Every bullshitter I ever met isn’t worth a darn when it comes to math. That’s why they use words to get what they want. You take an engineer—he doesn’t need to bullshit anybody because he can build a bridge. Or take a jet pilot. Or a surgeon. Take anybody whose job requires them to know something. Seldom are they bullshitters. Knowledge and bullshitting don’t mix, like oil and water. And that’s why salespeople—who are, obviously, some of the best bullshitters around—are often described as oily. They can slip your grip like a slick eel and wriggle on their way.
We must remember that knowing something and believing something are two different things. Confuse those two and you will probably run into trouble. Why? Because bullshitters do their best work in the sphere of believing where they can manipulate the images more easily. We must be savvy lest we find ourselves chained in a cave of shadows.
In the Pseudocene, an age of of Powers and Principalities presided over by bullshitters and stinking of bullshit—an age where you can’t trust anyone who sits in front of a camera, especially news hustlers who sell their souls to oligarchs and arms dealers and then flaunt their collusion with smug cynicism; where slick-haired preachers shout about Armageddon and the Mark of the Beast while the poor go hungry; where food corporations sell you toxic goop that makes you fat and sick, so pharmaceutical companies can sell you poison that makes you thin and addicted; where munitions companies dictate foreign policies that purloin your paycheck and send your children off to fight in futile wars; where insurance companies collect their premiums while you’re working and deny your claims while you’re dying; where tenured professors explain ever so patiently that your faith is false and your values corrupt and then give you nothing in return except virtue signaling and nihilism; where cash-flush oligarchs slap your hand and explain ever so patiently that your poverty is essential to your liberty; where celebrities in gated neighborhoods protest the punishment of the guilty and ignore the protection of the innocent; where ChatGPT and Gemini and other metastases of Artificial Intelligence input bullshit to spawn more bullshit to spew more bullshit; and where all of them at the same time—news hustlers and factory food conglomerates and big pharma and warmongers and insurance extortionists and pseudo-intellectuals and condescending oligarchs and narcissistic celebrities and metastatic bots—swell together in a kind of institutional tsunami, a towering wave that looms above us and threatens to swamp us in a diarrhetic deluge of bullshit–in such an age as ours, I cry out, BEWARE THE BULLSHITTERS!
And even if you hear me and shout a warning to your friends—“Look out! That big wave of bullshit is coming down on our heads!”—you’ll find your voice has been drowned out by the roaring of the sea. You’ll be cancelled as a communist or a fascist—depending on whether you lean Left or Right—because the Overton window has been slammed shut, and honest speech will land you in jail.
Oh, we do indeed live in the Pseudocene, but we Ozarkers have confronted hard times before. We draw our strength from the red clay and limestone beneath our feet, the faith in our hearts, the callouses on our hands, and the integrity of our minds. We will remain standing, battered but unbowed, if we but think freely, speak freely, and use our own imaginations to tell our own stories.
Then when the bullshitters come around selling Big Power, Big Sex, and Big Money, we’ll tell ’em to “Folk off!”
That’s right!
Say it with me: “Folk off! Folk the politicians and oligarchs! Folk Amazon and Netflix and HBO! Folk Fox News and CNN! Folk Instagram, TikTok, and the Metaverse! Folk all the big shot bullshitters! In fact, folk the Pseudocene!” Thus will the future of folks be forged from folktales and folksongs, outlandish stories told by folks of various hues who discover in their diverse traditions our common humanity. Folktales are the happy children of Love and Laughter, little fellas who remind us not to get too big for our britches lest we fall in a ditch.
So, pack your bags and head to Boxley Valley and Devil’s Den in Arkansas. Camp on the banks of the Buffalo, or listen to music on the courthouse lawn of Mountain View. Better yet, bring your guitar and join the jam. You’ll find kind people who will help you keep the rhythm. If you need more help, go to Eureka Springs and dance to the drums in Basin Spring Park.
Canoe the Current in Missouri or toss a line into the rippling waters of Roaring River or float what remains of the White River. Feel the tug on your line and broil your catch over an open fire. Drink moonshine and spit Red Man and carve a bow-legged hillbilly from a chunk of pine. Find a country church that treats folks with love and forgiveness the same way Jesus did. Sit on the porch of a camping cabin at the White Buffalo, light your Coleman lantern, and read the works of Randolph and Rayburn and Donald Harington.
Then someday when we’re all together, tell us a folktale we never heard before because you’re the one who made it up. We need a good laugh. Hell, everybody needs a good laugh. It’s your turn.