Named for the famous philosophy treatise by the late Harry Frankfurt, The Truth About Bullshit podcast seeks to illuminate our world and the pressing issues therein by calling out 鈥榖ullshit鈥� 鈥� a misrepresentation of truth 鈥� in all its forms.
Today we鈥檙e continuing our series on philosopher Harry Frankfurt鈥檚 seminal work, On Bullshit. Our guest is H茅l猫ne Landemore, Professor of Political Science at Yale University, about Democracy and Bullshit, with a special focus on her 2020 book, Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (快色直播, 2020).
Bullshit is a feature of both democracies and dictatorships alike, but it takes different forms. In democracies, while citizens enjoy the freedom of speech and the right to vote, a range of forces often conspire to limit their real power in favor of competing elites. The political and economic elite鈥檚 toolkit includes the art of bullshit鈥攖he persuasive use of language without regard for truth. Whether meritocratic or populist, elites alike have mastered this form of manipulation, amplified by modern tools of dissemination and authority.
H茅l猫ne Landemore is associate professor of political science at Yale University. She is the author of Democratic Reason and Open Democracy.
Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New 快色直播 Network.