Liars, Bullshitters, and Gadflies

Learning from Socrates 2,500 years later.

Next week, we’ll return to our read through of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Today, we’ll discuss a lesson from another ancient text: Plato’s Apology.

In the year 399 B.C., in the city of Athens, a philosopher was put to death. The man, Socrates, had been on a mission, and it appeared to have failed.

Years before, Socrates’ friend and companion Chaerephon visited the Oracle of Delphi, Pythia. Chaerephon asked Pythia if any man was wiser than Socrates — and the Oracle said no. Socrates, according to Pythia, was the wisest man. One version of her statement is passed down as follows: 'Sophocles is wise, Euripides is wiser, but of all men Socrates is wisest.’ When Chaerephon informs Socrates of this fact, he does not believe his friend. Socrates knows that he is ignorant of a great many things — so how can he be the wisest? And thus, his mission begins. He begins to meet with the great men of Athens, his home city, seeking their wisdom. But without fail, he discovers that these men do not know what they claim to know. 

Socrates’ approach to philosophy was simple. He would find men who claimed to have expertise on some matter, whether that be religion, rhetoric, ethics, metaphysics, politics, and so on. He would then ask them to teach him. As they would begin to lecture, he would ask them questions. Difficult, probing questions, usually, that showed the problems with their way of thinking. He would ask for clarifications, present counterexamples, and pose dilemmas. In Plato’s dialogues, the common ending is one of frustration; Socrates’ interlocutors do not provide a satisfactory answer to Socrates’ questions, and so they leave. 

This approach to philosophy won Socrates a number of loyal followers, Plato included. But it also won him a number of political enemies. Socrates became known as a gadfly — a man buzzing about, disturbing the peace and upsetting the powerful. Eventually, rumors began to spread. Socrates was undermining the state religion of Athens and corrupting the youth, including the sons of some very wealthy men. 

The Death of Socrates

The story of Socrates’ death comes in three parts, each found in a different dialogue by Plato. In the first part, found in the dialogue we call the Euthyphro, Socrates is on his way to the Athenian assembly. He will be on trial, arguing principally against a young man named Meletus. On his way to his trial, Socrates encounters a priest named Euthyphro, the title character of the dialogue. They argue over the nature of the good and of piety, with Euthyphro unable to offer a satisfactory definition despite his insistence that he is an expert in matters of piety and the gods. In the second part, Socrates is at trial. In this dialogue, which we call The Apology, Socrates is accused of impropriety, impiety, and atheism. Socrates offers a forceful defense — or an apologia, the Greek word from which we derive the word ‘apologist’ — but it is not enough. He is found guilty. The trial then moves to the matter of an appropriate sentence. Because Socrates does not believe he is guilty, he refuses to admit guilt in exchange for a lesser sentence. And so the Assembly concludes that there is only one fitting punishment remaining: death. The third and final part of Socrates’ story is found in the dialogue known as Crito. Several of Socrates’ friends and students find him in prison and offer to help free him. They will find him safe passage to another city, they say, where at the very least Socrates can go on living. But Socrates refuses. He believes that as a citizen, he has a duty to obey the rulers of his city. And so, given his convictions, he has no choice but to die. 

On a first reading, the story of Socrates may be read as the story of a fool, an idealist who refuses to engage in realpolitik. As a former member of the assembly, and as an observer of Athenian politics, Socrates surely knew that he would be found guilty. And given his experiences with the powerful men of Athens, whom he had frustrated with philosophical inquiry for years, he would have known that his arguments, no matter how good, would not change their minds. And he then refuses to recognize the errors and corruptions of his city, clinging to an idealistic idea of a social contract which has been violated by those in power. On this reading, Socrates is a victim — not just of political violence, but of his own foolishness. When students are introduced to Socrates, this is the common interpretation. Why would he refuse to compromise? is a question often heard in the classroom after a lecture on the Crito. 

On a second reading, however, the story becomes a tragedy. A great man, Socrates, meets his downfall. And while the beginnings of Socrates’ troubles were long ago, starting with his friend Chaerephon’s visit to the Oracle of Delphi, the action of the tragedy happens in a short time frame. A classical tragedy, it was commonly held, should limit itself to a single revolution of the sun. The three dialogues nearly do this, with the Euthyphro and Apology happening within hours of each other. There is a gap between the trial found in The Apology and the attempted freeing of Socrates in Crito, but the gap is inconsequential. For the purpose of the story, it could have occurred that very night. Had Plato not been concerned with veracity, he may have made the change to conform to the standards of a tragedy — and nothing about the story would have changed. On this reading, Socrates is still a victim. But he is no fool. He is a man of thought and action, one who lives by his principles. His principles may indirectly cause his death, but that is no reason to abandon them. From this point of view, Socrates is an admirable figure, refusing to compromise his own principles even when the city he loves has done so. 

In order for a tragedy to be compelling, and thus for it to evoke any sort of emotion from the audience, the main character must be virtuous — that is, he must be a good man, though he need not be perfect. (In fact, he may be better if he is flawed in some way.) We see in Socrates a number of virtues. He is bold and courageous, holding to his opinions even when he may suffer for them. He is open-minded, always willing to engage in debate and dialogue. He is restrained, never allowing himself to be overcome by emotion. He is authentic, refusing to represent himself as anything other than what he is. Most of all, he is a lover of the truth. And that is what makes him a tragic hero. It is his virtues, not his flaws, that lead to his downfall. 

There are two major lessons that we can draw from the story of Socrates. First, there has always been, and there always will be, a portion of the population who do not have sufficient regard for the truth. Modern American political commentators sometimes speak of our present situation — which we give many names, like post-truth, fake news, misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, Russian bots, internet trolls — as if it is novel. But really, it is just a difference in implementation and technology.

The second lesson that we can draw is that enemies of the truth often win in the short term — but in the long term, the truth wins out. Socrates dies, voluntarily drinking the hemlock and accepting the judgment of his city. In this way, he loses. But who has won in the end? The man Meletus, who for many of us exists only as a character in the story of Socrates’ death? Or the philosopher who stood by his convictions, spoke truth to power, and accepted the consequences? It is Socrates, not Meletus, who we can look to as a model for our own lives. It is Socrates who is honored with the phrase Socratic method, a style of teaching used in classrooms around the world. It is Socrates who wins — not because of who he was, but because he was willing to speak the truth. 

Frankfurt on Bullshit

There are two primary enemies of the truth: liars and bullshitters. At first, we might want to say that these two are the same. Perhaps ‘bullshitter’ is just a colorful name for a liar, and as a corollary perhaps ‘liar’ is the the term we prefer in polite society. After all, both liars and bullshitters seem to have a tenuous relationship with the truth. It turns out, however, that liars and bullshitters are very different, and the threats they pose to the pursuit of truth are very different as well. 

It was the philosopher Harry Frankfurt, in his short but insightful book On Bullshit, who made this case most forcefully in the contemporary era. Frankfurt begins with the assumption that liars and bullshitters — and correspondingly, lies and bullshit — are different things, and he supports this through examining linguistic evidence. He begins with the Oxford English Dictionary, which does not definitively prove anything. (An early lesson that philosophers learn is that the dictionary is never definitive, and it is often wrong.) But the OED entries for bullshit do indicate that there is a difference. Since it has been nearly twenty years since the publication of On Bullshit, however, it would be useful for us to check for ourselves. 

Merriam-Webster indicates that there are two senses of ‘bullshit’: a noun and a verb. The noun indicates nonsense, and especially foolish or idle talk. The verb is more interesting, in that it seems to have two subtly different senses. The first is more in line with the noun: ‘to talk foolishly, boastfully, or idly.’ The other is more neutral: ‘to engage in a discursive discussion.’ The second sense is not particularly interesting for our discussion, and so we will focus on the first. 

A bullshitter, based on Merriam-Webster’s definition, is one who talks foolishly, boastfully, or idly. The definition given indicates a lack of concern about the truth but some amount of concern for the self. After all, the man who boasts is one who does not care about the truth but does care about how others regard him. A bullshitter, we could say, is one who subordinates a concern for the truth to his concern for himself. 

This would, however, be too strong, and it would fail to capture any meaningful distinction between a liar and a bullshitter. After all, most liars are motivated by self-interest; they want to mislead you in order to further their own ends. It is a rare liar who lies out of concern for others or for no particular reason. 

Central to Frankfurt’s theory of bullshit is that there is a lack of care. There is no appeal to authenticity, and there is no care for the truth. The liar does care about the truth; he just has decided that falsity is better given his interests. And in fact, lying requires knowledge of the truth. The liar knows the truth but says the opposite. The bullshitter makes no distinction between truth and falsity — he just does not care whether or not he is speaking truly. He may not even know what is true or false about the matter. He simply speaks, with no motivation to correctly or incorrectly represent the world. ‘The essence of bullshit,’ Frankfurt says,’is not that it is false but that it is phony.’ 

Going back to our example of Socrates’ trial, we can see that Meletus, the man who led the prosecution, was not a bullshitter. It seems that Meletus was someone who knew the truth about Socrates but was willing to lie in order to defeat an enemy. Meletus is simply a liar — though in his case, his lies had great consequences, leading to the death of an innocent man. The rest of the assembly are not necessarily liars. Some of them may have been ignorant of the facts but persuaded by Meletus; they were misguided, but they were not liars or bullshitters. Others, however, may not have even cared about the facts of the case at all — they just wanted Socrates dead. They would be bullshitters. Bullshit, despite its connotations of informality and levity, can have serious consequences. 

The most fascinating part about Frankfurt’s book, in my estimation, is that he concludes that bullshit is in fact a bigger problem than lies. Liars recognize the authority of truth but ignore it; bullshitters do not recognize that the truth has any authority at all. He does not even pay attention to the truth. ‘By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are,’ Frankfurt concludes.

Our Present Environment

There is no formal measure for bullshit, and it is difficult to imagine how such a thing could ever be developed. To know that a piece of expression is bullshit requires knowing the state of the speaker’s mind, and while we can make reasonable inferences when speaking about individuals we encounter, achieving certainty is impossible. And when we speak in generalities, the task becomes even more complicated. There will always be exceptions, or missed nuances and complexities, to a generalization, and we should acknowledge them. We should not, however, let this complication prevent us from saying anything at all about the matter. 

With that in mind, I will speak frankly: most media, and certainly most of the internet, is suffused with bullshit. Television shows, including news programs, are driven primarily by a profit motive; they want to keep you watching for as long as possible so that they can run more ads. The same is true for most websites and social media platforms. Our ad-driven media economy incentivizes sensationalism, us vs. them thinking, and spectacle. It does not incentivize telling the truth. 

Importantly, I am not claiming that the media is made up of liars. I do not believe this to be the case, and I will note that there are members of the media who are admirable in their commitment to the truth. We are fortunate to have them. But a large portion of the media have become bullshitters, in that they have loosened and made more casual their relationship with the truth. Sometimes, this is because they want to tell a good story, and the truth is not their chief priority. Sometimes it is because they are constrained by time, always chasing their next deadline, and they have to loosen their standards in order to meet it. (There is surely an economic factor here, given the tightening budget of most newsrooms.) Sometimes it is because they want something to be true, and accordingly they choose not to pursue alternative ways of thinking. Sometimes it is because they are desperate for ad revenue. Sometimes individual members of the media simply want to boost their own profile, and so they engage in deliberately provocative speech. The motivations are many, but the consequence is the same: more bullshit. 

But bullshit is not restricted to traditional media — social media is also suffused with it. A large portion of social media users have become accustomed to both producing and consuming bullshit. Meme culture, as a rule, does not care about truth; the point of a good meme is to be absurd, to mock, or to score political points. It does not matter if the meme deviates from the truth. Truth is irrelevant. And thus, as Frankfurt shows us, bullshit increases. 

We should also not let ourselves off of the hook. When we talk about bullshit, it is easy to talk about the media, because it is an information-transmitting institution that we all consume. But of course, we too partake in bullshit, if not lies. We let ourselves believe things because they are convenient, or because they sound just too good, or because they make us feel good. Sometimes we believe simply because we cannot be bothered to investigate further.

Gadflies

Probably more than ever, we need gadflies. This is the metaphor which Socrates choose for himself, saying in the Apology:

[I] am a sort of gadfly, given to the state by the God; and the state is like a great and noble steed who is tardy in his motions owing to his very size, and requires to be stirred into life. I am that gadfly which God has given the state and all day long and in all places am always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you…I dare say that you may feel irritated at being suddenly awakened when you are caught napping; and you may think that if you were to strike me dead, as Anytus advises, which you easily might, then you would sleep on for the remainder of your lives, unless God in his care of you gives you another gadfly.

Gadflies are truth-tellers, but in particular they are uncomfortable truth-tellers. They arouse, persuade, and reproach. Gadflies are a wonderful antidote to bullshit.

The great men of Athens, claiming expertise when they in fact lacked it, were bullshitters. They were not sufficiently careful when seeking the truth, and they let their own egos get in the way. To use a peculiarly modern phrase, Socrates called them out. Not by shaming them, not by slandering them, not by dragging their names through the mud — but by asking difficult questions.

Importantly, these questions come not from a place hatred or disdain for the person being questioned. Many who might want to reckon themselves gadflies are motivated by anger toward our current environment, and often in particular by a hatred of our current media environment. So they ask difficult questions in order to humiliate their political opponents.

This was not Socrates’ motivation. Socrates did not want to humiliate the men of Athens — he just wanted the truth. That was what made him a gadfly rather than a troll.