Bullshit literacy - a rubric

 Technology leader par excellance, Art Wolinsky, has developed a rubric to measure mastery of my tounge-in-cheek skills, Bullshit Literacy  Check it out.

BTW, Harry G. Frankfurt's book, On Bullshit, will be a stocking stuffer around here.

From the original posting of September 7, 2005:

The Bullshit Literate Student will:

1. Show no social conscience or balance when deliberately distorting factoids, data, or expert opinion in presenting a conclusion.
2. Skillfully use any medium and all persuasive techniques in order to convince others. This includes the ability to use technology to doctor images and edit text.
3. Consistently, vociferously, and blindly hold to a single point of view, and know that volume, repetition and rhetoric trump reason. (ie: Stay the course.)
4. Convincingly fake sincerity.
5. Ably disguise personal gain as public good.
6. Take a single incident or news story or incident and follow it to an illogical conclusion. (See employment prediction above.)
7. Claim any idea as original.
8. Deny prior knowledge. (ie: Nobody expected the breach of the levees)
9. Create a website, wiki, blog, or podcast. (beginning level). Find a publisher, broadcaster or corporate sponsor for whom the bottom line is the bottom line. (advanced).
10. Never, never, never show doubt.

Comments

[Graham Wegner]

Hells bells, you gave me a bit of a heart attack when I decided to check my feeds while the laptop here was still connected to my ActivBoard and your post title was on view to my class of eleven and twelve year olds. Luckily they were so on task, they didn't even notice. Are you sure you aren't talking about political media here?

[Doug Johnson]

Sorry, Graham. Maybe I should rate my site PG.I don't know if you can say "hells, bells" though in Kansas. (An expression I've not hear for a while. My favorite Oz expressions are still "no worries" and "gianormous.") I was thinking politics, of course, but it seems bullshit filters down throughout society.All the best,Doug

[Sara Kelly Johns]

I wonder how many people could amuse themselves by secretly using Art's rubric during dinner conversation on Thanksgiving? Those annoying, opinionated relatives can perhaps be more tolerated if evalated objectively. I, of course, will not need to bring it along with me! Thanks, Art--Sara Kelly Johns

[Toby Bailey]

Talk about bullshit. This idiot is trying to find someone to shoot him in the head as a performance art piece.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/sh...hreadid=2374422

[skip olsen]

Reminds me of passage from one of my favorite books on education and learning, Teaching as a Subversive Activity.

"We believe that the schools must serve as the principal medium for developing in youth the attitudes and skills of social, political and cultural criticism. No. That is not emphatic enough. Try this: in the early 1960’s, an interviewer was trying to get Ernest Hemingway to identify the characteristics required for a person to be a 'great writer'. As the interviewer offered a list of various possibilities, Hemmingway disparaged each in sequence. Finally, frustrated, the interviewer asked, 'Isn't then any one essential ingredient that you can identify?' Hemingway replied, ‘Yes, there is. In order to be a great writer a person must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector."

And you are right about the use of bullshit--mince no words, call it what it is. I only wish there were more with the capacity to detect and call out the bullshit currently in education and society.

Thanks for the authenticity.

Skip

[Doug Johnson]

Thanks, Skip. 'Crap detector" is one of my favorite concepts from one of my favorite books. I appreciate the reminder.

All the best,

Doug