Introduction to (the scholarly study of) Bullshit
3 Examples and Case-Studies in Bullshit
Some Canadians feel duped by their breakfast cereal
This CBC News story[1] highlights the issue of food packaging that technically complies with regulations but is still misleading.
context [because I did a bunch of research but writing it up coherently – like mini-essay form – is taking longer than I thought (good lesson here):
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cereal-packaging-confusion-1.7076730?cmp=apple-news_cbc-news_comments#comments-17076730
https://lg2.com/en/our-work/re-energizing-a-true-breakfast-icon
https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-tests-five-foods-1.6630122
https://strategyonline.ca/2021/07/20/kellogg-sets-a-new-vector-for-its-high-protein-cereal/
Mayor Olivia Chow and the Toronto 2024 Budget (Nico)
Bullshit is a vague, broad concept that can be broken down into several categories (I.e. strategic bullshit, fake news, conspiracies, etc.). With that being said, political bullshit is in a realm of its own, a beast of an entirely different nature that cannot be summed up in one case study. However, a fantastic example of bullshit that is both strategic and political can be found in the following National Post article:
To summarize the article, there are three pieces of preexisting knowledge that must be known to understand the true extent of language and public manipulation at play:
1) Olivia Chow is the mayor of Toronto, married to former NDP Leader Jack Layton until he passed away (and as a result, is thought to be relatively left-wing)
2) Doug Ford is the Premier of Ontario, representing a mid-right wing sect of the Progressive Conservative Party
3) Justin Trudeau is the Prime Minister of Canada, leading a center-left wing sect of the Liberal Party
With those points being understood, Olivia Chow is actually leading a relatively centrist, budget conscious city council. During her election campaign to become mayor, Premier Ford was staunchly opposed to Chow as mayor, going as far as to caution Toronto voters into voting purely for the sake of not electing Chow. Despite that, since she won the election by a landslide, Doug Ford has been a fervent supporter publicly. Thus our first example of bullshit emerges: in order to win seats in the Greater Toronto Area during the next provincial election, the Premier is ensuring the public believes that he is on good terms with the mayor of Toronto. Without these seats under his belt, his chances for reelection are much slimmer.
When announcing the 2024 budget for Toronto, Mayor Chow announced that the city’s deficit needed to be brought down, even if it was a slow process. As a result, she proposed a tax increase of 10.5% for all Torontonians at a time when hardly anyone can afford the tax hike. This is where the second example of public manipulation comes to light: she called on the provincial and federal governments to supply massive amounts of money to the city of Toronto to combat the deficit, and Premier Ford agreed without a moment of delay. Once again, he needs those GTA seats in order to get reelected – what better way to win over hearts of voters than by injecting massive amounts of money into their city?
Prime Minister Trudeau, on the other hand, refused to send aid to Toronto, asserting that there was no room in the budget for such a trivial cause. After all, why should Toronto get money while other cities suffer? Yet another case of language and public manipulation emerges: Chow asserted in the name of the city budget that “The Challenges Toronto Faces Are Unique” (Denley, 2024). By simply calling the city unique, those very words set it apart from every other community in the country. If one was to ask Torontonians about whether or not their city was special, they would most assuredly answer with a resounding yes. The title of the budget emphasizes to the federal and provincial governments exactly why they ought to pitch in.
Yet this did not work on the Prime Minister or the federal government, as they have yet to contribute. This is where the final, and perhaps greatest, example of bullshit language manipulation makes itself clear: “Either the federal government comes up with $250 million, fast, or the city will impose what it’s calling the “Federal Impacts Levy” (Denley, 2024). While some may see a simple title, pundits and many members of the public see a finger being pointed at the federal government, a government that itself is hugely reliant on the electoral ridings the GTA is home to. Failing to contribute to the city’s budget will make the federal government look insensitive and may even lose them GTA votes. However, caving in and helping the city of Toronto battle their deficit will make the federal Liberals look weak – it’d only be a matter of time before Vancouver, Montreal and every other metropolitan area in the country started extorting them for financial aid.
So what should the federal government do to combat the completely legal political extortion by the city of Toronto? That answer is not evident and is subjective, but what is crystal clear is the strength of language as it relates to public manipulation. In that regard, Mayor Olivia Chow is proving a force to be reckoned with on the field of bullshit.
References
Denley, R. (2024, January 18). Olivia Chow has the Trudeau liberals in a tight corner — for now… National Post.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/randall-denley-olivia-chow-has-the-trudeau-liberals-in-a-tight-corner-for-now
EV (Electric Cars), The Power Grid and The Government’s Zero-net Emissions Goal.
In this article, the writer analyzes the statement from the government about the plan to move towards all EV (electric cars). The government is encouraging everyone to switch to an EV by 2050 as a part of Canada’s plant to reach zero-net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Emily Chung, the writer of the article, overviews questions surrounding the power grid and if this switch will be too much for our current electricity system to handle.
While Chung states that technically yes, this can happen, it is a very big change that would require mass amounts of money and a complete redesign to the current power grid and electricity system. The Canadian government did say that this plan will take more than $400 billion to replace the current grid and electricity system, and without this massive investment, Canada’s power grids will not be able to handle the added pressure.
Canadian Climate Institution found that Canada would have to double or triple the electrical grid capacity to be able to support this shift towards EV. Without this, the grid risks instability, power outages, and unreliability for Canadians. The Canadian Climate Institution states that to meet this goal of EV by 2050, we will have to grow the system capacity at 3-6 times faster than it has in the past decade.
Another issue this poses is the lack of inter-regional co-ordination and inter-provincial co-ordination. Already, provinces have chosen a side as to whether they are in support or not, and without full co-operation throughout Canada, the plan will not be effective.
With all these factors involves, the Canadian government simply asking citizens to start switching over to EV is completely unrealistic without a proper plan implemented to ensure that this switch over will not create more problems. Following Frankfurt’s definition of “bullshit”, the indifference to how things really are, this is a prime example of bullshit. The Canadian government has yet to reach an agreement across all provinces, create a proper budget, or effectively start expanding electricity grid capacity. The indifference the government has shown to all these changes that need to happen, and still actively encouraging Canadians to purchase EV’s as their next car, highlights the indifference to how things really are in this situation. The pretense that buying an EV will help our carbon emissions is misleading in that it will not solve all the problems, it will create new ones unless properly handled.
This is a good example of spin. While yes, the carbon emissions will decrease significantly if we all switch to EV, it is ignoring the inevitable problems that will arise with the electricity system if this switch happens. Spinning the EV switch to the positive outcome, to mislead individuals from the work, time, money, effort and co-operation it will take to reach this zero-net carbon emissions by 2050 plan.
References:
Chung. E. (2023, August 15). Will Electrifying Cars and Home Heating Break Canada’s Grid?. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/electrification-grid-ev-heating-1.6935663
Donald Trump Using Racially Charged Language During COVID-19 Outbreaks
Former president Donald Trump placed the blame for coronavirus on China, using racially changed language including referring to COVID-19 as the “Chinese virus” or Kung Flu” (Ong, 2021). These actions led to a rise in hate crimes against American individuals of Asian descent (the AAPI community). Many conspiracy theories and narratives were created which targeted the AAPI community, with propaganda leading many to believe that China is at fault for the virus. AAPI voices have been underrepresented and misrepresented by politicians and has continuously allowed the media to continue with these negative and harmful stereotypes sparking more potential hate crimes.
[Example of Donald Trump using this language] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/2020-time-capsule-5-the-chinese-virus/622116/
Trump appears to be using bullshit as a way to allow propaganda to arise which puts the AAPI community in a bad light. More specifically, Trump uses spin in the creation of his narrative, which Thompson (2016) describes as a way of “taking away emotional connotation” to words, phrases, or events (p. 139). It is a way to alter the tone of a message, while maintaining its meaning and reference. Trump is creating a new narrative through his choice of words, while the virus is heavily believed to have originated in China, labeling it as a “Chinese virus” is a form of bullshit used to misrepresent China and Chinese people. It is a form of “persuasive definition” which Trump appears to be using as a way to clear the United States name from the virus altogether, in a sense avoiding the blame through the use of lies (p. 139). This scenario could also be seen as equivocation, which depends on the alternative meaning of words, in this instance with the way Trump uses his words generally. The word “Chinese” is used in his language, but it also carries the narrative that he is placing blame on the country and its people, simply because of an outbreak which occurred in the country.
The use of persuasive language is especially important when it comes to politicians and political campaigns. Yaser & Alireza (2020) explain the spoken language as a primary mode of communication, including the ways in which some use it persuasively as a means to project shared social beliefs as to what is considered right or wrong. Persuasive language is particularly important to politicians when attempting to persuade audiences in order to win elections or sway the way in which people feel about certain subjects. Trump appears to be persuading Americans to believe that China is at fault for the virus, and Americans have less to do with it. This is a lie of course, especially as China had many strict lockdowns to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as opposed to the United States whose lockdowns were less strict or productive.
[RL]
References:
Khajavi, Y., & Rasti, A. (2020). A discourse analytic investigation into politicians’ use of rhetorical and persuasive strategies: The case of US election speeches. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 7(1), 1740051-. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2020.1740051
Ong, J. C. (2021). Online disinformation against AAPI communities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Carnegie, Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/10/19/online-disinformation-against-aapi-communities-during-covid-19-pandemic-pub-85515
Thompson, G. (2016). A Taxonomy of Bullshit. Propaganda and Rhetoric in Journalism.
The spread and usage of Bullshit by the media during the Covid-19 Pandemic
In today’s day and age, where the media runs many aspects of our lives, like the ability to access information, news, and content is at the forefront we are susceptible to the information that may cause the consumers to believe what they are reading or hearing just because they are reading and hearing it. This is what I would like to call the consumption of bullshit. This has been seen more than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire world was in a negative state of not knowing the truth because of the variety of narratives that were being spread via the media by forces and motives unknown to the consumers. After doing research, the article “Antecedents and Consequences of Misinformation Sharing Behavior among Adults on social media during COVID-19” exemplifies how bullshit was being spread and used as a weapon against people during this crucial point in history. The methods that are being used within the articles, “The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses PRISMA (2020; Page et al, (2021) Which is considered to be the most used system when talking about health-related issues and because of this is used by the top medical journals across the globe. This is highly transparent with strict guidelines that allow the readers to follow along and have a clear view of how they are dealing with the bullshit and misinformation that they were sampling.
Relating this example to our studies, we can see how this article is addressing the topic of bullshit in discourse. This spread of bullshit during the Covid-19 pandemic is in many ways a form of propaganda for those who are benefitting by the misleads and manipulation of the audiences. Another parallel between the reading and our study is the evaluation of bullshit. By looking at the methods that were used we learn a strategy on how to critically evaluate bullshit, through looking at the purpose of the statement, and the underlying assumptions.
References
Malik, A., Bashir, F., & Mahmood, K. (2023). Antecedents and consequences of misinformation sharing behavior among adults on social media during covid-19. SAGE Open, 13(1), 215824402211470. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440221147022
Manipulative Rhetoric: Unveiling the Spin Doctor Phenomenon in Political Communication
https://youtu.be/znndE1TR2UY?si=h5whPs-rvN5BES71
One of the CNN reporters questions Donald Trump about his usage of the word “invasion” in reference to the southern border crossers at this link. He changed the subject from the reasons he mocked immigrants in his ads to the reporter’s disregard, the constant spread of fake news by his organization CNN, and his treatment of Sarah Huckabee, a member of his party. This phenomena can also be called spin doctor phenomena where they use rhetoric that minimizes the seriousness of the claims by portraying them as attacks that are politically motivated or without any basis in reality. An illustration of this kind elucidates its application to communication and draws attention to the manipulative nature of it: those who are responsible for the creation of images and advertisements have been aware of how to give their stories this effect. This in turns into a propaganda that CNN reports fake news when repeated multiple times. “propaganda is not limited to totalitarian regimes but rather intrinsic to mass society and as such important for all kinds of regimes, including democratic ones” The objective of the spin doctor is to change public opinion and create a more sympathetic image for the politician, regardless of the underlying concerns, by the meticulous manipulation of the narrative. The control of the narrative and the mitigation of any potential damage to the individual’s reputation are the goals of this endeavor. In this particular instance, the phenomena of the spin doctor is being put into practice.
VB
- see https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cereal-packaging-confusion-1.7076730?cmp=apple-news_cbc-news_comments#comments-17076730 ↵
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