On Mar 20, 2007, at 1:49 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> radical leftist bullshit (as defined by Frankfurt)
You mean Frankfurt = radical leftist bullshit, or Frankfurt = a critique of radical leftist bullshit?
[WS:] The latter, cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Bullshit
His idea is that bullshit is a form of discourse that in unconcerned with the truth function. Its main purpose is to project a certain impression or image of the speaker, and thus consists of statements that accomplish just that without any concern whether these statement are true or false. In other words, bullshit statements may be true or false, but for a bullshitter it does not matter as long as they project a desired image of him/her.
Frankfurt argues that much of political discourse in this country is bullshit, as defined above, so radical leftism is not alone here. You would think, however, that people who profess higher than normal critical ability would refrain from this from of speech for a more substantive analysis.
Wojtek