Kenneth T. Cornelius
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- Jan 5, 2005
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The following excerpt is taken from a thin little book from Princeton Press by Harry Frankfurt, a professor there. It is a serious essay, but due to censorship problems you may have to use your imagination. 
"The notion of carefully wrought bull**** involves, then, a certain inner strain. Thoughtful attention to detail requires discipline and objectivity. It entails accepting standards and limitations that forbid the indulgence of impulse or whim. It is this selflessness that, in connection with bull****, strikes us as inapposite. But in fact it is not out of the question at all. The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bull**** so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who--with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth--dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right.
Yet there is something more to be said about this. However studiously and conscientiously the bull****ter proceeds, it remains true that he is also trying to get away with something. There is surely in his work, as in the work of the slovenly craftsman, some kind of laxity that resists or eludes the demands of a disinterested and austere discipline..."
I thought this was kind of amusing. A philosophy professor at work chewing over an idea.
"The notion of carefully wrought bull**** involves, then, a certain inner strain. Thoughtful attention to detail requires discipline and objectivity. It entails accepting standards and limitations that forbid the indulgence of impulse or whim. It is this selflessness that, in connection with bull****, strikes us as inapposite. But in fact it is not out of the question at all. The realms of advertising and of public relations, and the nowadays closely related realm of politics, are replete with instances of bull**** so unmitigated that they can serve among the most indisputable and classic paradigms of the concept. And in these realms there are exquisitely sophisticated craftsmen who--with the help of advanced and demanding techniques of market research, of public opinion polling, of psychological testing, and so forth--dedicate themselves tirelessly to getting every word and image they produce exactly right.
Yet there is something more to be said about this. However studiously and conscientiously the bull****ter proceeds, it remains true that he is also trying to get away with something. There is surely in his work, as in the work of the slovenly craftsman, some kind of laxity that resists or eludes the demands of a disinterested and austere discipline..."
I thought this was kind of amusing. A philosophy professor at work chewing over an idea.
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