Ethos of Writing

Harprit Singh
Aug 27, 2017 · 2 min read

In his essay On Bullshit, Harry Frankfurt describes a fascinating archetype whom he refers to as a Bullshit Artist as opposed to a plain liar.

Considering trust and credibility as prime factors of importance in society — one would think that liars would be placed at best at the last rung of the social ladder. Frankfurt differs while describing the Bullshit Artist compared to liars as follows:

Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game. Each responds to the facts as he understands them, although the response of the one is guided by the authority of the truth, while the response of the other defies that authority and refuses to meet its demands. The bullshitter ignores these demands altogether. He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.

— Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

I found an exact antidote to this while recently re-reading Antifragile, where Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes filtering rules he follows for his writing:

I eat my own cooking… I have only written, in every line I have composed in my professional life, about things I have done, and the risks I have recommended that others take or avoid were risks I have been taking or avoiding myself… Only distilled ideas, ones that sit in us for a long time, are acceptable — and those that come from reality.

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder

As I begin here with my yet another attempt at launching a blog (wish me luck!), I hope to begin by synthesizing advice of the two philosophers into following ethos for my writing: to write not bullshit but ideas that come from my experience and reality.

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