Boris and bullshit — a review
Bullshit language is driving us all nuts. It’s everywhere. But bullshit is not a straight forward concept, and all bullshitters are not the same. Over the last year I have been researching what exact type of language we mean when we call out bullshit and most importantly our motivations for using it.
What does bullshit mean?
I found that when people talk about bullshit language, they usually mean one of two types:
Why do we do it?
But it’s not the use of the different language itself that is the problem, it is the intent behind it’s use. I concluded there were three main reasons why people use bullshit language:
Everyone is insecure and language is a way to bolster our confidence, sound more important and expert than we really feel.
Organisations of all types reward this type of language, it is almost mandatory in many to talk in a way which is totally intelligible to ordinary people. Striking out on your own is not simple. And besides, there’s no time. The majority of people who voted in a workshop of 677 people I ran recently for the public sector website Apolitical felt that fitting in to the culture of an organisation was the primary reason for the use of bullshit language.
The use of bullshit language primarily to deceive and manipulate is the most damaging of all. Boris is the quintessence of this particular type of bullshitter.
Boris the bullshitter — a critique
Bullshit scholars (yes, there is such a thing!) make a distinction between bullshit and lying. Professor Ian McCarth in his work on bullshit in companies — Confronting Indifference towards the Truth — Dealing with Workplace Bullshit — proposes that “While the liar knows the truth and wittingly bends it to suit their purpose, the bullshitter simply does not care about the truth”.
I’m unconvinced this definition is true of all those who use bullshit language, but it is certainly the hallmark of Boris and those whose purpose in using this language is primarily, and consciously, to deceive.
Johnson’s bluster and studied but faux disingenuousness (illustrated here in a very funny article by Jeremy Vine for the Spectator) is a hallmark of his ‘charm and charisma’. But is something much more devious and complicated than an amalgam of character flaws and cockiness. Steve Poole, author of the fabulous ‘Who touched base in my thought shower’ suggests that “as political criticism, “bluster” might be unhelpful in conflating different things: windy rhetoric, shameless ignorance or actual lying. Arguably Johnson’s speech is a much better exemplar of what the philosopher Quassim Cassam calls “epistemic insouciance”: the state of simply not caring what the facts are. In other words, it’s not bluster; it’s bullshit.”
The seemingly heartfelt belief that he is so special that normal rules don’t apply to him we saw so clearly in Partygate was crystal clear from an early age. Sarah Lyall writing in the New York Times reminds us that when Boris was at Eton his classics teacher sent a letter to his Father saying. “Boris really has adopted a disgracefully cavalier attitude to his classical studies,” the teacher, Martin Hammond, wrote, and “sometimes seems affronted when criticized for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility. I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation that binds everyone else.”
This was true in every job he has ever had. We can’t say we were surprised or didn’t see it coming. The biggest tragedy for the UK is that the Conservative party, and so many voters, decided to ignore what was always in plain sight and either put other more self-serving goals or resolute willful blindness ahead of the fundamental values of integrity, competence and the public interest which should be central to the attitude and actions of any Prime Minister.
Bullshit and the resignation speech
His resignation speech on 7th July encapsulates his mastery of bullshit langage and shows for all to see his narcissistic self-belief and the boundless capacity for self-justification which is central to his approach.
I was inspired and educated about this by wonderful book Mistakes Were Made,(but not by me) by Carol Tavris, Elliot Aronson which shows “When we make mistakes, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right — a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong.”
Here is the speech in full and here are some fantastic examples
“It is clearly now the will of the parliamentary Conservative Party that there should be a new leader of that party and therefore a new prime minister.
And I’ve agreed with Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of our backbench MPs, that the process of choosing that new leader should begin now and the timetable will be announced next week.”
- The hilarious distant, third person intro. Nothing to do with me gov. This is not happening to me, I am too fabulous to have this crap happen.
“And I’ve today appointed a Cabinet to serve, as I will, until a new leader is in place.”
- I didn’t do anything wrong, so I am going to cling on by my finger tips for as long as possible and who knows, maybe they will see the error of their ways
“So I want to say to the millions of people who voted for us in 2019, many of them voting Conservative for the first time, thank you for that incredible mandate, the biggest Conservative majority since 1987, the biggest share of the vote since 1979. And the reason I have fought so hard in the last few days to continue to deliver that mandate in person was not just because I wanted to do so, but because I felt it was my job, my duty, my obligation to you to continue to do what we promised in 2019.
- Everyone loves me, this should not be happening, this is not happening
“And of course, I’m immensely proud of the achievements of this government, from getting Brexit done to settling our relations with the Continent for over half a century, reclaiming the power for this country to make its own laws in Parliament, getting us all through the pandemic, delivering the fastest vaccine rollout in Europe, the fastest exit from lockdown, and in the last few months, leading the West in standing up to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine.
“And let me say now, to the people of Ukraine, that I know that we in the UK will continue to back your fight for freedom for as long as it takes.
“And at the same time in this country, we’ve been pushing forward a vast programme of investment in infrastructure and skills and technology — the biggest for a century. Because if I have one insight into human beings, it is that genius and talent and enthusiasm and imagination are evenly distributed throughout the population.
“But opportunity is not, and that’s why we must keep levelling up, keep unleashing the potential of every part of the United Kingdom. And if we can do that, in this country, we will be the most prosperous in Europe.
“And in the last few days, I tried to persuade my colleagues that it would be eccentric to change governments when we’re delivering so much and when we have such a vast mandate and when we’re actually only a handful of points behind in the polls, even in mid-term, after quite a few months of pretty relentless sledging and when the economic scene is so difficult domestically and internationally.
“And I regret not to have been successful in those arguments and of course it’s painful not to be able to see through so many ideas and projects myself.
- This is what behavioural risk expert Roger Miles called ‘Institutionalised Gaslighting”. I live in this world, in which everything I do is fabulous and successful. You might be living in another one, where I am incompetent and have failed at pretty much everything. But if I puff it up, you might believe it. And anyway. I do believe it. I am fabulous. Mistakes were made, but not by me
“But as we’ve seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful and when the herd moves, it moves.
- This is nothing to do with me. These ignorant peasants are ganging up on me for their own purposes. I have done nothing wrong, but the lumpen masses of MP’s have no sense of fairness and no understanding of my brilliance.
“And my friends in politics, no-one is remotely indispensable and our brilliant and Darwinian system will produce another leader, equally committed to taking this country forward through tough times. Not just helping families to get through it, but changing and improving the way we do things, cutting burdens on businesses and families and yes, cutting taxes, because that is the way to generate the growth and the income we need to pay for great public services.
- It’s the system which is unfair and doesn’t recognise my true brilliance. I remain convinced that despite all evidence to the contrary, my policy ideas would have worked if I didn’t have these idiots around me getting in the way.
“I know that there will be many people who are relieved and perhaps quite a few who will also be disappointed. And I want you to know how sad I am to be giving up the best job in the world.
“But them’s the breaks.
- I can take it that I am not liked. All the great people, like me, are misunderstood in their life times. I am just a humble person who understands that sometimes shit just happens.
“I want to thank Carrie and our children, and all the members of my family who have had to put up with so much for so long.
“I want to thank the peerless British civil service for all the help and support that you have given our police, our emergency services and, of course, our fantastic NHS, who at (a) critical moment, helped to extend my own period in office, as well as our armed services and our agencies that are so admired around the world.
“And our indefatigable Conservative Party members and supporters whose selfless campaigning makes our democracy possible. I want to thank the wonderful staff here at Chequers — here at Number 10, and of course at Chequers. And our fantastic prop force detectives, the one group by the way, who never leak.
“Above all, I want to thank you, the British public, for the immense privilege that you have given me and I want you to know that from now on until the new prime minister is in place, your interests will be served and the government of the country will be carried on.
- I suppose I’d better do the boilerplate thanks to all the bottom feeders who got in the way and prevented my achieving my rightful place in history as one of the great leaders.
“Being prime minister is an education in itself. I have travelled to every part of the United Kingdom and, in addition to the beauty of our natural world, I have found so many people possessed of such boundless British originality and so willing to tackle old problems in new ways that I know that even if things can sometimes seem dark now, our future together is golden.
“Thank you all very much. Thank you.”
- It was an education in the stupidity of people and how impossible it is to get anything done because of it. But because of the great things I have done, don’t worry everything will be OK and soon you will all realise what a fabulous PM I have been.
About trustworthiness and trust
I am bolting on something here on trust. Because the personality defects which were instrumental to his demise were manifested in the fundamental lack of three important qualities of trustworthiness:
1. An intent which was purely self-centred. As the Economist this morning reflected: “In his departure, as in government, Mr Johnson demonstrated a wanton disregard for the interests of his party and the nation”.
2. Competence — According to the Economist “He lacked the moral fibre to take hard decisions for the national good if that threatened his own popularity. He also lacked the constancy and the grasp of detail to see policies through”.
3. Integrity — dishonesty, dissembling, lies, self-justification were a widely recognised hallmark of his character from the beginning of his working life. As the FT Observed this morning: “As a journalist and even a politician, Johnson’s lack of honesty had been seen by his supporters as a price worth paying for his charisma”.
The biggest tragedy for the UK is that the Conservative party, and so many voters, decided to ignore what was always in plain sight and put other more self-serving goals ahead of these fundamental values of integrity, competence and the public interest.
It caught up with him in the end. But the lesson must be that you need trust to govern well. To inspire trust you need to be trustworthy. The qualities of trustworthiness are: an Intent that is not simply selfish; Integrity; Respect; Openness; Inclusion; Fairness and Competence.
Let’s look out for those in our politicians and reward these fundamental values not get suckered by a bullsh*tter who promises everything you want and ignores it as soon as he is elected.
NB: These illustrations come from work I am doing with public and private sector organisations to understand how their use of bullshit language affects the orgnisation. Using our Bullshsit Analysis Reflection Framework (B.A.R.F) we take your own pet hates and corporate documents to help analyse why you do it, the implications of that for internal and external reputation, and explore how to stop.
If you would like to know more, contact Hilary on hilary@societyinside.com
