Bullshit is more damaging than lies

I'd also add that it's very hard to argue with bullshit. You can't ever agree on common ground if the truth doesn't matter. A liar who cares about the truth can be exposed and shamed, a bullshiter who doesn't will carry on unperturbed.

Via John Poteet.

Originally shared by Bill Smith

The bullshitter may do even more damage than the liar to our ability to reach across the political aisle. Democracy requires us to work together, despite our disagreements about values. This is easiest when we agree about a great many other things – including what evidence for and against our chosen policies would look like. When there is no shared standard for evidence, then people who disagree with us are not really making claims about a shared world of evidence. They are doing something else entirely; they are declaring their political allegiance or moral worldview.

Facts, in short, can be adjusted, until they match up with our chosen view of the world. This has the bad effect, though, of transforming all political disputes into disagreements about moral worldview. This sort of disagreement, though, has historically been the source of our most violent and intractable conflicts.

#BullShit #USPolitics

 Thomas Huxley noted in connection with science: A beautiful hypothesis may be slain by an “ugly fact.”
http://theconversation.com/why-bullshit-hurts-democracy-more-than-lies-96331