The Origins of Bullshit

 
What’s at odds is the Economy of  Purpose
and the Economy of No Purpose—hostile
and yet complementary. Put Peter Purpose
and Nellie No-Purpose on the same
committee and it’ll be a tense
power struggle, assuming
both have strong wills.
 
And YET, if they could only Just Get Along,
we know they are complementary: they
complete each other.
 
Bullshit is an Emerging Phenomenon
that rises up in converse action naturally
due to the inadequacy of language  to
nail down shared representation of terms
and the doubling and more ambiguities
in all discourse which always generates
a juggle of competing ratios of “literal”
and “metaphor”—implicit and explicit,
the obvious and the hidden meanings
each  of us manipulates in accord with
our agenda and purpose unless there’s
a grade-gun to our heads. .
 
“The highest purpose is to have no purpose
at all. This puts one in accord with nature
in her manner of operation.”

(John Cage’s variant on Thy Will Be Done
—though he might not claim the parallel)
 
Right there should provoke a plethora of
Yes  BUT’s, exceptions, tweaks & twiddles,
straightening-outs: reaction to Cage’s and
my over statements and  under, some
solecism or other.
 
The wise guy will note that Cage’s purpose
is  to have no purpose and that will regale the
logicians and logical positivists & possibly 
and English teacher or two: them that
hate a contradiction if not a paradox
let alone a redundancy.
 
Bullshit rises up an emerging phenomenon
because so much is left out (all the rest) when
any statement is made—and the clearer and
more precise & emphatic, the less wiggle
room, the more articulate, certain & nailed
down—the greater the crime & violation to
the whole.  You can feel it in you bones,
right now  Admit it. .
 
No No No, Sam—that makes no sense.
That’s bullshit!  (You: defending Whole
& Holy that I am violating so dogmatically!)
 
See what I’m saying?   Even as you rightfully
exclaim AGAINST, you KNOW in some
sense  I’m right and what I’m saying really
can’t be said because saying it occludes
that also truth-of-clarity which we love as
addicts. . …. 
 
The stronger my assertion—or the weaker:
you  sense the left-out and insist it be included
and so we go round and round and round.
Bullshit for some (awful stuff) and
BULLSHIT for others (now
we’re getting somewhere,
round it goes:  how
else come to some
shared terms?)   
 
Do you see the problem?
Do you maybe sense the Origins of Bullshit
that  might could be worth exploring as significant
as a Big Bang and the practice of Liberal Art?

I’m just asking. xxxooo, Sam