Bullshit!

I have heard it said that the first casualty of war is truth and I’m sure that this statement has a high degree of validity. It is not just in war that truth suffers however: These days, in business and commerce, lies and hypocrisy are as rampant as they are in most religions. A really nice example that manages to combine a blatant lie with an unashamed dose of hypocrisy is: ‘We are an ethical and transparent organisation’. I just love that one and I hear it trotted out by some many company executives these days that I have become desensitized to it.
This issue has risen to the fore in my mind recently because I’m in India and in India, because of a combination of poverty, wealth, deprivation, exploitation, religious, and cultural conflict, truth, real truth has become desperately hard to find. The statements of politicians, businessmen, journalists, community leaders, authority figures, salesmen et al, are almost always, if not blatant lies; at best half truths, nonsense, bizspeak and marketing bullshit (MB). Here in India we are adrift in a mass of misinformation, ignorance, vested interests and just plain damn lies.
Whilst this is undoubtedly a serious matter for many reasons and on many levels, it does have its ironies; I have been amused to observe that many companies are focused in ensuring that their customers and suppliers are as thoroughly deceived as possible are at the same time the very people who fall most heavily for other companies MB. In short they have become so entangled in their own web of deception that they have lost the ability to tell when others are deceiving them. I contend that in India this mire of crap has so inveigled its way into the general culture that it is actually hampering the development that is used to justify it in the first place.
The richness and diversity of the bullshit ecosystem in India really warrants a ‘Field guide to Common Indian Bollocks’. My work commitments do not alas permit me to take this great and thoroughly worthwhile project forwards and so it, along with so many others, such as my ‘Good Cream Tea Guide’ will doubtless never see the light of day, however, I’ll try, as much for my own understanding as yours, to at least tease out the main categories of bullshit that are commonly encountered here.

1) Plain factual inaccuracies.

These are nearly always caused by simple ignorance. I have been told several times that next week, Mars will come so close to the Earth that it will be larger than the moon. I have read it in the paper and been told about it by senior science graduates. It’s printed in the paper so it must be true. Nobody actually sits and thinks about these things.
I read today in the Times Of India that Richard Branson’s new submarine will cruise at a depth of 37,000 feet under the ocean…..

2) Internet scams.

As I stated above, it amazes me that a people so surrounded by and used to lies are taken in, hook line and sinker by the most pathetically obvious internet scams. I have been told repeatedly that Chinese eat human babies and that you can buy tinned and bottled human babies in many Chinese shops. I regularly receive virals from colleagues, some who even doctor them to sound like they are coming from a personal acquaintance. This is bullshit unknowingly perpetrated by bullshitters! Lovely!

3) Marketing and advertising bullshit.

So far I have only described lies that are perpetrated out of ignorance. It’s forgivable, especially in a country where the educational system is in terminal disrepair, where science graduates ( and I’ve interviewed quite a few) have virtually no knowledge of general science, hell, I’ve interviewed chemistry graduates who do not know what a hydrocarbon is, so the above comes as no surprise, except perhaps the level of gullibility that many so-called educated people have.
When it comes to marketing and advertising, especially in a country that has no trades descriptions act, the lies become all encompassing and everyday. This stuff ranges from ultra blatant lying to half truths, smoke and mirrors. Indeed there is a certain stratum of business executive that exists simply to invent and perpetrate clever lies designed to fool suppliers, customers and legal authorities extant throughout the business and political communities. Everybody is at it in some form or another.
‘Now’, I hear you saying, ‘this is the same the world over surely?’ And indeed it is, in India however, I contend that it is less subtle, and more deeply engrained into the very fabric of organizations than anywhere else I have ever been and what is more, has become such a part of everyday life that many people have lost the basic concept of ‘truth’. Many of the people who are engaged in this activity are not bad people in themselves, indeed, often the opposite, they are often religious, moral, kind, unselfish people in themselves but when questioned have an attitude that the dissemination of lies and half truths is a simple everyday necessity, and who the hell am I to say they are wrong?

4) Corruption.

Now we enter a dark and murky realm. When it comes to corruption, India is an old hand, who knows? Perhaps the oldest…. Whatever, corruption intrudes into every single layer of society and touches every person living in India, it is such a common and normal thing that it is accepted simply as a part of life b pretty much everybody. Enough said I think.

I could go on…… but I won’t cos I have made my point and pretty obvious it is an’ all, its been cathartic for me anyway and that was the point of my ran I expect. Now then, I really must get down to the continuation of my Jungle Story.

Ta ra for now peeps.