I don't know if I would characterize "America" as a nation filled with bullshitters, nor would I say that it's an increasingly large phenomenon. In everyday social interactions and relationships, people aren't necessarily trying to sell something (perhaps themselves, but that's a little bit of a stretch), so I don't think that bullshit is such a pervasive issue in that sense. It is pervasive in regard to advertisement and promotion. I wouldn't say that bullshit is a "complete lack of concern for the truth," but rather just a company's prioritization of truth one step below its profit. What matters most to any salesman is making a profit, and while outright lies may not be the most effective pathway, absolute truth might not work well either.
I think, however, that a capitalist, democratic society can also be a sort of self-check for bullshit. Competition naturally holds back on bullshit a little bit, since corporations, political candidates, etc. can't get away with evading the truth without their integrity being challenged by competitors or opponents.
For example, in Hosni Mubarak's dictatorship, he "won" every election with 99% of the vote, something that would never happen in a democracy.
I also think that bullshit has been around and been prominent since the begin of civilization, so to say that it is a new problem, or one that poses a unique threat to America is a little bit ridiculous.

If I were to actually answer this question, my response itself would be complete bullshit; I don't feel like I know enough about America or America's past to say that BS or a "lack of concern for the truth" are more prominent than they used to be. Sure, advertisements and politics are filled with bullshit, but how would I know whether or not these parts of our society were always full of bullshit? As Frankfurt said at around six minutes, "...the tendency to bullshit is encouraged...by the fact that it's a widespread view in a democratic society that a responsible citizen ought to have an opinion about everything. Well you can't know very much about everything and so your opinions are likely to be based upon bullshit."

That being said, I actually think that bullshit helps promote thought in SOME circumstances. Last year especially, I had to write a lot of English/history papers, and I would have no idea what to write about, so finally I would just start with a really vague thesis that was complete BS. But then I would actually find evidence to support the thesis until it became coherent and was no longer bullshit. If I had been scared to BS my papers initially, they would have been very boring and unoriginal. However, when BS doesn't make that transition into something that makes sense, then it is unproductive and probably damaging to society.

I'm not so sure that it is a societal problem, because I think it isn't as common amongst very close personal relationships (friends and family). Where bullshit is more common is within the media and occasionally within academic life, as Josh put it. Shows on Fox News and MSNBC are full of bullshit, using fake facts and altered data--as well as completely unsubstantiated claims--to attempt to prove a point. Reality television is just the opposite--that, perhaps, is completely bullshit. In terms of academic life, on days when I have a particularly large amount of homework, the quality of the actual work goes down because I'm not able to spend as much time thinking about what I'm doing.

This is definitely a growing problem in these two areas, because people care less about the truth as ratings go up in the media and people focus more on higher education. Bullshit, I think, hasn't necessarily arisen because people care less about the truth, but simply care MORE about certain other things, like ratings and college.

I really like Annie's point: What I'm about to do is, to a point, bullshitting an answer. I don't think 16 years in Newton and a 10 minute video make me some kind of expert on the pervasiveness of half-truth/bullshit in American society, but in answering this question thoroughly and with authority I'll effectively remove these caveats. Complex issues, like the prevalence of bullshit in American cultural life, can only be explained without bullshit if you're really an expert on the matter. What we should do instead of trying in vain to get rid of inevitable bullshit is working harder to distinguish between good analysis and unsubstantiated, unqualified explanations. Bullshit will always exist; the question is whether we as a society lend the same credence to trained experts as average joes.

I think it's getting worse in America because are living (in the broader, historical sense) in a more capitalistic and democratic society than ever before. With increasingly triangulated politics and markets, the clarification of everyman bullshit and erudite advice disappears. The capitalist motto "the customer is always right" is essentially mirrored by the democratic presumption "the voter is always right". We need to work harder to remove the credibility of everyone's opinion on every issue. Some people have opinions that, on some fields of expertise, are better than others. We'll never remove bullshit, but we can remove its influence.

In many situations I agree that America has a lack of concern for the truth. The two main situations that a bunch of people have been talking about are the media and in school settings. These two make sense to me, because if you are trying to sell something you'd obviously only want to share its best aspects. Also, especially if you don't care about what you are writing about, it's easy to just write what the teacher wants. This also correlates to what he was saying about the difference between bullshitting and lying. You could either plagiarize, or you could think of legitimate bullshit that comes from your own mind. They both seem wrong, but plagiarizing is way worse in my opinion.

I agree with what Dan said about personal relationships. In my opinion it's more important to care about the truth with family and friends, so I don't think its as common.

I completely agree with Frankfurt's claim that America has evolved into a place that places too low of a premium on the truth. I agree with Frankfurt and many of the above commenters that the growth of capitalism and the market culture have contributed to this characterization, as truth often does not sell as well as BS. I think that the pervasiveness of BS, however, extends beyond the market place and into the more general context of our lives. We live in a society in which everything is incredibly fast-paced; we are constantly trying to do and perform and achieve more and more in less and less time. All too often with this culture comes a sacrifice of quality for quantity, and in the context of knowledge, this idea manifests itself in our desire to know more things on the surface rather than to know fewer things in-depth.

I don't think I had ever really seen what I would now classify as BS until I entered high school. Since that time, however, I can say that I've encountered at least one example of BS each day. Students are constantly BSing homework and tests and papers and auditions and responsibilities-- I can't remember the last time I discussed a school assignment with someone without the word 'BS' coming up in reference to it. I think that the trend of BSing in school goes along with South students' urge to overachieve, to do the absolute most that they can even if it means sacrificing the quality of each assignment they do. I honestly think that by graduating, if South students have learned nothing else, their competitive edge has taught them how to BS effectively.

I definitely agree with Frankfurt's claim that truth is becoming less and less of a value in society. Sammie made a great point when she said that often times the distorted truth or the more juicy stories can sell better than those that are completely true. Especially from the perspective of someone in the media, often times stretching the truth can sell better than the truth itself.

In terms of academic BS, I completely agree with what Rachel said. Academic BS is something that is prevalent at South. I remember once having a conversation with someone who told me that South isn't hard if you can figure out how to BS your way through it. Sometimes, as Rachel said, students place so much value on overachieving that they have to BS assignments in order to get through all that they have to do. If anything, I think the increase of BS in the academic world comes from the increasing importance placed on overachieving.

(I wrote a response to this and then my internet got messed up and my response was lost. And now I don't remember all the stuff I said.)

The example Frankfurt gave about Kerry and Vietnam seemed to me like a red herring or maybe a non sequitur. So if that's basically what BS is then probably most people who tell BS are just ignorant of the mistake in their reasoning. Is that a lack of concern for the truth? It's certainly not purposeful.

I think if something is under the impression that they're being truthful then it's not really a "lack of concern." It's just....sort of unintelligent. So then I don't think that America is necessarily "characterized" by a that lack of concern--I just think a lot of Americans are easily persuaded by liars to accept BS as the truth. We tend to spread BS like it's the common cold. That's obviously not a great societal norm to exhibit, but it sort of reflects the sort of lies/BS people perpetuate in politics all the time.

Also I'm not sure that the United States is the only country that's guilty of BSing to horrible extremes. So would it even be significant if America WERE characterized by a lack of concern for the truth? Leaders of many countries feed their people BS for a myriad of reasons. At least in the US we're able to call out BS for being BS--in other places we might get thrown in jail for saying anything that contradicted someone else's BS.

I agree with Hyun-- there are many shades of bullshitting, and that's where the line starts to blur. An educated guess can also be labelled as bullshit--but it's not necessarily as wrong or as controversial as bullshitting the public.
As for whether America is characterized by bullshitting? I don't completely agree with that statement. America does have its fair share of bullshit, but I don't think it's gotten to the point where it characterizes us as a culture. Yes, it's becoming more prevalent, but it hasn't permeated every sense of life, and I don't see it as a threat to the infrastructure of life or anything like that.
I'm also not so sure that bullshit is a lack of respect for the truth...it's simply making something up, fabricating something possibly based on truths. I don't think it's anything new; it's certainly been around for a while, and it shouldn't be taken as a threat.

I agree with Frankfurt's claims. America is becoming a pace where more and more people bullshit their way through things. I don't think America is defined by bullshit, but it has a larger role in the US.

I agree with Sarah and Rachel that the fast-paced nature of the United States, and more importantly Newton South causes people to bullshit.

I completely agree with the fact that America is becoming more and more used to bullshitting, and more and more accepting of it as well. While it may seem to go against good morals, everyone knows that it exists, and no one really speaks out against it. Perhaps it can be considered a form of "cheating," but it has now become normal in our everyday lives. Bullshitting perhaps is still more useful in an environment like school where we have standardized tests, grades, and GPAs as well as the pressure of college acceptances and whatnot. Though still useful in the real world, it probably doesn't have as much of an impact since there aren't many things that you can just bullshit your way through regardless. The nature of real life isn't like that all the time.

Which brings me to agree with Hyun/Bianca/other people who talked about the different shades of bullshitting. Perhaps the most extreme case of bullshitting is indeed in schools. Bullshitting is just a technique that many students have found useful in school, and to be honest, whatever is useful is going to be used. I find it hard pressed to say that bullshitting isn't getting more and more common these days.

I believe bs is a necessary evil in schools and communities. Although bs is bad, it doesn't make is unjustifiable. Bsing is necessary in some occasions, and the skills to learn how to bs successfully are needed to achieve in america. Although were more dependent on bsing than honesty, that doesng mean its wrong. We live in a different world now, where bsing is the norm. You just have to climb over eachother to get to the top. And if that means not being honest, that no one will be because honesty is a virtue that can hurt you back. If your too honest, people wont like you and wont want to hear from you because they know the truth hurts. And it does. Therefore, honesty has fallen flat.