The Bullsh*t Manifesto, Part II—The Different Ways We Deal With BS
& who will inherit the earth.
Last week I shared Part I of the Bullsh*t Manifesto. One of our readers/fellowship members, Scott, offered a wonderful recap of part I—he compared the rapid development of society to the fierce bubbling of a jacuzzi, with society unable to keep up and as a result, BS is created and fills our lives. Well done Scott, and happy birthday. May your jacuzzi sessions be long and your wrinkles few.
Here is Part I: https://thedoorman.substack.com/p/the-bullsht-manifesto-part-ieverything
Now we progress to Part II:
The Challenge of Conformity
Restating from last week:
The tension we normally endure is the desire to fit in to the group versus the desire to be ourselves.
Conformity is not necessarily a bad thing. If Conformity had a billboard, it would say something like, ‘Taking what has made life good for the people around you, and people before you, and making that readily accessible so you don’t have to think about or figure it out for yourself.’
As with all advertising promises, this can be a little hit and miss. It can be BS. What then, do we do about this challenge to conform—specifically, to conform to BS? It brings me back to the five main coping strategies I outlined last week.
Submit to the BS
Downplay the BS
Conform outwardly, but not inwardly
Call out the BS
Try removing the BS
Let’s jump into each.
Option #1: Submit to the BS—The All-Iners & Social Police
Say you were friends with a ginger (red) haired kid in high school who got picked on. After realising you can’t stop ginger being bullied, a good way to avoid bullying yourself is to switch sides and join in. I’m not advocating this—what a terrible thing to do. But if you were to do it, you’d probably feel guilty, that is unless you believe in the bullying. If you believe ginger deserves it and that gingers are second rate citizens, you don’t feel bad. This is a terrible, terrible thing to believe, I’m not saying this is right—Gingers are almost as worthy as any other person. What I’m trying to demonstrate is Option 1, a tried and tested BS coping mechanism—Submission.
Option 1 requires denial. We all use denial to cope every now and then. At this point you might be thinking, ‘I’m never in denial.’ But consider this—when we’re in denial, we never think we’re in denial. That’s part of denial. Actually it’s kind of the point.
Option 1 works best when our perception is unconsciously rearranged to believe the proposed BS. For example, one’s mind searches for instances of gingers wronging us in the past. If it can’t find them, it simply creates the evidence or logic required. For example:
‘Why else would the Almighty give them such a strange hair colour? To highlight them for the rest of us and make them easy targets.’
Option 1 is most effective when we go all-in—when we over commit and over convince ourselves, as this is a much more defensible and complete escape from reality.
We persecute one another in this world for our beliefs. This is a bit of a trap—our beliefs are not primary forces, they’re secondary—malleable, senseless henchmen serving a Big Boss who stays hidden in the shadows. The henchmen do whatever the Big Boss says, so there is almost no limit to the warped realities we can make true for ourselves.
Social Policing
In WWII Nazi-run concentration camps, some of the most feared guards were Kappos—Jewish prisoners turned guards, who helped implement the abhorrent Nazi horrors on their own kind.
Extreme submission to BS creates Social Police. Social Police are not satisfied with merely believing something themselves, they take opportunities to impress it on others. Social Policing is usually subtle—‘Oh, no girlfriend?’ But it can be aggressive and direct—‘You should be married by now!’ If there is a pointless social ritual, the Social Police of a culture will act to enforce it.
The Social Police are a little Gestapo-esque in the culture of fear they propogate. We don’t know who exactly is Social Policing at any given point in time, or who will dob us in to the SP. This helps permeate the fear of what the ambiguously defined ‘others’ or ‘people’ at large think—uncertainty around who exactly from the broader population will take issue with us veering from what is expected makes us suspect everyone.
Option #2: Downplay the BS. ‘It’s not so bad.’
On to a lighter note:
What's-a matter you? Hey! Gotta no respect?
What-a you t'ink you do, why you look-a so sad?
It's-a not so bad, it's-a nice-a place
Ah shaddap-a you face!
Joe Dolce’s song about his mother slapping him into gear when he complains about all the effort involved in living, rings true. ‘It’s not so bad.’
Downplaying the BS is not necessarily a negative. I see two directions downplaying can go in: Transcendence or Denial.
Transcendence:
‘Gee, cost of living is going up. It’s hard to afford a good life these days.’
‘I know, but, still, it’s not so bad.’
Denial:
‘Uncle Frank makes a lot of racist remarks. And he hates Gingers for some reason.’
‘Ah, he’s not so bad.’
The problem is it’s hard to know which is transcendence and which is denial.
Too much Denial-style leads us slowly into Option #1. We call this the slow but steady fall from grace.
Option #3: Conform Outwardly, But Not Inwardly—The Silent Observers
I suspect most readers of this article resort to this option most often. We all notice BS, but most of us don’t voice it publicly. We play on the side of caution by conforming to a large degree—behaviourally, outwardly, floating through society, and life, as supposedly loyal and adherent ‘Silent Observers’ to keep the Social Police at bay.
Silent Observers put up with the bureaucracy of their workplace and the insufferability of the media. They understand the triviality of certain social rituals but perform them anyway. They do not stick their necks out or look out of place. They blend in with the sheep.
But inside—inside they are rebels. Their spirit is free and resists the BS—it is aligned, secretly, with Anti-BS. Their rebellion is quiet, silent, sometimes invisible—but it is there. It feels dramatic to compare such people to Mandela, but this resistance is captured brilliantly in that poem he loved, Invictus.
“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
Silent Observers are the blessed people who endure the BS without making a fuss, without need to challenge or point it out. If my interpretation of the Gospels is correct, in the end these people shall inherit the Earth.
The moment I know I’ve lost someone is not when they perform according to the narrative or adhere to the BS—it’s when they believe it. When the BS infiltrates the last stronghold mankind has left—the spirit, mind and soul.
My friends, never give up this last stronghold.
Option #4: BS Spotting
BS Spotters have the gall to say aloud what Silent Observers think in private about a given situation. BS Spotters give the Silent Observers catharsis by voicing the BS and help them remember they aren’t crazy or alone. BS Spotters are very important to society—without them, we’d drown in BS.
We are all BS Spotters at different times but some people dedicate their lives to this practice. They are certain (but definitely not ALL) comedians, intellectuals, journalists, activists, thinkers and certain outspoken everyday citizens. Very rarely are they politicians or Gingers. They aren’t necessarily heroes—many are dominated by selfish, ego-centred compulsions more than anything else:
Needing everyone to know they see BS others don’t
The thrill of putting down those who are BS, or believe BS, to elevate themselves
A lifelong need for attention
Being contrarian, non-conformist or different for the sake of it
Their cocktail of motivational forces must be strong enough to overpower the natural reflexes to behave, conform, and self-preserve. Thankfully, the impure motivations for BS Spotting can have less to do with material things and more to do with status. For example, the starving comedian trying to make it might applaud themselves for ‘having the rare gaul to resist conformity, the capitalist wheel, and the temptation of a steady paycheque, unlike most others.’ One has to applaud the brilliance of the BS-producing device I call the human mind for its capacity to produce such stories—without them, there’d be an undersupply of BS Spotting.
Active or Obsessive BS Spotters typically have odd or troubled upbringings, and something missing in their heads. They don’t need to be a total outsider but need to be comfortable with sticking their neck out on occasion. One foot in, one foot out, a kind of, ‘I have to live on this planet, but I don’t have to take its BS lying down.’
Comically, Active/Obsessive BS Spotters are both drawn to and repelled by each other. On one hand, coming together creates solidarity against the BS and ‘sheep’, but on the other, they feel insecure around others who assume to spot BS better than they do. Sadly, for these reasons, my guess is that most BS Spotters have a net-positive BS contribution—they create more BS than they remove. Thankfully, not everyone is a full-on BS Spotter. If they were, society would crumble rather quickly.
Option #5 BS Removalist—Danger.
Basically the same as Option #4 but with a real dedicated mission not just to identify and flag BS, but actively remove it. This is very, very dangerous work, and often not the most effective response to BS.
The Woes of being an Active BS Spotter
As a once diligent high school student with bright career prospects, I feel like I had so much promise. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way I lost my ability to maintain appropriate and expected social behaviour.
What excites me most are not business or career prospects, but opportunities to be irreverent, ironic, and disruptive. As soon as I feel a narrative gaining traction, a trend forming or fashion taking shape, I feel the urge to defy it—proving nothing to no one in the process.
While normal people take nice holiday photos—I take photos of traffic cones near the Eiffel Tower to be ironic. When everyone starts holidaying in the same spot, say Japan (current trend)—I cancel my trip, even though I still want to go.
I am in constant negotiation with society. I am condemned to my fate, but plan to carry it out to the best of my ability, collecting the small breadcrumbs of meaning that fall from the fact my type are needed—that without us, society would drown in BS.
Final Summary
Now that I read over this manifesto, I feel like I’ve summarised the gist of 1984 by George Orwell, only much faster and via the motif of bullsh*t. My point, if you didn’t glean it, is that we need all types of people and ways of coping with BS, just like we need the BS itself—to challenge us, entertain us, stimulate us, and spur us on.
My only prayer is that we keep the BS free from that last stronghold—the depths of what we truly believe. If you will join me on this quest, to protect the last stronghold, that will be wonderful. Onward we march—respectfully, cautiously, and silently.
We start this revolution next week with my irreverent, and much delayed, 2025 Goal-Setting Breakdown. May the Good Lord help us through that.
Joe Wehbe, author of Holy Sh!t, It’s Only… Tuesday? and 18 & Lost? So Were We is amongst many things a people-watcher and stern critic of our species. He has recently left his saintly home atop a cloud to return to earth with the explicit purpose of Enlightening others.
Brilliant!