Emily and I have been discussing parenting styles recently. The standard stuff like discipline, how to encourage, etc. We won't need any of this for a year or so, but it's best to plan a bit beforehand. And that brings me to the value of bullshitting.
I don't know if anyone has heard of the card game called "Cheat", but I think it's a good and safe intro to the concept of bullshitting. The rules are:
- Split the deck evenly between all players, and keep your cards hidden.
- On your turn, choose some of your cards and place them face down on the table. Describe what those cards are, like "4 aces" or "3 kings".
- You do not have to tell the truth. There are some rules for how you can describe those cards.... but truth is not one of the rules.
- If someone calls out "Cheat" when you're lying, then you have to pick up all the cards that were put down so far.
- If someone call out "Cheat" and you're NOT lying, then they have to pick up all the cards that were put down so far.
- The first person to get rid of all their cards wins the game.
I feel this game teaches us:
- not to believe the first thing you hear (a good strategy is to lie unnecessarily on your first turn and tell the truth on your second turn, as it can really confuse people)
- it is always safer to tell the truth, as there's a high probability of the truth coming out
- you cannot make unbelievable claims and expect people to accept it easily
- test the truth of what someone says by looking at what you know for sure (if someone claims to put down 2 aces, but you have 3 aces in your hand, you know they are bullshitting)
- pay attention to what is going on and where the cards are, because that information can help identify any lies
- you must tell the truth at the end (everyone will call "Cheat" on your winning turn, so you better be telling the truth)
Not all of the above are positive lessons, I know. But some are very useful in a world where you can't trust information. How do you know that your friend is not stranded in Spain without a credit card and needs you to wire money immediately? Because if they needed money that badly, they could have made a collect call. How do you know that combining your chequing and mortgage will save you money? Run the numbers yourself. How do you know that Microsoft won't donate $1 to AIDS research for every time you forward an email? Because you have never heard of a service that lets you track emails like that. How much should you trust a person online? Only as far as you can independently verify what they say.
But can/should you incorporate bullshitting as a parenting skill? Before I even knew how to play a game like "Cheat", I was exposed to the concept of bullshitting. My Dad loved to do it, with statements like "I can remember being born" being one of his favourites. If you left your McDonalds fries unwatched, someone would steal them and try to convince you that you ate them all. It was up to you to spot who had two sets of fries in front of them.
The main difference between "bullshitting" and outright "lying" was that you can always identify the bullshit by looking at your surroundings. And you would be congratulated for successfully separating the bullshit from the truth.
I honestly think this has helped me. I accept what people say, but do not rely too heavily on it. I try to pick out information that sounds odd or incorrect or misphrased, and take the time to verify those facts. I always try to correlate what I hear with what I see and what I can deduce. It has been a valuable lesson to me.
So when our child asks "Has the sky always been blue?", I may just answer "Well they have to repaint it every year, and this year they chose blue. Last year it was green." And I will be very happy when they call "bullshit" on me, because all our photos have nice blue skies.
