that began with an actor exclaiming: "Bullshit! Carter, Reagan and Anderson, it's all bullshit!" NBC refused to run the advertisement because of its use of the expletive, but Commoner's campaign successfully appealed to the Federal Communications Commission to allow the advertisement to run unedited.[11]

Harry Frankfurt's concept

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In his essay On Bullshit (originally written in 1986, and published as a monograph in 2005), philosopher Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The "bullshitter", on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking "to manipulate the opinions and the attitudes of those to whom they speak":[12][13]

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.

Frankfurt connects this analysis of bullshit with Ludwig Wittgenstein's disdain of "non-sense" talk and with the popular concept of a "bull session", in which speakers may try out unusual views without commitment. He fixes the blame for the prevalence of "bullshit" in modern society upon the (at that time) growing influence of postmodernism and anti-realism in academia[12] as well as situations in which people are expected to speak or have opinions without appropriate knowledge of the subject matter.

In his 2006 follow-up book, On Truth, Frankfurt clarified and updated his definition of bullshitters:[12]

My claim was that bullshitters, although they represent themselves as being engaged simply in conveying information, are not engaged in that enterprise at all. Instead, and most essentially, they are fakers and phonies who are attempting by what they say to manipulate the opinions and the attitudes of those to whom they speak. What they care about primarily, therefore, is whether what they say is effective in accomplishing this manipulation. Correspondingly, they are more or less indifferent to whether what they say is true or whether it is false. (p. 3-4)

Several political commentators have noted that Frankfurt's concept of bullshit provides insights into political campaigns.[14] Gerald Cohen, in "Deeper into Bullshit", contrasted the kind of "bullshit" Frankfurt describes with a type he referred to as "unclarifiable unclarity" (i.e., nonsensical discourse presented as coherent and sincere but is incapable of being meaningful). Cohen points out that this sort of bullshit can be produced either accidentally or deliberately, but is especially prevalent in academia (what he calls "academic bullshit"). According to Cohen, a sincere person might be disposed to produce a large amount of nonsense unintentionally or be deceived by and innocently repeat a piece of bullshit without intent to deceive others. However, he defined "aim-bullshitters" as those who intentionally produce "unclarifiable unclarity" (i.e., Cohen-bullshit) in situations "when they have reason to want what they say to be unintelligible, for example, in order to impress, or in order to give spurious support to a claim" (p. 133).[15]

Cohen gives the example of Alan Sokal's "Transgressing the Boundaries" as a piece of deliberate bullshit (i.e., "aim-bullshitting"). Indeed, Sokal's aim in creating it was to show that the "postmodernist" editors who accepted his paper for publication could not distinguish nonsense from sense, and thereby by implication that their field was "bullshit".

Another application of Frankfurt's concept of bullshit is with regards to generative AI. It has been argued that the outputs from ChatGPT and similar chatbots should be regarded as bullshit,[16] particularly when it "hallucinates", producing confident but false information. In 2025, researchers proposed a "bullshit index" and a "bullshit taxonomy" to quantify the degree of disregard for truth in large language models.[17]

David Graeber's theory of bullshit work in the modern economy

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Anthropologist David Graeber's book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory argues the existence and societal harm of meaningless jobs. He contends that over half of societal work is pointless, which becomes psychologically destructive.[18]

Education and reasoning as immunization against bullshit

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Brandolini's law, also known as the "bullshit asymmetry principle", holds that "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than what’s needed to produce it". This truism highlights that while the battle against misinformation more generally must be fought "face to face", the larger war against belief in misinformation won’t be won without prevention. Once people are set in their ways, beliefs are notoriously hard to change. Building immunity against false beliefs in the first place is the more effective long-term strategy.[6][19]

University of Washington biologist Carl Bergstrom and professor Jevin West began a college course on "Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World".[20] They then launched the Calling Bullshit website and published a book with the same title.

As an object of psychological research

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Although attempts had been made in the past to examine bullshit and bullshitting from a scientific perspective,[21] it did not gain attention among cognitive scientists as a legitimate area of research until 2015 when Dr. Gordon Pennycook (still a graduate student at that time) and his colleagues at University of Waterloo developed the "Bullshit Receptivity Scale" (BSR), a questionnaire designed to quantify receptivity to a particular kind of bullshit that they called "pseudo-profound bullshit".[6] The development of the BSR led to Pennycook and his colleagues winning the 2016 Ig Nobel Prize (for Peace).

Further research from Wake Forest University psychologists found evidence to support Frankfurt's notion that a person is more likely to engage in bullshitting when they feel a social pressure to provide an opinion and perceive that they will be given a social “pass” to get away with it.[22] Indeed, some have theorized that social media offers a prime environment for bullshitting as it combines the social pressure to offer one's opinions on a wide variety of topics along with an anonymity that arguably provides a social “pass”. According to researchers from Queen’s University in Belfast (2008): “along with a pervasive and balkanized social media ecosystem and high internet immersion, public life provides abundant opportunities to bullshit and lie on a scale we could have scarcely credited 30 years ago”.[23]

More recently, researchers have identified a type of Dunning–Kruger effect for bullshit receptivity called the "bullshit blind spot."[24] The researchers found that those who were the worst at detecting bullshit were not only grossly overconfident in their BS detection abilities but also believed that they were better at detecting it than the average person (i.e., they have a bullshit blind spot). Conversely, those who were the best at detecting bullshit were not only underconfident in their abilities, they also believed they were somewhat worse at detecting it than the average person. The researchers referred to this underconfidence bias among the high performers as "bullshit blindsight."[25]

Given that much of the early scientific work on bullshit focused on those more likely to fall for it (i.e., the "bullshittees"), some researchers have turned their attention to examining those more likely to produce it (i.e., the "bullshitters"). For example, in 2021, a research team at the University of Waterloo developed the "Bullshitting Frequency Scale", which measures two types of bullshitting: "persuasive" and "evasive".[26] They defined "persuasive bullshitting" as a rhetorical strategy intended to impress, persuade, or otherwise fit in with others by bullshitting about one's knowledge, ideas, attitudes, skills, or competence. "Evasive bullshitting" refers to an evasive rhetorical strategy in which one provides "non-relevant truths" in response to inquiries when direct answers could result in reputational harm for oneself or others.

Building on these findings, the researchers also tested the familiar adage that “you can’t bullshit a bullshitter”. To do so, they explored associations between scores on the Bullshitting Frequency Scale and performance on measures of receptivity to pseudo-profound bullshit, pseudoscientific bullshit, and fake news. They found that higher scores of "persuasive bullshitting" positively predicted scores for all three types of "bullshit receptivity". In other words, those who are most likely to persuasively bullshit others are in turn more likely to believe persuasive bullshit, suggesting that you can indeed bullshit a bullshitter after all.[27][28]

In everyday language

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Outside of the academic world, among natural speakers of North American English, as an interjection or adjective, bullshit conveys general displeasure, an objection to, or points to unfairness within, some state of affairs. With this colloquial usage of "bullshit", which began in the 20th century, "bullshit" does not give a truth score to another's discourse. It simply labels something that the speaker does not like and feels he is unable to change.[29]

In the colloquial English of the Boston, Massachusetts area, "bullshit" can be used as an adjective to communicate that one is angry or upset, for example, "I was wicked bullshit after someone parked in my spot".[30]

See also

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References

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Further reading

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Bullshit

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from Grokipedia
Bullshit refers to a mode of or representation that evinces indifference toward the truth-value of its assertions, prioritizing instead the or impression it creates on the . Unlike lying, which operates against a background of fidelity to truth by intentionally falsifying it, bullshit disregards truth altogether, treating it as irrelevant to the speaker's purpose. This distinction forms the core of philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt's analysis in his 2005 monograph , originally developed from a essay, where he characterizes the bullshitter as one who "does not care whether the things he claims represent reality; he just prefers to say things that sound good to him" or serve his ends. Frankfurt traces the term's colloquial roots to American slang but elevates it to a philosophical category, arguing that its proliferation stems from contexts demanding verbal output—such as , , or casual conversation—without accountability to facts. The defining characteristic of bullshit lies in its phony quality: not mere error or exaggeration, but a systematic evasion of genuine engagement with , often through , platitudes, or fabricated detail. posits this as more corrosive to epistemic than lies, since the liar at least acknowledges truth's (by subverting it), whereas the bullshitter erodes that itself, fostering environments where and become optional. Empirical investigations in have corroborated these conceptual differences, finding that bullshit is produced and tolerated more readily than lies due to lower perceived costs, yet it impairs and accuracy comparably or worse—termed the "insidious bullshit ." Such studies, drawing on experimental paradigms, reveal bullshit as a causal driver of pseudoprofound beliefs, particularly when audiences lack expertise to detect its . Notable extensions of Frankfurt's framework highlight bullshit as endemic to modern institutions incentivizing output over verifiability, such as bureaucratic reporting or opinion-driven media, though these analyses caution against overgeneralization without rigorous demarcation from benign imprecision. Controversies arise in applying the to evaluate public , where accusations of bullshit can devolve into partisan critique unless anchored in Frankfurt's criteria of truth-indifference; nonetheless, its diagnostic utility persists in dissecting phenomena like "alternative facts" or unfalsifiable that prioritize narrative coherence over empirical correspondence.

Etymology and Historical Usage

Origins and Early Attestations

The term "bull," signifying nonsense, empty boastful talk, or falsehoods, entered English usage in the early 17th century, independent of any literal connection to the animal or papal bulls. This precursor likely derived from earlier forms like Old French bole meaning deception or trickery, evolving to denote fraudulent or valueless verbiage by the 1600s. By the 19th century, "bull" was commonly applied in colloquial contexts to dismiss insubstantial claims, as in phrases critiquing exaggerated rhetoric. The compound "bullshit," intensifying "bull" with the connotation of worthless excrement to evoke insincere or pretentious speech, first appeared in around 1914. The cites early attestations from British writer circa 1915 in private correspondence and American poet in similar contemporary writings, marking its emergence in literary and informal circles. corroborates the 1914 debut in , aligning with broader adoption in transatlantic during , where it denoted evasive or fabricated military reports and bravado. T.S. Eliot employed "bullshit" as early as 1910 in unpublished notebook drafts, including the satirical poem "The Triumph of Bullshit," which lampooned verbose academic and cultural pretensions as vaporous rhetoric. These private uses predate public citations but reflect the term's informal crystallization among intellectuals amid early 20th-century disillusionment. Folk etymologies linking "bullshit" to agricultural practices, such as mixing bovine excrement with fertilizers, or directly to "cock-and-bull" stories from the 17th century, lack documentary support and contradict attested timelines; the latter phrase, denoting tall tales, predates but does not compound into "bullshit." Instead, the term's formation follows standard slang intensification, appending "shit" for emphatic disdain toward rhetoric akin to refuse.

Evolution from Literal to Figurative Meaning

The term "bullshit" originated as a literal compound referring to the excrement of male , with "" denoting the animal and "" its , a usage predating the sense by centuries in English agricultural contexts. The related term "," meaning nonsense or empty talk, appeared as early as the , possibly deriving from Irish "bulla" for lies or exaggerated speech, laying groundwork for later fecal metaphors in . The shift to a figurative meaning—insincere, exaggerated, or indifferent unrelated to literal excrement—solidified in early 20th-century American and , with attestations around 1914-1915 marking its entry into printed for "eloquent but empty verbiage." Literary figures accelerated this evolution: employed "bullshit" circa 1910-1916 in private notes critiquing pretentious writing, while used it in a 1914 letter to to dismiss subpar prose as "prize sample of bull shit." These instances reflect a of rhetorical fluff indifferent to truth, distinct from outright . By the 1910s, the term proliferated through during , where American soldiers applied it to officious orders and , enhancing its pejorative force against authority's bombast post-1918. Concurrently, the abbreviation "B.S." emerged around 1912 as a retaining the vulgar edge, often printed to evade censors while signaling the same disdain for falsehoods or . This figurative dominance eclipsed the literal by the mid-20th century, as evidenced in popular media and everyday discourse, though the original scatological root persisted in etymological awareness.

Core Definitions and Distinctions

Bullshit Versus Lies and Honest Mistakes

The distinction between bullshit and lies hinges on the speaker's relation to truth. A involves deliberate : the liar acknowledges an objective truth but intentionally misrepresents it to mislead others. Bullshit, by contrast, arises from indifference to truth's status, where the producer prioritizes , , or self-presentation over accuracy, often deploying vague or unsubstantiated assertions that neither affirm nor deny verifiable facts. This causal difference in intent— requiring truth-recognition versus bullshit evading it altogether—enables bullshit to scale more readily in high-volume communication, as it demands no ongoing alignment with or risk of exposure through contradiction. Bullshit further diverges from honest mistakes, which stem from genuine efforts to report facts but falter due to incomplete , faulty , or oversight, while retaining a commitment to evidential standards. In bullshit, no such effort occurs; claims are crafted without regard for alignment to empirical reality, frequently incorporating rhetorical flourishes or unverifiable generalizations that resist falsification. For instance, a vaguely touting "transformative outcomes" without mechanisms or metrics exemplifies bullshit, as its causal detachment from scrutiny facilitates replication across contexts, unlike such as miscalculating a projection based on erroneous but sincere inputs. This indifference undermines trust more insidiously than isolated errors, as it erodes norms of without the liar's traceable intent or the mistake's correctible basis.

Bullshit Versus Nonsense or Hyperbole

Bullshit, as characterized by philosopher , involves a disregard for truth while simulating the form of genuine assertion or , thereby creating an appearance of substance without substantive commitment. This pretense distinguishes it from , which typically lacks any ambition to convey factual or meaningful content and is often transparently absurd or playful, as in the surreal propositions of Dadaist art or Lewis Carroll's , where the intent is avowedly to defy conventional sense rather than to persuade. thus invites dismissal or amusement on its own terms, without the deceptive mimicry that enables bullshit to infiltrate serious contexts by evading scrutiny over veracity. Hyperbole, a rhetorical figure involving deliberate overstatement for emphasis or effect, operates under a shared understanding between speaker and audience that the claim exceeds literal bounds, such as declaring a minor inconvenience "the end of the world." Unlike bullshit, does not feign alignment with truth evaluation; its exaggeration is conventionally flagged as non-literal, preserving accountability to underlying intent while avoiding the causal risk of false belief formation. Bullshit's potency arises precisely from forgoing such signals, allowing inflated or vague statements to masquerade as precise insights, which fosters uncritical receptivity in domains like corporate communications where pseudo-technical phrasing—e.g., "synergistic shifts"—obscures emptiness under a veneer of expertise. Linguistically, bullshit can be differentiated through its employment of evasive, jargon-laden constructions that mimic profundity without testable content, contrasting with nonsense's overt grammatical or logical violations (e.g., "") or 's marked scalar extremes in everyday . Empirical analyses of such reveal bullshit's reliance on syntactic complexity to deter interrogation, enabling it to propagate where nonsense is rejected as irrelevant and hyperbole is contextualized as stylistic flair. This structural pretense underpins bullshit's deceptive efficacy, as it exploits cognitive defaults toward assuming coherence in ostensibly serious utterances, unlike the transparency of its alternatives.

Philosophical Analyses

Harry Frankfurt's Framework

In his 2005 essay "," philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt defines bullshit as a mode of marked by indifference to the truth-value of one's assertions, distinguishing it sharply from lying. Whereas a liar recognizes an objective truth but deliberately misrepresents it to deceive, the bullshitter neither affirms nor denies truth standards; their aim is to project an impression of competence or , regardless of factual accuracy. This intentional disregard arises from the pressure to speak without genuine knowledge, as in contexts demanding facile responses. Frankfurt contends that bullshit poses a greater threat to rational than lies because it evades epistemic altogether. Lies, by opposing truth, inadvertently uphold its as a benchmark; bullshit, however, erodes this foundation by substituting arbitrary fabrications, fostering environments where truth becomes irrelevant. This dynamic facilitates bullshit's unchecked spread in rhetorical settings with minimal , such as claims untethered to or casual debates prioritizing over verification. In politics, it manifests in statements crafted for electoral appeal without regard for verifiability, amplifying its corrosive effect on public deliberation. Frankfurt's framework has been credited with illuminating bullshit's causal contribution to declining discourse quality, providing a precise analytic tool for dissecting modern communicative pathologies beyond mere falsehoods. Critics, however, argue it overemphasizes the bullshitter's subjective intent at the expense of broader contextual incentives, such as institutional rewards for superficial output in low-verification domains, potentially understating systemic drivers of proliferation.

Extensions and Alternative Conceptions

Subsequent philosophical analyses have extended Frankfurt's framework by emphasizing bullshit not merely as indifference to truth but as a seductive epistemic that undermines through an initial facade of profundity. In a , Florian Cova critiques Frankfurt's process-oriented for failing to account for "truth-tracking bullshit," such as embellished resumes or menu descriptions that consider facts yet prioritize impression over veracity. Cova proposes an alternative output-based conception: a statement qualifies as bullshit if it seems compelling or meaningful at first glance but proves trivial, false, or incoherent under scrutiny by a competent evaluator. This view highlights bullshit’s threat as a "fragile ," fostering complacency and eroding truth-oriented habits by exploiting cognitive biases toward novelty, distinct from lies which target specific deceptions. Further extensions apply Frankfurt's indifference-plus-misrepresentation-of-motives to philosophical practice itself, terming it "bullshit philosophy." Here, the bullshitter poses as a earnest seeker while pursuing rhetorical advantage or status, indifferent to genuine resolution. This incurs epistemic costs by squandering communal resources on and moral harms by manipulating trust, as the pretense violates the cooperative norms essential to . Such analyses underscore bullshit’s dual threat: internal to disciplines like , where it masquerades as profundity, and broader, by normalizing unconscientiousness. Alternative conceptions recast bullshit’s core indifference as a lapse in discursive responsibility, modulated by social rather than pure intent. In uncertain or high-stakes environments, bullshit functions as evasive —obscurantist or bald admissions of reframed entertainingly—to sidestep , but its viability depends on the speaker’s and power. Marginalized voices face harsher penalties for similar tactics due to epistemic injustices like , implying bullshit is not democratically accessible but privileged by positions. Critiques expand this to unintentional variants, where inadvertent disregard for veracity still wrongs by eroding shared epistemic standards, though such broadening risks diluting ’s focus on deliberate posturing. Philosophical discussions also link bullshit’s prevalence to relativist doctrines, portraying it as a byproduct of environments where —treating truth as mere —and erode objective anchors. Empirical correlations show subjectivist orientations predict greater tolerance for pseudo-profound nonsense, suggesting bullshit flourishes amid such views, which undermine truth-seeking in elite discourse by equating opinion with unverifiable assertion. Right-leaning critiques frame this as symptomatic of postmodern ’s causal erosion of epistemic rigor, rejecting equivalences between bullshit and legitimate interpretive pluralism while cautioning against academic biases that normalize vague, impressionistic under guises of inclusivity.

Psychological and Cognitive Dimensions

Receptivity to Bullshit and Pseudoprofundity

The Bullshit Receptivity Scale (BSR), developed by Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, and Fugelsang in 2015, quantifies individuals' tendency to perceive pseudo-profound statements—such as "Wholeness quiesces infinite phenomena"—as meaningful or profound. Participants rate the profundity of such statements on a , with higher scores indicating greater receptivity; the scale demonstrates (α = .82) and correlates positively with overclaiming knowledge (r = .29), dogmatism (r = .21), and paranormal beliefs (r = .24), but negatively with performance (r = -.24), a measure of analytic thinking. These associations suggest that receptivity arises from reduced engagement in deliberate, truth-oriented reasoning rather than deliberate endorsement of falsehoods. The pseudoprofundity effect, empirically demonstrated in laboratory experiments, underlies this receptivity: vague, abstract phrases constructed from common buzzwords (e.g., "" paired with "chaos") evoke an illusion of depth due to their superficial impressiveness and lack of verifiable content. In studies, such statements receive higher profundity ratings than platitudes or factual claims (e.g., mean rating of 4.13 vs. 3.49 on a 7-point scale), with ratings correlating with ontological confusion—the conflation of vagueness with substance (r = .37). This effect persists even when participants are aware of the statements' artificial generation, highlighting a toward inferring profundity from linguistic form over semantic substance. Individual differences in bullshit receptivity show consistent patterns: it is inversely associated with cognitive ability (r = -.25 to -.35 across studies) and analytic thinking styles, such as those measured by the , while being uncorrelated with intuitive thinking or education level alone. Receptivity remains elevated among those prone to beliefs (r = .31) and is lower in groups emphasizing epistemic vigilance, though it spans political ideologies without strong partisan skew. A 2023 analysis by Wilson reframes the BSR as context-dependent, arguing that receptivity reflects conditional laxity in truth-tracking norms rather than a stable trait, with experimental manipulations of reasoning prompts reducing scores by up to 15%. This causal emphasis on situational factors, like reduced analytical , aligns with findings that priming careful thinking diminishes acceptance of pseudo-profound claims.

Mechanisms of Production, Detection, and Individual Differences

Bullshit production arises from situational and cognitive factors that foster indifference to truth-value, such as elevated social or professional demands to express opinions on unfamiliar topics coupled with minimal expectations of verification. Empirical investigations indicate that individuals engage in bullshitting more frequently when the costs of admitting outweigh those of fabricating , particularly under time constraints or pressures that prioritize over accuracy. This propensity correlates with traits like Machiavellianism, where moderates the tendency to generate vague, persuasive statements without regard for evidential support. Unlike deliberate , which requires tracking falsehoods, bullshit generation demands less , enabling rapid output in contexts like meetings or public discourse where coherence suffices over verifiability. Detection of bullshit hinges on cognitive processes that scrutinize semantic emptiness and evidential disconnection, rather than mere factual inaccuracy, rendering traditional less effective against its vagueness. Studies employing bullshit receptivity scales reveal that analytic thinking—measured via tasks like the —enables differentiation between profound and pseudo-profound statements, with higher reflectors assigning lower profundity ratings to vacuous assertions. Experimental paradigms, such as rating pseudo-profound bullshit (e.g., "Wholeness quiesces into the strong distillation of the lucid sage's longing"), show that detection improves with deliberate reflection but falters under intuitive processing, where superficial impressions of impressiveness prevail. Overconfidence exacerbates blind spots: low performers in detection tasks overestimate their abilities and relative standing, a pattern linked to metacognitive miscalibration rather than domain-specific knowledge. Individual differences in bullshit production and detection manifest through stable psychological traits and cognitive styles, with empirical scales quantifying bullshitting frequency and receptivity. The Bullshitting Frequency Scale measures self-reported tendencies to mislead via indifference, positively associating with and negatively with , while predicting real-world outcomes like interpersonal . Receptivity to pseudo-profound or scientific bullshit—e.g., accepting "Quantum harmonizes the metaphysics of existential " as meaningful—correlates inversely with and , and positively with dogmatism and beliefs across studies totaling over 1,900 participants. Research by Turpin et al. (2021) indicates that bullshit ability—the skill in generating superficially impressive but semantically empty statements—positively correlates with intelligence measures, functioning as an honest signal of cognitive capacity, with higher intelligence linked to better bullshitting performance but not greater willingness to bullshit. Self-regulatory factors, including impulse control, further differentiate producers from detectors, as those prone to bullshitting exhibit reduced inhibition in generating ungrounded claims during controlled tasks. These variances underscore causal roles of reflective capacity over mere , with low-reflection individuals showing heightened susceptibility in uniform informational environments that reinforce prior intuitions without challenge.

Bullshit in Economic and Organizational Contexts

David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs

, an anthropologist with left-anarchist political commitments, articulated the bullshit jobs in his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, building on a 2013 essay that elicited thousands of reader testimonials describing perceived pointless . The core hypothesis posits that a substantial portion of modern jobs—estimated by Graeber at up to 40% based on informal surveys and —are "bullshit jobs," defined as forms of paid so utterly pointless, unnecessary, or harmful that workers cannot justify them to themselves or others, yet feel compelled to feign . Examples include excessive administrative roles, such as corporate lobbyists creating redundant paperwork or receptionists in low-traffic offices, where the work's superfluity leads to deliberate time-wasting or invented tasks to fill the day. Graeber categorized these roles into five types: flunkies (who exist to make superiors appear important, like doormen at empty buildings); goons (aggressive roles like telemarketers or corporate lawyers in pointless disputes); duct tapers (those fixing systemic flaws temporarily, such as software patchers addressing poor design); box tickers (administrators generating compliance reports with no real oversight value); and taskmasters (managers or consultants overseeing the aforementioned categories, often multiplying ). Drawing from over 1,000 submitted accounts, Graeber argued this prevalence stems not from market inefficiencies but from a deliberate : elites foster "managerial ," where demand for useless work sustains hierarchies, prevents idleness that might foster rebellion, and enforces obedience through tedium, echoing Marxist notions of alienation but attributing "spiritual violence" to the moral corrosion of pretending value exists where none does. The theory gained traction by amplifying documented worker dissatisfaction, with Graeber's informal polls showing many respondents across sectors self-identifying their roles as , a sentiment corroborated in subsequent studies where 5-19% of workers reported similar views, though Graeber framed his as a highlighting systemic rather than an empirically validated . Through this lens, bullshit jobs perpetuate a cycle where gains from enable proliferation of non-value-adding positions, serving ideological control over economic necessity.

Empirical Critiques and Alternative Explanations

A 2021 empirical study surveying over 1,200 workers found that only 5% self-reported their jobs as socially useless, contradicting Graeber's assertion that 37-40% or more of jobs are bullshit. The analysis distinguished subjective alienation—where workers perceive limited societal contribution—from objective pointlessness, noting that the former affects up to 18% but often reflects incomplete awareness of indirect benefits rather than inherent futility. Many roles labeled as bullshit, such as compliance and administrative positions, enable value creation by addressing coordination challenges in complex, regulated systems; for example, they reduce legal risks and facilitate transactions that would otherwise stall core productive activities. Workers frequently undervalue these contributions due to cognitive biases favoring visible, direct outputs over diffuse, supportive functions, as evidenced by qualitative responses in the same study where participants acknowledged hidden utilities upon reflection. The expansion of such jobs arises primarily from regulatory proliferation and information asymmetries, not deliberate managerial waste or capitalist ideology. In sectors like higher education, administrative staff grew by over 28% from 2010 to 2020, driven by federal regulations, demands, and compliance mandates rather than market-driven inefficiency. Public bureaucracies amplify this trend, with U.S. federal administrative positions expanding amid entrenched practices that prioritize process over outcomes, outpacing equivalents when adjusted for scale. Service sector productivity data further undermines claims of systemic pointlessness, with U.S. nonfarm labor productivity rising 2.1% annually from 2007 to 2023, including gains in administrative and support services through specialization and that integrate seemingly peripheral roles into efficient value chains. Market incentives sustain these positions only insofar as they yield net benefits, such as cost avoidance or , challenging narratives that attribute proliferation solely to ideological flaws in .

Bullshit in Politics, Media, and Public Discourse

Incentives and Prevalence in Political Rhetoric

Politicians face structural incentives to employ bullshit , as its inherent enables broad electoral appeal without the risks associated with verifiable commitments or outright falsehoods. Unlike lies, which presuppose a known truth and invite disproof, bullshit disregards truth altogether, allowing speakers to evade by shifting focus or reinterpreting statements post-hoc. A 2023 analysis outlines how this strategy rationally responds to electoral pressures: politicians can signal ideological alignment to diverse voter bases through ambiguous language, minimizing backlash from failures while maximizing perceived . For instance, strategic in campaign promises has been shown to reduce retrospective voter sanctions, as parties craft statements open to multiple interpretations, thereby hedging against blame for unfulfilled specifics. This incentive structure contributes to bullshit's prevalence over lies in contemporary political discourse, particularly in post-truth environments where low verification costs in amplify unscrutinized claims. Empirical modeling indicates that bullshit proliferates because it incurs fewer cognitive and reputational penalties for producers and audiences alike; media cycles prioritize viral soundbites over , enabling rapid dissemination without deep scrutiny. Populist movements exemplify this: slogans like "" on or "equity for all" in often embody bullshit by evoking emotional resonance through undefined ideals, fostering supporter loyalty irrespective of implementation details or outcomes. Studies on rhetorical patterns confirm higher endorsement of such vague political statements correlates with electoral , as they bypass policy debates in favor of affective signaling. Causal factors reinforcing prevalence include institutional tolerances that normalize bullshit, especially in environments with asymmetric . Progressive-leaning institutions, such as certain academic and media outlets, exhibit greater leniency toward vague aligned with equity or systemic narratives, often framing them as aspirational rather than testable assertions, which contrasts with stricter deconstructions of conservative equivalents like tariff hype. This disparity, rooted in ideological filtering, sustains bullshit's utility across spectra but entrenches it where verification incentives are weakest, as evidenced by persistent use in policy despite documented voter disillusionment with unkept specifics. Overall, these dynamics position bullshit as a low-cost dominance in rhetoric-heavy arenas like debates and manifestos, outpacing lies due to its immunity to truth-based refutation.

Role in Media, Academia, and Institutional Narratives

In outlets, bullshit manifests through reporting practices that exhibit indifference to truth, favoring vague narratives that align with institutional biases over rigorous , thereby amplifying during events like health crises or geopolitical conflicts. Empirical analyses indicate that such vague coverage can accelerate public comparably to deliberate falsehoods, as seen in modeling of news diffusion where sustains erroneous beliefs without direct lies. This contributes to plummeting trust levels, with Gallup surveys recording U.S. media at a record low of 28% in 2025, reflecting perceptions of narrative-driven distortion over empirical accountability. Systemic left-leaning in journalistic organizations, evidenced by disproportionate negative coverage of certain political figures and underreporting of contradicting progressive orthodoxies, enables this by substituting ideological signaling for grounded in verifiable . In academia, bullshit proliferates via unsubstantiated claims cloaked in scholarly apparatus, where ideological conformity supplants methodological rigor, producing outputs akin to rather than . For instance, fields like have published works that confidently assert contested social theories without empirical falsification, prioritizing narrative fit over data-driven scrutiny, as critiqued in examinations of academic dynamics. This pattern extends to discourses on topics like climate modeling or identity categories, where models indifferent to contradictory datasets—such as overestimated warming projections or untested causal assumptions—are advanced without proportional engagement of disconfirming evidence, eroding institutional credibility. Public trust in higher education has correspondingly declined, with Gallup showing reduced confidence tied to perceived politicization and value erosion by 2025. Institutional narratives, particularly in regulatory and corporate bureaucracies, embed bullshit through performative policies that signal virtue without measurable outcomes, such as certain (DEI) mandates enforced post-2020 amid social pressures. Critiques highlight these as resource-intensive rituals detached from efficacy data, fostering "bullshit jobs" that prioritize compliance optics over operational reality, as echoed in analyses of bureaucratic expansion. Broader surveys, including the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, document institutional trust erosion across sectors, attributing declines to perceived inauthenticity and overreach where empirical validation is sidelined for consensus-driven rhetoric. This entrenchment, often unexamined due to source biases in self-reporting academia and media, undermines causal realism by institutionalizing indifference to truth in favor of sustained narratives.

Cultural and Linguistic Manifestations

Everyday Language and Colloquial Expressions

In colloquial English, "bullshit" functions primarily as a or to label statements as , lies, or exaggerations devoid of factual basis, often uttered to express immediate rejection in informal settings. For instance, phrases like "That's bullshit!" serve as blunt dismissals during casual arguments or conversations, signaling disbelief without requiring elaboration. Similarly, "Don't give me that bullshit" directly confronts perceived , emphasizing pragmatic dismissal over detailed rebuttal. The "calling bullshit" operates as a performative , publicly challenging and repudiating claims deemed objectionable or unsubstantiated, thereby enforcing norms of veracity in exchanges. This usage promotes by prompting speakers to justify assertions, functioning as a social mechanism to curb empty in everyday debates. Over time, the term has abbreviated to "BS" in text messages, emails, and informal professional dialogue, retaining its core dismissive intent while adapting to concise communication styles. Such expressions appear with notable regularity in English-speaking contexts involving critiques of authority or institutional claims, where they underscore resistance to perceived overreach or evasion, as evidenced in idiomatic compilations tracking vernacular patterns.

Cross-Cultural Variations and Synonyms

Equivalent expressions for "bullshit" in English include "horseshit," which retains vulgar intensity, and less profane alternatives like "poppycock" or "bunk," signaling dismissal of unsubstantiated claims. In French, "conneries" conveys foolish or deceptive nonsense, often used informally to reject implausible statements. German equivalents such as "Quatsch" denote absurd or nonsensical talk, typically with a connotation of impatience toward evident falsehoods. Spanish speakers employ "tonterías" for trivial foolishness or "mierda" for cruder rejection of lies, mirroring the original's spectrum from mild to explicit disdain. In Japanese, "戯言" (zaregoto) refers to idle, insincere, or exaggerated speech, emphasizing frivolity over outright . These terms vary in intensity and social acceptability, reflecting linguistic norms where levels align with cultural thresholds for direct . Empirical research on bullshit receptivity reveals cross-cultural universals in detection capacity, yet modulation by cognitive styles: analytic thinking more effectively counters pseudo-profound bullshit in individualistic cultures emphasizing logical scrutiny, whereas holistic orientations in collectivist societies may foster greater susceptibility. Belief in cultural relativism, prevalent in some postmodern-influenced contexts, positively correlates with receptivity to bullshit, as it undermines objective truth standards and elevates subjective interpretations. Cross-national surveys of political bullshit, conducted in multiple countries including the , , and , demonstrate consistent positive associations with ideological factors like free-market support, but detection remains filtered by epistemic vigilance levels that differ by societal emphasis on evidence over narrative harmony. In high-context cultures, indirect communication norms may reduce overt production of bullshit but heighten tolerance for ambiguous to preserve social cohesion, contrasting with low-context environments where stigma attaches more readily to unverifiable assertions.

Consequences and Mitigation

Societal Impacts and Erosion of Trust

The proliferation of bullshit, characterized by indifference to truth in discourse, has contributed to a measurable decline in in institutions. Analyses indicate that this epistemic laxity corrodes foundational reliance on shared facts, as bullshitters prioritize over accuracy, fostering environments where verifiable information is routinely disregarded.[web:0] In organizational and societal contexts, such practices impair collective decision-making by eroding interpersonal and institutional , with studies framing bullshit as a core problem in that disrupts knowledge transmission.[web:7] [web:42] Empirical data from 2025 underscores this erosion, particularly in media trust, which reached a record low of 28% among U.S. adults for accurate and full reporting, down from peaks above 50% in the late .[web:49] [web:50] This decline correlates with the spread of ungrounded rhetoric and , where institutional narratives increasingly exhibit bullshit-like traits—vague, manipulative assertions detached from evidence—further alienating audiences skeptical of biased or evasive communication.[web:11] [web:19] Peer-reviewed links such patterns to broader institutional , as repeated exposure to non-truth-oriented normalizes cynicism toward entities like and academia.[web:12] Bullshit exacerbates societal polarization by rewarding rhetorical vagueness over substantive debate, with incentives in democratic systems encouraging politicians to deploy bullshit for electoral gains, thereby deepening divides.[web:23] [web:48] Receptivity to political bullshit, measured as endorsement of vague slogans, positively correlates with attitudinal extremity and partisan entrenchment across countries, amplifying echo chambers where opposing views are dismissed as untrustworthy.[web:22] [web:26] This dynamic fosters generalized cynicism, as publics perceive as performative rather than truth-seeking, hindering consensus on amid ungrounded claims that precipitate failures, such as delayed responses to verifiable crises due to rhetorical . A key downstream effect is heightened susceptibility to theories, with bullshit receptivity—tolerance for pseudo-profound nonsense—serving as a predictor of in unfounded narratives, independent of other factors like .[web:32] [web:37] Studies across samples show that individuals prone to accepting bullshit exhibit stronger correlations with endorsement, as both stem from reduced analytic scrutiny and comfort with epistemic ambiguity, eroding societal resilience to evidence-based reasoning.[web:30] [web:36] While proponents occasionally posit bullshit as a minor social lubricant for harmony in low-stakes interactions, empirical assessments reveal negligible benefits outweighed by systemic harms, including epistemic decline that stalls through impaired knowledge-sharing and trust-dependent .[web:3] [web:8] In aggregate, these effects manifest as broader causal chains: from routine bullshit tolerance to weakened institutional legitimacy, culminating in polarized, conspiracy-prone publics less equipped for truth-grounded progress.[web:48]

Strategies for Detection and Resistance

Detection of bullshit requires cultivating habits of analytical scrutiny, such as questioning vague or pseudo-profound statements lacking empirical grounding and demanding evidence of or replicability. demonstrates that individuals with higher problem-solving abilities, which involve creative yet to identify inconsistencies, exhibit reduced susceptibility to pseudo-profound bullshit and related . Similarly, in skills has been shown to lower bullshit receptivity by enhancing metacognitive accuracy and reducing illusory confidence in vacuous claims. Skepticism toward institutional gatekeepers, including organizations, forms a key countermeasure, as analyses reveal partisan asymmetries in their application, with left-leaning biases leading to disproportionate scrutiny of conservative claims. Over-reliance on such entities risks amplifying rather than objective verification, underscoring the need for independent verification through primary data or multiple corroborating sources. Resistance strategies emphasize structural incentives favoring truth-telling over compliance, such as market mechanisms that penalize deception via and effects, in contrast to mandates that often entrench bureaucratic opacity. Prediction markets, for instance, aggregate dispersed and incentivize accurate by rewarding truthful participation, outperforming centralized directives in eliciting reliable . Institutionally, decentralizing diminishes bullshit proliferation by curtailing state-subsidized roles that persist absent regulatory privilege, thereby aligning incentives with productive outcomes over performative busyness. in formal logic and further bolsters individual resilience, as probabilistic reasoning training correlates with diminished acceptance of unsubstantiated narratives across contexts.

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