“One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” – Harry Frankfurt
In 1986, Harry Frankfurt, a Professor at Yale University dropped a philosophical essay, “On Bullshit” in a quarterly journal. After he joined Princeton University, Princeton University Press released it as a 76-page book and the book exploded in the West. It became a New York Times best seller for several weeks. Professor Frankfurt explores the “bullshit” around us and distinguishes them from the “lies”. He argued liars atleast know the truth and construct their lies to cover the truth while the bullshitters are just not concerned with truth. Due to its disregard of truth and reality, he asserts bullshit as the biggest enemy of truth not lies.
Among all of us, political leaders bullshit a lot. Rational choice theory suggests that it is rational for any political leader to make decisions based on their pursuit of political survival and power. As their survival depends upon the support from people, there emerges a need for them to bullshit – selling dreams and hopes people would want to hear in the form of hollow promises with no concern of reality or its outcome. No matter whether their policies fail or not. Their target is to receive applause by resonating with the popular sentiments. In this process, truth or reality no longer becomes a part of the public discourse.
As there is no truth in the bullshit of the politicians, they have the potential to trigger and provoke people based on fault lines. This is what we see in the Meitei-Kuki conflict. Why do they do so? There must be some incentives for them to bullshit. The political leaders of both communities would not want to lose their power after this conflict. This becomes the core of every statement they make during this conflict. This applies to all organization leaders who have power to influence people and claim to defend their community. Anyone with power won’t want to surrender their power once they have it, atleast from a rational choice theory.
As renowned political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita explained through his selectorate theory, any leader will have to depend on the winning coalition for political survival. By “winning coalition”, he means those key supporters necessary and sufficient enough to replace the leader. It is very important for the leaders to cater to the interests of their key supporters not necessarily just in pursuit of truth and justice. This can explain why Meitei and Kuki political elites end up defending their community-centric narratives that are often exclusivist and sectarian rather than engaging in meaningful reconciliatory efforts. They both accuse one another without holding themselves to their share of accountability in resolving the crisis. Both call for justice but this justice is exclusive to one another. Justice is even led to be divisive.
Political elites having their advantage over the public in access to information, they can bullshit through propaganda that only serves their interests as well. This influences people’s minds to align with their bullshit. Sooner the people realize that a leader’s primary and rational motive is to stay in power regardless of whether the conflict is resolved or not, sooner the people can imagine returning to peace.
We all had seen in these nearly two years of conflict how political elites of both sides had acted as if they didn’t have any power to end it and had waited for a supreme “other” to save them. Here, the supreme other is the Indian State who left these political elites on a spree until President’s Rule was imposed last month in February. However, people at least seem to sense the rule of law again under the President’s rule.
Some popular bullshit in the last few years like “Lemna Tharoi”, “Tuminna Yengduna Leiroi” that roughly translates as “Won’t leave them unpunished”, “Won’t stay silent” or the very recent “Manipur is peaceful”. These statements don’t actually fit with what’s going on in the ground. Above this, there is no less bullshit for the politicians even after the assembly’s suspension. Many social media bots keep promoting certain politicians, share vested interests – no contribution and efforts to the road to reconciliation and peace. Due to prolonged conflict, one community is polarised enough to not trust the other community. These leaders use the frustration and misery of people by projecting the other community as the reason for their suffering. They act as if they are the only saviors and without them, people won’t stop suffering. There is a serious need for a reality check on such bullshit. They just want to stay in power. That’s all.
The history of co-existence and co-dependence with the other are completely erased in this process of bullshit. Unemployment, inflation, lack of infrastructural development, health care and several public goods are no longer part of this existential threat they fight against. Not to deny that identities play a big role in our everyday life, but they often get exploited by the leaders for their vested interests. The fault lines are maintained by them through the politics of bullshit.
We must not fall prey to their bullshit anymore if we care for resolving the Meitei-Kuki ethnic divide. Their goal is political survival while it is life and death for the people.
For lies, there is truth. For bullshit, there is no medicine except that you should care for the truth. Let’s put an end to the bullshit. Lastly, we must thank Professor Frankfurt for enabling us to recognize our agency in reclaiming truth from the politics of “bullshit”.
