Requisite Appreciation of “Bullshit”?

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 30 Jun 2025

Anthony Judge - TRANSCEND Media Service

When Leadership Knows Not “What the Fuck” Iran and Israel Are Doing

Introduction

The future may recognize this to be an extraordinary period in which the widely acclaimed leader of the free world — and the most powerful person on the planet — is especially recognized for his tendency to “bullshit” (Tim Kenyon, Why Donald Trump is such a relentless bullshitter, The Conversation, 26 February 2025; Stewart Lee, Trump’s bullshit blitz has Europe on its knees, The Guardian, 23 February 2025; Lauren Griffin, Trump isn’t lying, he’s bullshitting – and it’s far more dangerous, The Conversation, 27 January 2017). The public use of profanity has been explained by The White House, arguing that one of the things the American people love the most about this president is he often says what they were thinking but lack the courage to say themselves (White House Responds to Donald Trump’s Use of Profanity, Newsweek, 31 January 2025)

This tendency is consistent with recognition of the chaotically surreal nature of global governance at this time. (Surreal nature of current global governance as experienced, 2016; Anthony Burke and Rita Parker, Global Insecurity: Futures of Global Chaos and Governance, 2017; Breno Bringel, Global Chaos and the New Geopolitics of Power and Resistances, 2022)

To the amazement of many this recognition has been further reinforced by the widely (un)publicized assertion of the acclaimed global peace maker — nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize — in employing a term widely deprecated in public discourse (Oscar Rickett, Trump says Israel and Iran ‘don’t know what the fuck they’re doing’, Middle East Eye, 24 June 2025; Rema Rahman, Trump on Israel, Iran continuing fight: ‘They don’t know what the f‑‑‑ they’re doing’ The Hill, 24 June 2025; Nina Golgowski, Trump Says Israel And Iran ‘Don’t Know What The F**k They’re Doing’, HuffPost, 24 June 2025; Giselle Ruhiyyih Ewing, An angry Trump decries Israel, Iran for breaking ceasefire, Politico, 24 June 2025). The so-called “F-bomb” was dropped at a highly critical moment in which many feared that a nuclear disaster was imminent, or that World War III could be triggered.

The somewhat elusive pattern of expletives was exemplified by an earlier declaration of Donald Trump ((Trump derides protections for immigrants from ‘shithole’ countries, The Washington Post, 12 January 2018; ‘A New Low.’ The World Is Furious at Trump for His Remark About ‘Shithole Countries’, Time, 12 January 2018; Here’s What People in the Room and Out Are Now Saying About Trump’s “Shithole Countries” Remark, The Slate, 15 January 2018). This invites reflection on the wider connotations of that assessment, especially given the controversial current deportation of immigrants to the USA to such countries (Earth as a Shithole Planet — from a Universal Perspective? Understanding why there are no extraterrestrial visitors, 2018).

The term “bullshit” has evoked a much discussed provocative philosophical study from within one of the most distinguished universities (Harry Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005). The European Union has publicised an extensive review of usage of the word “fuck” by politicians — and its history following Donald Trump’s recent and colourful comments on the White House lawn (David Mouriquand, WTF! Donald Trump and the politics of the F-bomb, Euronews, 25 June 2025).

Given the prevalence of profanity, and its use by decision-makers, there is a strong case for applying the methodology of appreciative inquiry to comprehend its nature — despite the controversy it evokes, or indeed because of that. A similar argument was made with regard to “evil” — itself used by politicians to frame others, as with some forms of profanity (Ensuring Dynamics of Sustainability by Appreciative Recognition of Evil, 2022). Use of profanity is of course frequently considered “evil”.

Of some relevance is a recent study comprehensive of vulgar language in online communication across 20 English-speaking regions based on the Global Web-Based English Corpus (GloWbE). The identification of vulgarity combines word lists used in profanity detection with regular expressions to identify a wide range of vulgar elements including spelling variants and obscured forms. (Martin Schweinberger and Kate Burridge, Vulgarity in online discourse around the English-speaking world, Lingua, 321, July 2025, 103946; 201 ways to say ‘fuck’: what 1.7 billion words of online text shows about how the world swears, The Conversation, 11 June 2025).

Less evident is the unexplored correlation between use of the vulgar language most obviously associated with capitalism, as discussed separately (Mysterious Complementarity between Capitalism and Arsenalism, 2020; Planetary Impalement by Stakeholder Capitalism? 2023). These frame the provocative question as to whether such metaphorical expressions are crucial to effective decision-making, sustainability and to the crisis of the times. The point acquires further focus through use of “bastard” as suggesting the legitimization of those failing in their alignment with a particular agenda.

This exercise makes use of artificial intelligence in eliciting a form of insight from the world’s resource with respect to the matter. Ironically pertinent is the sense in which AI is at this time considered to be “bullshit” in its own right (as discussed below) — and whether the responses should themselves be considered “bullshit” (including those presented below).

The following exercise endeavours to elicit relevant insights on profanity from the world’s online resources via the Perplexity AI. However, in a period rife with “misinformation” variously produced by humanity, it could be asked whether misinformation itself invites recognition as “bullshit” — and is effectively a euphemism for it. More problematic is whether otherness more generally tends to be framed as “bullshit”, as with those perceived to embody it in their manner and expression. Any such argument is especially provocative in that there is a marked tendency to “unparliamentary language” with respect to any opposition or alterity — whether or not it is restricted to discourse behind the scenes.

There is considerable irony to the manner in which public discourse may navigate around terms deemed politically incorrect, as exemplified by the “N-word“, the “F-word” and the “G-word“, with new connotations as a consequence of the actions of Israel in Gaza.

Given the value attached to recognition of what constitutes “bullshit”, the exploration framed the possibility of a catalogue or compilations to which reference is briefly made (Towards a Global Catalogue of Bullshit?)

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