The Culture of BS

[franko]

Still not one of the finer arts
Now that BS is like a second language, few of us are shocked, or even bothered, by it

LIANNE GEORGE
MacLean's Magazine

A few weeks ago, I found myself at Blockbuster, renting Troy -- the widely panned 2004 adaptation of Homer, starring Brad Pitt's golden locks. True to expectation, nearly three hours of Pitt looking sullen in a breastplate are indeed too much. So I left the DVD to languish, partially watched, on my coffee table for a week. Having seen Blockbuster's "No More Late Fees" TV ads -- featuring families rejoicing and couples making out -- I figured the store was in no hurry to get it back. Of course, upon dropping it off, I found a fee had been charged to my account. Not a "late fee," but a less punitive-sounding "restocking fee" of $1.75.

In its pending lawsuit against Blockbuster, the State of New Jersey is calling the company's No More Late Fees advertising campaign "fraudulent" and "deceptive." But for most consumers, accustomed to creative truth-telling in commercial messaging, it comes as no surprise. Laura Penny, the Halifax-based author of an upcoming book, Your Call Is Important To Us: The Truth About BullSaperlipopette, suggests that North Americans have become so used to linguistic manipulation in advertising, we're rarely bothered by it anymore. BS, she says, "thrives on low expectations."

The history and proliferation of bullSaperlipopette is the subject of two new books. According to former Princeton philosophy professor Harry G. Frankfurt, author of a slim volume titled On BullSaperlipopette, BS is a tricky beast because it's not quite the same as a lie. Whereas a liar knows he's not telling the truth, the bullSaperlipopetteter doesn't care whether he is or not. Rather, it's something that is tangential to the truth -- messaging that is manipulated to provide a more pleasing interpretation of the truth, designed to serve the teller only. "We live in an era of unprecedented bullSaperlipopette production," says Penny. With media being so pervasive, BS now permeates just about every aspect of our lives. Though we didn't invent it, she says, "North Americans have supersized it. We've made it faster, stronger, more ubiquitous." In fact, one could argue that BS has become our unofficial second language. It's in advertising and political speeches. It's in the public relations-driven spin of some news stories and in the impenetrable sub-clauses of our mortgage agreements. ("I think the boring parts are where they keep the consequences," Penny says.) BS is systemic, virtually impossible to manoeuvre around -- even when we see it coming from a mile away. Most of us don't just accept and expect it, but have learned to generate it pretty well ourselves.

Which is why most people will not complain about paying a restocking fee at their local Blockbuster (it's still cheaper than late fees). Truth is, if we got angry every time we came up against a load of BS, we'd only drive ourselves insane, not to mention those around us. Says Penny, "I can ruin a party in about five minutes."

link

[franko]

Thoughts that struck me:

. . . North Americans have become so used to linguistic manipulation in advertising, we're rarely bothered by it anymore. BS "thrives on low expectations."

. . . With media being so pervasive, BS now permeates just about every aspect of our lives. Though we didn't invent it, she says, "North Americans have supersized it. We've made it faster, stronger, more ubiquitous." In fact, one could argue that BS has become our unofficial second language. It'

. . . BS is systemic, virtually impossible to manoeuvre around -- even when we see it coming from a mile away. Most of us don't just accept and expect it, but have learned to generate it pretty well ourselves.

[HabbaDasher]

One of my favourite BSs in advertising is the the phrase 'a most' instead of 'the most'.
'a most effective cleaner' etc.

[blaise]

HabbaDasher said:

One of my favourite BSs in advertising is the the phrase 'a most' instead of 'the most'.
'a most effective cleaner' etc.

Saying the most effective in an ad can get you into trouble because you have to prove it. Saying a most is the same as saying you have a very good product. Noone can pin you down.

[HabbaDasher]

Blaise said:

Saying the most effective in an ad can get you into trouble because you have to prove it. Saying a most is the same as saying you have a very good product. Noone can pin you down.

And it makes me immediately mistrust the advertiser.
It's an obvious, intentional attempt to fool you into thinking 'the most'.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

The Farce Estate

Geov Parrish - WorkingForChange

10.09.01 - It's a well-established tradition in American media that any adversarial, or even mildly skeptical, role that reporters and editors and news anchors might have toward authority evaporates in time of war. The increasing post-Vietnam Pentagon tendency to stage-manage its wars has gotten enthusiastic cooperation from our faithful infotainment watchpuppies.

In the Gulf War, government disinformation was happily passed along to a wavering public. We entered Somalia with Marines wading ashore (a completely unnecessary maneuver) at a ridiculous wee hour, local time, so that it could be broadcast live on the evening network news on the East Coast. Weapons are now designed in part so that the built-in cameras can enhance the video-game style propaganda value. Press pools and military censorship are accepted with little fuss. And so on.

It's hard to tell which is more ridiculous: that the Pentagon sees fit to give fatuous names to its wars, or that our "free" Pravdaesque media uses them. Except when they use their own trademarked names, complete with distinctive ten-second theme music.

- www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=12106

*

Where are Iraq's Pentagon papers?

February 22, 2004
By: Daniel Ellsberg

Boston Globe

AS MORE and more of our young men and women come home from Iraq crippled or in body bags this election season, Americans ask, with increasing urgency, "Why did we send our children to die in Iraq? Was this war necessary?" Indeed, Tim Russert asked the president precisely that on "Meet the Press" a few weeks ago: "In light of not finding the weapons of mass destruction, do you believe the war in Iraq is a war of choice or a war of necessity?" President Bush replied "It's a war of necessity. . . . the man was a threat. . . . the evidence we have uncovered so far says we had no choice."

To the contrary. The evidence uncovered so far says that Saddam was not a threat, to us or his neighbors. Nor -- lacking any evidence of complicity in 9/11 or links to Al Qaeda -- was there a persuasive case that he would have been a significant threat even if he had possessed WMDs.

In order to bolster their arguments and gain congressional, public, and international support, high officials chose to conceal the fact that their belief in the existence of Iraqi WMDs was entirely inferential, reflecting flimsy evidence and testimony from sources whose reliability was highly controversial. This actual state of inadequate information, well known to the US and British intelligence community, was deliberately denied by the highest officials in repeated phrases such as, "we know . . . ," "bulletproof evidence," "beyond any doubt," "Saddam possesses. . . ," "British intelligence has learned," and "these are not assertions, these are facts." The euphemism for such descriptions of the strength of evidence favoring the need to go to war is "exaggeration." A more accurate term is "lies."

- tinyurl.com/7y7ze

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

Throngs View Central Park Laundry Poles

This week, 23 saffron-colored miles of backyard patio trellis and laundry poles named The Gates opened in New York after 26 years of "planning" by the anti-art tag team of city permit trangression, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. With nearly every reviewer "reporting in ecstatic terms on Christo's latest scam in Central Park", Roger Kimball offers a dissonant point of view, excerpted here from The New Criterion:

Under Wraps

Andy Warhol once remarked that 'art is what you can get away with'. And how. Just ask Christo, the Bulgarian-born entrepreneur who wraps things in cloth, calls it Art and sits back while the money pours into his bank account.

It is nice work if you can get it. Last year, Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude (they work together, like Lady Bracknell and the Duchess of Bolton) took in about $15.1 million. And for what? For the 'preparatory drawings' that Christo makes of his various projects.

...In the meantime, Christo and Jeanne-Claude will have spent about $20 million realising this. . . dream. In the meantime, Christo is drawing furiously, churning out the drawings, the largest of which are fetching $600,000.

It's been a long time coming. Christo first proposed defacing Central Park back in 1979. An enlightened city council told him to buzz off. Why should the city let an individual capitalise on public property, possibly compromising the local bird life and foliage, in order to enhance his own notoriety and balance sheet? But Christo is a patient chap. 'The park is not going anywhere, ' he said in 1981. 'I intend to do this project.' You see what a multi-faceted thing is genius. Some people are artistic geniuses.

- badbadart.blogspot.com/2005/02/throngs-view-central-park-laundry.html

[blaise]

M. said:

Throngs View Central Park Laundry Poles

This week, 23 saffron-colored miles of backyard patio trellis and laundry poles named The Gates opened in New York after 26 years of "planning" by the anti-art tag team of city permit trangression, Christo and Jeanne-Claude. With nearly every reviewer "reporting in ecstatic terms on Christo's latest scam in Central Park", Roger Kimball offers a dissonant point of view, excerpted here from The New Criterion:

Under Wraps

Andy Warhol once remarked that 'art is what you can get away with'. And how. Just ask Christo, the Bulgarian-born entrepreneur who wraps things in cloth, calls it Art and sits back while the money pours into his bank account.

It is nice work if you can get it. Last year, Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude (they work together, like Lady Bracknell and the Duchess of Bolton) took in about $15.1 million. And for what? For the 'preparatory drawings' that Christo makes of his various projects.

...In the meantime, Christo and Jeanne-Claude will have spent about $20 million realising this. . . dream. In the meantime, Christo is drawing furiously, churning out the drawings, the largest of which are fetching $600,000.

It's been a long time coming. Christo first proposed defacing Central Park back in 1979. An enlightened city council told him to buzz off. Why should the city let an individual capitalise on public property, possibly compromising the local bird life and foliage, in order to enhance his own notoriety and balance sheet? But Christo is a patient chap. 'The park is not going anywhere, ' he said in 1981. 'I intend to do this project.' You see what a multi-faceted thing is genius. Some people are artistic geniuses.

- badbadart.blogspot.com/2005/02/throngs-view-central-park-laundry.html

What is they say, genius is one-third inspiration, two-thirds perspiration ? In Christo's case the perspiration is accompanied by body odor.