Source: The American Prospect
by Robert Kuttner
“In 1986, a moral philosophy professor and student of language at Princeton University named Harry Frankfurt published an erudite and witty article in the literary quarterly Raritan, circulation 1,100. Its title was ‘On Bullshit’. Frankfurt’s point was that bullshitting was fundamentally different from lying. Liars were aware of the truth that they were trying to contradict. Bullshitters simply made stuff up, and tended to believe their own bullshit. ‘It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth,’ Frankfurt wrote. ‘Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.’ About 20 years later, during the reign of George W. Bush, when the bullshit about Iraq was flying thick and fast, an editor at Princeton University Press named Ian Malcolm rediscovered Frankfurt’s essay, and repackaged it as a book.” (09/05/25)
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2025-09-05-trump-joy-of-bullshit/