The age of bullshit

Writers from Orwell to former Czech president Václav Havel have warned of the soul-eroding effects of such language. Havel, writing under Communist rule, saw the state's reliance on ritualised slogans as a way of enforcing conformity. To refuse to repeat the official phrases was an act of resistance. Today's bullshit is less coercive but no less insidious. It lulls rather than frightens. It flatters rather than threatens. But it asks of us the same thing: a suspension of disbelief.

This is not to suggest that all bureaucratic language is inherently dishonest. Nor is it to sneer at the complexity of governing modern societies. Public life does involve compromises, consultations, trade-offs, and a fair bit of administration. But complexity does not excuse opacity. As Orwell put it, "the great enemy of clear language is insincerity."

The real problem with bullshit is that it becomes self-replicating. When everyone speaks it, it becomes the expected register. Speaking plainly becomes a risk. Clarity sounds naïve. Precision seems rude. And so the system sustains itself - not through conspiracy, but through habit.

What, then, is to be done?

The answer, if there is one, is not cynicism. The cynic shrugs and says, "That's just how things are." The sceptic, by contrast, asks questions. He reads the report and asks what, precisely, is being said. He hears the minister speak of "resilience frameworks" and asks: for whom? To what end? How will we know if it has worked?

This kind of questioning is difficult. It slows things down. It produces fewer headlines. But it is also the only known antidote to bullshit.

In the end, public language shapes public thought. It determines not only what we say, but what we notice. A society fluent in bullshit becomes slowly deaf to urgency, blind to fraud, and numb to failure. It stops expecting clarity, and then forgets how to provide it.

Frankfurt warned that bullshit undermines our relationship to reality. Orwell warned that it makes thinking itself difficult. Both were right. And so the next time you hear someone "leaning in" to a "whole-of-system innovation dialogue," try asking a simple question: what are they actually doing? If the answer is elusive, you may be hearing the sound of something being said just to make an impression - the hum of public life in the age of bullshit.