South Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society
The following article is from the SAVES newsletter, The VE Bulletin, Vol 15, No 1, Mar 98
Pious Bullshit
The attendance (around 76) at the November 97 SAVES general meeting was larger than usual, perhaps out of curiosity as to how Dr Brian Stoffell,
Director of the Medical Ethics Unit at Flinders
Medical Centre, would handle his chosen topic, Pious
Bullshit. It turned out to be not so much a denigration
of religious belief, but more a comment on the human
capacity to bluster in the face of challenge. It seems
established, though, that many religious institutions
find themselves unable to avoid using bullshit in
opposing needed social reform.
In explaining the meaning of the word "bullshit" as
commonly used, he described it as a special sort of
evasiveness, where what is evaded is both the truth
and its counterfeit, the lie. His mentor on this subject,
Harry Frankfurt, suggests that bullshit is so prevalent
that it stands out as the most salient feature of our
culture [See Harry's essay "On Bullshit" in The
Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge
University Press, 1988)]. Its hard not to agree when
we consider the ways in which we at times try and
influence others and, in turn, are influenced ourselves,
quite apart from our exposure to the "experts" -
politicians, professional advisers, salespersons, and so
on.
Dr Stoffell gave examples of the many forms of
bullshit in common use, all of which we can
immediately recognise and which include:
- The endless use of inflated, florid, highsounding
language to avoid relevant questions;
- The ritual incantation of the name of an argument,
eg "slippery slope" as though that settles the
matter;
- The use of pompous images or metaphors as
substitutes for argument, eg "fabric of society",
"sanctity of life", to give the impression of greater
knowledge or insight than the recipient of the
bullshit;
- The claiming of a link between two scenarios to the
disadvantage of the one under attack, eg the attempt
to label the push to legalise voluntary euthanasia as
part of a "culture of death" akin to the excesses of
the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany.
Dr Stoffell's theme was that the multiple facets of
bullshit were ploys for evading the issue, giving a
false impression of the truth, and blinding the gullible
with vacuous terms.
Bullshit is, of course, rampant in the voluntary
euthanasia debate and lest we feel too complacent we
must acknowledge that its use is not always confined
to our opponents. The challenge is to know when
we've been seduced into using it ourselves because
only then can we break free from that other common
human characteristic, self-deception.
The title of Dr Stoffell's talk comes from the Latin
technical phrase, pia fraus, meaning "pious fraud". It
refers to an approach that is accepted as basically
dishonest, but justified as being in the interests of a
higher cause - in this case, religion. Dr Stoffell
convincingly claimed that for all the widespread use of
bullshit in our culture, it paled into insignificance
compared with its single-minded use by the leaders of
the religious right to justify their claim that voluntary
euthanasia is never morally permissible.
Dr Stoffell concluded with a comment on a recent
argument put forward by some on the religious right
who have decided to target compassion: "Why should
compassion have so prominent a place in the public
debate?"; "There are other more profound things at
stake here than mere compassion for the dying, the
sanctity of life, for example or the doctrine of the
church!" The truly astonishing thing here is that
compassion and ministry to the poor and suffering is
the only moral notion that Christianity has any claim
to have championed. You can certainly reject the
moral demands of compassion, but in so doing the
moral core of Christianity goes with it.
Dr Stoffell's talk, quite academic at times, was most
stimulating. The prevalence of bullshit in the
community, and our susceptibility to it, must surely be
a crucial factor in the long time it takes to achieve
worthwhile social reform.
Bill Mettyear
Further information on this and related issues is available from the SAVES.
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