Of Assholes and Bullshit

The last time I checked one still could not say the words "asshole" or "bullshit" on network television. Yet, academics have been writing books about these titles. Aaron James recently published Assholes: A Theory. Even before that, Harry G. Frankfurt paved the way with On Bullshit.

This may seem like a matter of writers trying to sell books by grabbing attention with a few swear words where, in even this vulgarized era, they might be least expected. However, that strikes me as not just ungenerous but inaccurate. The plain and simple truth is that these words have no precise synonyms in the English language.

James contends in his book that an "asshole" is a person whose sense of entitlement translates to their immunity to others' criticisms, reflected, not least, in their systematically exploiting advantages they may have over others--an idea no other word in English captures equally well.

This is even more the case with "bullshit." Bullshit, as Frankfurt makes clear, is not a lie. A liar, after all, is attentive to the truth, enough to know it and for some reason wish to conceal it. For all their faults, they at least know what the truth is and in some way respond to reality. The bullshitter, by contrast, is indifferent to the truth or falsity of what they say. They simply do not care. It is a whole other level of bad faith--and again, no other word captures this equally well.

All that being the case, these terms have been used in serious social science analysis. James applied what he discussed in Assholes: A Theory to the analysis of a then-presidential candidate in Assholes: A Theory of Trump, while David Graeber successfully used the concept of "bullshit" to offer one of the most original and significant critiques of the neoliberal economy in decades, Bullshit Jobs.

All that being the case, will these "dirty" words gain greater acceptance within daily usage? Somehow, I doubt it will happen anytime soon. Still, they seem to me indispensable, and unless we come up with satisfactory equivalents usable in polite society, we will have no choice but to go on speaking of assholes, and bullshit--especially in an age that has made an idol of the asshole, and unavoidably seems in danger of being buried in bullshit as a result.