From: zeleny@husc8.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc,talk.religion.misc,rec.arts.books
Subject: Sincerity is Bullshit (was re: PIGS, BROADS, AND OTHERS)
Date: 24 Jul 92 06:31:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1992Jul24.023146.14116
Organization: The Phallogocentric Cabal

In article <92Jul23.192727edt.47913@neat.cs.toronto.edu> 
cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum) writes:

>In article <1992Jul21.175150.14029@husc3.harvard.edu>
>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:

MZ:
>>>>"Our natures are, indeed, elusively insubstantial -- notoriously less
>>>>stable and less inherent than the natures of other things.  And insofar as
>>>>this is the case, sincerity itself is bullshit."

DL:
>>>Exactly.

MZ:
>>How kind of you to agree.

CBO:
>It seems quite ironic that Mikhail would quote from Harry Frankfurt's
>excellent little essay about bullshit and bullshit artists, since 
>Mikhail himself is one of the best examples of the bullshit artist
>manque that we have had the pleasure and exasperation to witness on 
>the net.

Make up your mind, Calvin: either I'm "one of the best examples", or
"manqu\'e" (one would think that, writing from Canada, you wouldn't have
this trouble with the _accent aigu_); or is it that you and your tapeworms
had a little disagreement, what with your exasperation, and their chiming
in "we have had the pleasure"?

CBO:
>Right here, in fact, we have a fair example of the artist at work:
>Frankfurt is not using the word "sincerity" here in its normal sense.
>He is using it in a specific technical sense which he introduces earlier
>in his essay.  In that sense, sincerity probably is bullshit, at least
>among those smart enough to know better.

Had you bothered to check the text, you might have noticed that Frankfurt
uses `bullshit', but certainly not `sincerity', "in a specific technical
sense".  Indeed, the latter term occurs in the essay only twice, making its
first appearance in the penultimate paragraph, where it is used in a
perfectly standard fashion, reminiscent of Lionel Trilling's discussion of
Shakespeare: "Convinced that reality has no inherent nature, which he might
hope to identify as the truth about things, he devotes himself to being
true to his own nature.  It is as though he decides that since it makes no
sense to try to be true to the facts, he must therefore try instead to be
true to himself."  Oh, and do read _Sincerity and Authenticity_ before you
presume to pontificate on the subject of the "normal sense" of a cultural
topos.

CBO:
>However, Mikhail makes no effort to point out that this quote is lifted
>out of context, even when his decontextified presentation of it leads 
>someone else to agree with it. As Frankfurt says of those willing to
>bullshit, "[h]e is prepared to fake the context as well, so far as need
>requires".

Sounds just like your valiant effort above... "smart enough to know better"
indeed.  "For tis the sport to haue the engineer\\ Hoist with his owne petar."

>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Calvin Ostrum                                            cbo@cs.toronto.edu  
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>           "Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?" 
> "You can have your cake and eat it, and never have to puke up a thing."
>		-- Crowded House/Richard Thompson
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------

regards,
mikhail zeleny@husc.harvard.edu
"Avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?"