{"id":1219,"date":"2013-05-10T10:26:52","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T10:26:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2013-05-10T10:26:52","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T10:26:52","slug":"intellectuals-and-pseudoprofundity-i-am-on-bbc-radio-3-tonite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2013\/05\/10\/intellectuals-and-pseudoprofundity-i-am-on-bbc-radio-3-tonite\/","title":{"rendered":"Intellectuals and Pseudoprofundity – I am on BBC Radio 3 tonite"},"content":{"rendered":"

I will be on BBC Radio 3 The Verb<\/i> Tonight discussing “intellectuals” and pseudo-profundity. I had a right old punch up with Prof Paul Taylor (Communications Studies, University of Leeds). But we made up afterwards over cake.<\/p>\n

You can here it live tonite 10pm and on the website for a week after that: http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b006tnsf<\/a><\/p>\n

Here is a quote from Baudrillard that Paul chose for the programme:<\/p>\n

For ethnology to live, its object must die. But the latter revenges itself by dying for having been “discovered”, and defies by its death the science that wants to take hold of it. Doesn’t every science live on this paradoxical slope to which it is doomed by the evanescence of its object in the very process of its apprehension, and by the pitiless reversal this dead object exerts on it? Like Orpheus it always turns around too soon, and its object, like Eurydice, falls back into Hades … the logical evolution of a science is to distance itself ever further from its object until it dispenses with it entirely: its autonomy evermore fantastical in reaching its pure form.<\/i><\/p>\n

I suggested this quotation was a combination of a banal observation and a falsehood, tarted up with a reference to Greek mythology. I read out an edited bit from my book Believing Bullshit: How Not To Fall Into An Intellectual Black Hole<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\n

PSEUDO-PROFUNDITY<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Pseudo-profundity is the art of sounding profound while talking tosh. Unlike the art of actually being profound, the art of sounding profound is not particularly difficult to master. As we\u2019ll see, there are certain basic recipes that can produce fairly convincing results \u2013 good enough to convince others, and perhaps even yourself, that you have gained some sort of profound insight into the human condition.
\n
\nState the obvious<\/b><\/p>\n

To begin with, try pointing out the blindingly obvious. Only do it i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y and with an air of superior wisdom. The technique works best if your pronouncements focus on one of life\u2019s big themes, such as love, money and death. So, for example:<\/p>\n

We were all children once
\nMoney can\u2019t buy you love
\nDeath is unavoidable<\/p>\n

State the obvious in a sufficiently earnest way, perhaps following up with a pregnant pause, and you may find others begin to nod in agreement, perhaps murmering \u201cYes, how very true that is\u201d.
\n
\nContradict yourself<\/b><\/p>\n

A second technique is to select words with opposite or incompatible meanings and cryptically combine them in what appears to be a straightforward contradiction. Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n

Sanity is just another kind of madness
\nLife is a often a form of death
\nThe ordinary is extraordinary<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re an aspiring guru, why not produce your own contradictory remarks? The great beauty of such comments is that they make your audience do the work for you. Their meaning is not for you, the guru, to say \u2013 it\u2019s for your followers to figure out. Just sit back, adopt a sage-like expression, and let them do the intellectual labour.<\/p>\n

None of this is to say that such seemingly contradictory remarks can\u2019t convey something genuinely profound. But, given the formulaic way contradictions can be used to generate pseudo-profundity, it\u2019s wise not to be too easily impressed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sadly ( it\u2019s not just lifestyle gurus etc\u00a0 <\/span>who use language in this way)\u00a0 <\/span>some corners of\u00a0 <\/span>academia are dominated by intellectuals whose writing amounts to little than pseudo-profundity. Strip away the academic jargon and pseudo-scientific references from their impressive-sounding pronouncements and you\u2019ll find there\u2019s precious little left.<\/p>\n

Those thinkers often referred to as \u201cpost-modern\u201d include more than their fair share of such jargon-fuelled poseurs. So easy is it, in fact, to produce convincing-looking post-modern gobbledegook that a wag called Andrew Bulhak constructed a computer programme that will write you your own \u201cpost-modern\u201d essay, complete with references. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I just did and received an essay that begins:<\/p>\n

The primary theme of Cameron\u2019s model of neostructural Marxism is the common ground between society and culture. Sontag\u2019s analysis of Debordist situation states that society has objective value. However, Marx promotes the use of Marxist socialism to analyse class. Debordist situation holds that the goal of the observer is deconstruction. Therefore, the subject is interpolated into a neostructural Marxism that includes art as a paradox. Several materialisms concerning semanticist subdialectic theory may be found.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will be on BBC Radio 3 The Verb Tonight discussing “intellectuals” and pseudo-profundity. I had a right old punch up with Prof Paul Taylor (Communications Studies, University of Leeds). But we made up afterwards over cake. You can here it live tonite 10pm and on the website for a week after that: http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/b006tnsf Here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}