Are We Living in a Bullshit Emergency?
Sunday, August 3, 2025.
Why Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit” Feels Like Required Reading in 2025
The Bullshit is Rising—and We Can All Feel It
Let’s not mince words: yes, we’re living in a bullshit emergency.
And we know it.
Not just because politicians dodge questions with Olympic-level agility.
Not just because your favorite influencer just pivoted from gut health to AI prophecy.
But because the truth itself feels like it’s gone into hiding.
In a world choked with soundbites, performative outrage, and algorithm-friendly nonsense, Harry Frankfurt’s 2005 philosophical essay On Bullshit has returned from the academic grave like a prophet in Birkenstocks. And suddenly, it's the most essential text on your bookshelf.
What Is Bullshit, Really?
Revisiting Frankfurt’s Definition in Today’s Context
Frankfurt wasn’t talking about lies. He was talking about a disregard for truth so profound that it becomes dangerous.
“It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction.”
—Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit
To Frankfurt, bullshit isn’t about deception—it’s about indifference.
A liar respects the truth enough to contradict it. A bullshitter doesn't care whether what they say is true, false, or made of glitter and self-help aphorisms—as long as it lands.
Why On Bullshit Went Viral Again
The revival of Frankfurt’s essay has exploded in recent years for a reason. Here's why:
Truth is now curated. With personalized feeds and AI-generated “facts,” we no longer receive information—we subscribe to it.
Meaning has been replaced by messaging. Institutions speak in legally blessed vagueness. HR statements are written like escape rooms.
Post-truth is profitable. Misinformation makes more money than nuance. Outrage is a business model. The economy runs on vibes.
You can buy “authenticity” now. You can license truthiness as a brand. And as Frankfurt warned, this isn’t just annoying—it’s corrosive.
Bullshit in the Attention Economy
Frankfurt Meets TikTok, Twitter, and AI
If Frankfurt had lived to see TikTok therapy, corporate virtue-signaling, or prompt-engineered brand influencers, he might’ve rewritten On Bullshit as a horror novel.
But he anticipated all of this. Frankfurt’s theory predated the attention economy, but it fits like a glove. The digital marketplace doesn’t require truth—it only demands content.
And guess what kind of content thrives?
Vague enough to mean everything.
Confident enough to sound true.
Engaging enough to go viral.
From ChatGPT ghostwriters to AI-generated dating advice, we are now awash in what the philosopher Carl Bergstrom calls "bullshit at scale" (Bergstrom & West, 2020).
Bullshit Has Mental Health Consequences
(Even in Your Marriage)
Here’s where I shift from cultural theory to couples therapy:
When truth is eroded by bullshit, relational intimacy suffers.
Why?
Partners start to perform rather than connect.
People speak to be liked, not to be known.
Communication becomes curation.
In other words, bullshit isn’t just epistemologically offensive—it can also be emotionally exhausting.
If you’ve ever felt like someone was saying all the right things and none of it mattered—you’ve probably encountered bullshit in the wild.
How to Survive the Bullshit Emergency
4 Best Practices
Frankfurt didn’t give us a roadmap for 2025—but I’ll try, gentle reader. Here are some modest thoughts on how to push back against the tidal wave:
Reclaim Uncertainty and Unknowing. Admit and reclaim when and what you don’t know. That’s how truth survives.
Ask: “How do you know that?” Not to trap people—but to trace the thread of the idea in question.
Prize Precision. Language is either a tool for clarity or a smokescreen. Begin to treat it like a scalpel.
Stay Relaxed, Curious, and Open. Bullshit dies in the presence of skeptical, leisurely curiosity.
And if someone tells you “everything is a construct,” ask them if they’d like their brake pads manufactured by vibes.
Why It Matters—Now More Than Ever
Frankfurt’s central warning wasn’t about ideology. It was about carelessness.
Bullshit, he wrote, “is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.”
And now, with deepfakes, brand algorithms, and AI-generated self-help flooding our psyches, that warning is no longer academic—it’s existentially prescient.
The bullshit emergency isn’t coming.
It’s here.
And our only defense is to be leisurely and skeptically curious and reclaim our personal and cultural attention.
Be Well, Stay Kind, and Godspeed.
REFERENCES:
Bergstrom, C. T., & West, J. D. (2020). Calling bullshit: The art of skepticism in a data-driven world. Random House.
Frankfurt, H. G. (2005). On bullshit. Princeton University Press.
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. PublicAffairs.
Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559
Transparency Statement: I practice under the supervision of two licensed marriage and family therapists in accordance with Massachusetts law—one for my work in public mental health, and another for my private practice. This post reflects a synthesis of social science research, clinical experience, and the emotional truths of real people navigating a noisy, bullshit-filled world. It is not a substitute for therapy—but it is, arguably, more honest than most press releases.