Musings on the World's Real Oldest Profession...

Some suggest that prostitution is the world's oldest profession. Others that it is spying. I, however, am going to go with bullshitting as the world's oldest profession. 

Bullshitting has been around at least since agricultural societies arose and monarchs needed ideological justification for their positions of power and authority. Religion, of course, gave them that justification. The mass media of film, television, radio, public relations shills, and advertising, of course, has become the world's biggest bullshitter. It is probably even a bigger bullshitter than the politicians of American mass society. It is probably even a bigger bullshitter than the capitalist flim flam men, snake oil salesmen, and side hustlers of the modern world. It is probably even a bigger bullshitter than American Christian revivalists.

The rise of digital social media seems to have increased the volume, mass, depth, and breadth of bullshite. Sadly, there are a lot of suckers out there who swallow the bullshite media and social media spew whole hog. Many if not most of these proverbial suckers have probably never read a reputable and thorougly documented work of history and social science in their lives.

So how does the media, and particularly the new digital media, allow for more easy manipulation of the listening and watching masses. In 2001, just after the 9/11 attacks, for instance, 3% of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, a country that had tense relations with the US, was responsible for 9/11. By 2003 thanks, in large part, to a campaign to change the minds of American citizens by the Bush the second administration, 44% of Americans believed Hussein was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. In reality Hussein had nothing to do with the attack, he hated Al-Queda, the group responsible for the attack, Al-Queda hated him, and most of the hijackers were Saudi subjects not Iraqi subjects. By the way, the other thing Hussein didn’t have after the first Iraq war under Bush the first, was “weapons of mass destruction”, despite the fact that the administration of Bush the second claimed he did. The media, of course played an important role in making many Americans believe Hussein did have “weapons of mass destruction”.

Another example: In 2008 polls found that 51% of Americans believed that Barack Obama, a candidate for president of the United States that year, a man who had attended church at Trinity Church Chicago for 20 years, was a Christian. 12% said they believed he was Muslim. 32% said they didn’t know what his religion was. Two years later only 34% of Americans believed he was Christian, 18% said he was Muslim, and 43% said they didn’t know. Why the change? Most commentators attribute the drop in the number of those who believed Obama was Christian, and the increase in those who believed he was a Muslim, to the impact of right-wing radio and right-wing TV on those who listened to and watched right wing media, including the Fox News Network. In reality Obama was and is, at least nominally, a Christian.