Anarch
11-22-2005, 11:12 AM
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This story was printed from The Cornell Daily Sun.
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The Purpose Driven Life of Bullshit
First Take
November 21, 2005
Alexei Waters
Much like the excrement that one occasionally steps in, bullshit comes in a variety of forms. There is the academic bullshit that confuses obfuscation with profundity (think especially of literary theory and German philosophy). There is the conversational form where people foam at the mouth because they need to convince others how clever they are by cramming in as many words as they can in the shortest amount of time. Then there is the kind one finds in political campaigns, where there are so few meaningful choices, it ushers in the crisis of democracy while claiming the converse with the glory of a convicted felon. My favorite form of bullshit is the kind that wraps itself in the seriousness of a religiously inspired earnestness, that puts those who disagree on the defensive — as if disbelief is the same as a deleterious form of mental dehydration. Call this the bullshitters bullshit. Bullshit at its banal best.
Please indulge my recommendation that you follow my interpretation of the example of Mr. Rick Warren, the celebrated author and now multi-millionaire of the best selling, Bible-justifying megabook called The Purpose Driven Life. I am especially appreciative that I was given this book as a present and it only cost the donor $19.99 plus tax to completely convince me of the need to overcome the moral complacency that has characterized my life thus far. How was this possible? The simplicity of surety is what made all the difference: Mr. Warren expertly applies Biblical passages to situations where we have serious difficulties in navigating the fields of (bull)shit that appear in our lives. He claims that in order to become the person God wants us to be, we must develop strong moral judgments and exercise a dogged pragmatism that allows us to fulfill our destinies in a manner that gives glory to God.
My familiarity with The Purpose Driven Life came at the perfect moment.
In July of this year, I became one of the blessed few souls who was given the honor of spending 10 days at NYU Hospital for treatment of a massive grand mal seizure I incurred in my Uris Hall office. While in the hospital, I read Mr. Warren’s brilliantly informative 334 page book. I believe it is one of the few texts (such as Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractus Logico-Philosophicus) that have influenced my intellectual development.
In order to be a loyal disciple of Mr. Warren, who is a more loyal servant of God than I am supposed to be, I think I have discovered the secret to living with bullshit. Discipline, discipline and more discipline has been the deciding factor. Directly below are the 12 most important precepts that I have recited daily. Feel free to read all 334 pages of The Purpose Driven Life and then create your own inspired precepts. But don’t share them with me unless I am a less successful bullshitter than you.
Precept One
The more that bullshit envelops my personality and the more manipulative my dung-like personality becomes, the more likely I am to become successful in a world with too much bullshit.
Precept Two
Bullshit is to the intellect what flatulence is to the body: necessary but never sufficient for greatness.
Precept Three
The more other people take my bullshit at face value, the more prestigious a person I become.
Precept Four
Bullshit can bring me closer to appreciating the beauty of the divine since the love of bullshit makes love for the Ultimate Being more inescapable.
Precept Five
I will achieve greater academic success and intellectual satisfaction the more I am able to bullshit my way through every social encounter.
Precept Six
Bullshit is not only an abstract concept, it is a social necessity.
Precept Seven
Without bullshit in my life, I seem less smart than I want to others to believe.
Precept Eight
Acquiescence to the demands that bullshit proliferates may enervate my soul, but it also recapitulates my ontogeny.
Precept Nine
My life needs bullshit so that I can overcome bullshit.
Precept Ten
The more bullshit I overcome the more bullshit I need as a replacement.
Precept Eleven
Whatever is good and great in this life can’t be understood unless I can articulate how bullshit contributes to its realization.
Precept Twelve
I am clever (after all, I am an important member of the Cornell community) so I can bullshit with greater sophistication than bullshitters at non Ivy League (plus four) institutions.
Simple daily recitations to reinforce my life-inspiring Precepts
Before breakfast and before bedtime, I utter the following words at least 20 times to myself in front of my dust-filled mirror in as many languages as possible: “I am a flawed person. I imbibe bullshit more readily than the breathless inhale oxygen in an EMS vehicle. A life without bullshit is impossible; therefore bullshit makes life more tolerable.”
Thanks, Mr. Warren. You have made me appreciate the positive value of becoming mired in my own bullshit. I readily recognize, even if my intellectual peers fail to appreciate, that I need not fear the bullshit that characterizes my life. In fact, through your book of salvation, I proudly accept my own bullshit even if it perturbs others. It’s especially liberating to realize that though bullshit shouldn’t suffuse my waking life, I can use it to my advantage if I accept myself for who I have become. But enough of my bullshit: let’s think about how I can make my bullshit more beneficial than yours.
Alexei Waters is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and a researcher in population biology and neurophysiology. He can be reached at aaw13@cornell.edu. First Take appears Mondays.
Copyright © 2005 The Cornell Daily Sun. All rights reserved.
Advertise (http://www.newdigitalgroup.com/index.php?section=Advertisers) on the New Digital Group College Newspaper Network
This story was printed from The Cornell Daily Sun.
Site URL: http://www.cornellsun.com (http://www.cornellsun.com/).
The Purpose Driven Life of Bullshit
First Take
November 21, 2005
Alexei Waters
Much like the excrement that one occasionally steps in, bullshit comes in a variety of forms. There is the academic bullshit that confuses obfuscation with profundity (think especially of literary theory and German philosophy). There is the conversational form where people foam at the mouth because they need to convince others how clever they are by cramming in as many words as they can in the shortest amount of time. Then there is the kind one finds in political campaigns, where there are so few meaningful choices, it ushers in the crisis of democracy while claiming the converse with the glory of a convicted felon. My favorite form of bullshit is the kind that wraps itself in the seriousness of a religiously inspired earnestness, that puts those who disagree on the defensive — as if disbelief is the same as a deleterious form of mental dehydration. Call this the bullshitters bullshit. Bullshit at its banal best.
Please indulge my recommendation that you follow my interpretation of the example of Mr. Rick Warren, the celebrated author and now multi-millionaire of the best selling, Bible-justifying megabook called The Purpose Driven Life. I am especially appreciative that I was given this book as a present and it only cost the donor $19.99 plus tax to completely convince me of the need to overcome the moral complacency that has characterized my life thus far. How was this possible? The simplicity of surety is what made all the difference: Mr. Warren expertly applies Biblical passages to situations where we have serious difficulties in navigating the fields of (bull)shit that appear in our lives. He claims that in order to become the person God wants us to be, we must develop strong moral judgments and exercise a dogged pragmatism that allows us to fulfill our destinies in a manner that gives glory to God.
My familiarity with The Purpose Driven Life came at the perfect moment.
In July of this year, I became one of the blessed few souls who was given the honor of spending 10 days at NYU Hospital for treatment of a massive grand mal seizure I incurred in my Uris Hall office. While in the hospital, I read Mr. Warren’s brilliantly informative 334 page book. I believe it is one of the few texts (such as Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Immanuel Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractus Logico-Philosophicus) that have influenced my intellectual development.
In order to be a loyal disciple of Mr. Warren, who is a more loyal servant of God than I am supposed to be, I think I have discovered the secret to living with bullshit. Discipline, discipline and more discipline has been the deciding factor. Directly below are the 12 most important precepts that I have recited daily. Feel free to read all 334 pages of The Purpose Driven Life and then create your own inspired precepts. But don’t share them with me unless I am a less successful bullshitter than you.
Precept One
The more that bullshit envelops my personality and the more manipulative my dung-like personality becomes, the more likely I am to become successful in a world with too much bullshit.
Precept Two
Bullshit is to the intellect what flatulence is to the body: necessary but never sufficient for greatness.
Precept Three
The more other people take my bullshit at face value, the more prestigious a person I become.
Precept Four
Bullshit can bring me closer to appreciating the beauty of the divine since the love of bullshit makes love for the Ultimate Being more inescapable.
Precept Five
I will achieve greater academic success and intellectual satisfaction the more I am able to bullshit my way through every social encounter.
Precept Six
Bullshit is not only an abstract concept, it is a social necessity.
Precept Seven
Without bullshit in my life, I seem less smart than I want to others to believe.
Precept Eight
Acquiescence to the demands that bullshit proliferates may enervate my soul, but it also recapitulates my ontogeny.
Precept Nine
My life needs bullshit so that I can overcome bullshit.
Precept Ten
The more bullshit I overcome the more bullshit I need as a replacement.
Precept Eleven
Whatever is good and great in this life can’t be understood unless I can articulate how bullshit contributes to its realization.
Precept Twelve
I am clever (after all, I am an important member of the Cornell community) so I can bullshit with greater sophistication than bullshitters at non Ivy League (plus four) institutions.
Simple daily recitations to reinforce my life-inspiring Precepts
Before breakfast and before bedtime, I utter the following words at least 20 times to myself in front of my dust-filled mirror in as many languages as possible: “I am a flawed person. I imbibe bullshit more readily than the breathless inhale oxygen in an EMS vehicle. A life without bullshit is impossible; therefore bullshit makes life more tolerable.”
Thanks, Mr. Warren. You have made me appreciate the positive value of becoming mired in my own bullshit. I readily recognize, even if my intellectual peers fail to appreciate, that I need not fear the bullshit that characterizes my life. In fact, through your book of salvation, I proudly accept my own bullshit even if it perturbs others. It’s especially liberating to realize that though bullshit shouldn’t suffuse my waking life, I can use it to my advantage if I accept myself for who I have become. But enough of my bullshit: let’s think about how I can make my bullshit more beneficial than yours.
Alexei Waters is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology and a researcher in population biology and neurophysiology. He can be reached at aaw13@cornell.edu. First Take appears Mondays.
Copyright © 2005 The Cornell Daily Sun. All rights reserved.
Advertise (http://www.newdigitalgroup.com/index.php?section=Advertisers) on the New Digital Group College Newspaper Network