On the Currency of Deception: Between the Liar and the Bullshitter

Between the Liar and the Bullshitter

Ah, the perennial dance between the liar and the bullshitter. One might regard them as the unsavoury twins of the modern era—a time where misinformation runs amok, and 'alternative facts' have audaciously asserted their place in our discourse. But if you were to ask me (and even if you didn’t, I’d gladly offer my two cents), this twisted tango reveals far more about our societal decay than merely the decline of truth.

The liar, for all his defects, has a rather intimate relationship with the truth. To lie, after all, is to acknowledge the weight of reality—to recognize its value and then, with deliberate intent, distort it.

There's an almost perverse honour in it.

When Richard Nixon proclaimed, "I am not a crook," he wasn't merely redefining his narrative; he was engaging in an ancient human tradition of obscuring the truth for personal gain. He knew the truth, and it was precisely this knowledge that he sought to conceal.

Now, the bullshitter—that's a different beast altogether. This modern-day charlatan is not just uninterested in the truth; he's indifferent to it. To him, reality is as malleable as the clay in a sculptor's hand. The bullshitter's realm is not one of alternative facts but of alternative realities.

Think of our reality TV stars turned politicians, tweeting outlandish claims at 3 a.m., neither constrained by fact-checks nor bothered by corrections. They are the poster children of our age—an age that often seems more interested in the spectacle than the substance.

One wonders, in our frenzied age of 24-hour news cycles and social media echo chambers, have we become enablers of these charlatans? Our attention, fickle and fragmented, seems to be the currency they most desire. And in our thirst for the sensational, the scandalous, the *shareable*, perhaps we've inadvertently elevated the bullshitter to a pedestal, granting them a louder microphone and a larger stage.

Remember George Orwell's *1984*? The regime didn't just lie; it reinvented the past, repackaged the present, and laid claim to the future. That's the bullshitter's endgame. Not to deceive you but to reshape the very fabric of your reality.

If history, literature, and our own treacherous politics teach us anything, it's that lies—while dangerous—can be confronted and dismantled. Bullshit, on the other hand, with its slippery nature and our complicit fascination, might just prove to be the more formidable adversary.

As we stand on the precipice, gazing into the abyss of post-truth, we must ask ourselves: Will we challenge and question, or will we simply continue to consume? The answer might very well determine the trajectory of our shared reality.