Balderdash: What It Is, Why We Tolerate It, and How We Can Reduce It

Adapted by the author for Sed Contra from the latest version of a lecture developed for chapters of the Thomistic Institute.

I fell in love with the notion of Balderdash several years ago when I came across an essay by Neil Postman entitled The Educationist as Painkiller. Postman’s argument runs something like this: If our goal is to increase intelligence, we ought to try to reduce our stupidity. Reducing stupidity ultimately requires reducing all of stupidity’s expressions—stupid thinking, stupid behaving, and stupid speaking. 

The one most under our control is our stupid speech. We can’t stop ourselves from thinking stupid thoughts, but most of the time we can stop ourselves from blurting them out. And if we persevere in not saying stupid things, perhaps in time, we’ll stop thinking them, as well. 

Postman nicknames stupid speech “Balderdash,” which he defines very broadly as “anything we say that produces unnecessary confusion, pain, and misunderstanding.” If we wish to reduce our Balderdash, Postman suggests, we ought to begin by identifying the kinds of Balderdash that appear most frequently in our own speech. 

“This unnamed stupid speaking I have in mind is the phenomenon of using a word correctly without understanding what it means and not realizing you’re doing it.”

Postman doesn’t identify the particular kind of Balderdash that I would like to examine here. The unnamed kind of stupid speaking I have in mind is nonetheless so prevalent that it deserves to be thought of as the primary instance of Balderdash. This phenomenon, which I’ll simply call “Balderdash,” is this: using a word correctly without understanding what it means and not realizing that you’re doing it. 

WHAT BALDERDASH IS 

I’ll start off by pointing to Balderdash’s defining features. Balderdash, I’m proposing, comes about under three conditions. First, the speaker uses a word correctly. Second, the speaker doesn’t understand what the word means. And third, the speaker isn’t conscious of his not understanding. 

To the first: we use a word correctly when we provide a word that’s socially recognizable as a response to a given stimulus. Stimuli include the words and actions of others, as well as the rules of grammar and syntax. If you reply “I’m taller” to the question “how are you doing?”, then that is not a socially recognizable response to the question. 

The second condition for Balderdash is not understanding what a word means. We don’t understand a word’s meaning if we’re unable to identify what the word “points” to in experience. Words point in much the same way as fingers do, except that words can point to both physical and non-physical realities. Contrast answering “what hurts” by pointing with your finger and then by pointing with words. With my finger, I can point to my torso. But without words, you don’t know whether what hurts is my body, generally, the skin abrasion on my midriff, or the left side of my gallbladder. When we’re committing Balderdash, we point without being aware of what we’re pointing to. 

The third condition of Balderdash is not being conscious of not understanding our words. Consider an example of when this third condition isn’t present. Suppose I try to pick up some Gen Z language just by imitating my students. On occasion, I correctly use the words “based” or “mic drop.” But the first few times I do correctly imitate, I don’t know what the words mean. And since I’m consciously trying to figure out what the words mean, I’m very aware of my lack of understanding. 

In contrast, with Balderdash, we somehow remain oblivious of our not understanding a word even as we’re using it correctly. This is different from things like bluffing, in which we understand a word’s meaning and we consciously use it incorrectly. It is also different from things like signaling, where we understand the meaning of a word and use it correctly, but do so with primary intention of drawing attention to something about me, not to the meaning of the word. Rather than pointing to some thing, the words point back to me. 

BALDERDASH’S NON-DEFINING FEATURES 

There are some non-defining features of Balderdash that have consistently come up in my experience. First, there aren’t any words or phrases that are purely Balderdash. Balderdash is a matter of the individual speaker’s understanding of the words he uses. Nonetheless, some kinds of words are more likely to be used without understanding. We’re unlikely to commit Balderdash with words whose meanings are controversial, probably because controversy heightens our attention to meaning. We are more likely to commit Balderdash with words that are frequently used, and that can mean so many things that they mean almost nothing. For example, the stock-like phrases used on tea tags: “Travel in grace knowing that you are protected by love.” What do “grace” and “love” mean in that sentence? 

The second non-defining feature of Balderdash is that it’s very difficult to prove, either to yourself or to anyone else, that you’re not committing Balderdash. The source of the difficulty here is in showing that you understand the word’s meaning. Consider how you might try to prove that you understand. Using the word in a sentence won’t work since by definition in Balderdash, you can already do this. Defining the word also doesn’t prove that you’re not committing Balderdash, because you could just parrot a definition you’d heard previously. 

Here are two imperfect but workable tests to determine whether you understand an allegedly Balderdash term. You’re probably not committing Balderdash if you can come up with your own definition of the term. You’re also probably not committing Balderdash if you can distinguish the target term from two similar but non-identical terms. You don’t know what a brownie is, for example, if you can’t distinguish it from chocolate cake or fudge. 

WHY WE TOLERATE BALDERDASH 

Typically when we talk about tolerating, we’re referring to other people. I think the more perplexing question in the case of Balderdash is why we tolerate it in ourselves. How do we fail to recognize our failure to understand? 

“We neglect to clarify our Balderdash because we prefer the pain of unclarity to the pain of being held to clear standards. We keep it around because we’re afraid of having to conform our actions to what we might realize in the act of making things clear.”

There seem to be three reasons why we fall into Balderdash and don’t notice it. First, clarifying Balderdash isn’t absolutely necessary. We let Balderdash hang around because for the most part, it gets the job done. Most of our conversational exchanges don’t require that we understand our words clearly, but only that we understand (and are understood) just enough not to mess things up. 

A second reason is because the work of clarifying Balderdash is hard. It’s far easier to memorize than to work things out. If we’re afraid of working through the difficulty, we’ll tend to avoid even noticing that the work needs to be done. 

The third reason we neglect to clarify our Balderdash is because we prefer the pain of unclarity to the pain of being held to clear standards. We keep it around not because we’re afraid of doing the work of clarifying it, but because we’re afraid of having to conform our actions to what we might realize in the act of making things clear. As long as we don’t know the differences between things, we’re not obliged to treat them differently, so we deliberately keep our understanding and our speech vague. 

HOW TO REDUCE BALDERDASH 

Reducing Balderdash is made up of several smaller activities. At the very least, it requires identifying the Balderdash that you habitually commit, catching yourself when you’re about to recommit, and then preventing yourself from committing new Balderdash. Rather than addressing these activities separately, I’d like to offer three practices that collectively help with all the smaller activities. 

The first practice is to get granular. We attend in a granular manner when we strive to notice, not just the pile of sand, but each grain—the smallest parts of whatever whole that’s before us. If you wish to be clear in your speaking, you need to get granular in your thinking. Only by precisely considering what your words point to will your speech be clear. Or rather, your speech will only be as clear as your thinking is granular. 

The second practice is getting curious—directing our attention to the thing with the intention of finding something new and true. Practically speaking, we can get curious by a handful of means. One way is to get into the habit of asking all and only the questions whose answers we don’t know and whose answers we find ourselves genuinely desirous of. Another way is to stop avoiding boredom. This is hard because we live in a world that tries to make boredom rare. Making boredom rare, however, is no reason for rejoicing, because real questions grow, as it were, in the soil of boredom. If you can, seek out boredom. Doing so means seeking out silence. And we do this by turning away from the distractions of work, pleasure seeking, and even talking. 

The third practice is to get friends. In the context of the pursuit to reduce Balderdash, a friend is at least four things. A friend, first, is someone who cares about speaking carefully because he cares about understanding deeply. It’s less important that he actually speaks carefully than that he wishes to do so. A friend, second, is one who is able and willing to speak with you, as opposed to speaking over or at you. This is impossible unless he respects both your agency and his own. If he doesn’t respect your agency, he’ll speak at you. If he has disdain of your agency, he’ll speak over you. And if he doesn’t respect his own agency, he’ll probably not rise to the level of saying anything, but will only be parroting words and phrases that he hasn’t bothered to seriously consider. A friend, third, is someone who in speaking with me is able and willing to be with me on deeper levels. Broadly speaking, we’re with someone whenever we do or suffer what another person does or suffers, and we are aware of this sameness. On a superficial level, you’re with people who use similar words. On a slightly deeper level, you’re with people when you understand the same words and believe the same propositions. On the deepest level, you’re with someone when you arrive at common understanding together. To be with someone on this level, you need to be willing to enter into the other person’s confusion. 

To be capable of doing this, a friend, fourthly, must be someone who enjoys conversing with me and who delights in speaking for my understanding and in knowing that I speak for his understanding. A sign that someone enjoys conversing with you is that you can converse playfully, especially about the things that confuse you. 

Suppose you happen to find a friend with these four characteristics. How does this friend help you reduce your Balderdash? He can ask questions that don’t occur to you because your words and conceptions are familiar to you. A friend can ask questions that you might lack the courage to ask yourself because you’re more exhausted by your Balderdash than your friend is, and thus, more likely to cover your Balderdash over. And lastly, a friend reminds you that your agency is greater than any Balderdash you commit. 

IS THIS ACCOUNT OF BALDERDASH THOMISTIC? 

Thomas doesn’t mention the word Balderdash, and he doesn’t have much to say about the philosophy of language, which is somewhat of a modern preoccupation. The account I’ve given of Balderdash has been Thomistic, nonetheless, provided that we take “Thomistic” in the very qualified sense of “being like Thomas.” 

“My sense is that Thomas’s primary motivation for speaking clearly was so that he could speak clearly with God. If we want to speak clearly with God, the solution is to begin doing the things that will help us speak clearly with others.”

As mentioned above, we can be like someone either by saying the same things, believing the same things, or—ideally—by coming to belief through conversation with that person. My hope is that the foregoing account might serve as a guidebook of sorts for how we can become like Thomas—how we can come to speak and think with radiant clarity. I’d like to propose, by way of conclusion, that we can also come to reflect Thomas’ clarity if we imitate what he did to forge his clarity. What did Thomas do? 

Among many other things, Thomas got granular. In evidence of this, pick up a summa article. It’s impeccably arranged, not only in itself, but also with respect to the articles that come before and after it. The writing is evidence that Thomas was incredibly curious. In order to arrange his works as he did, he had to ask: what comes immediately before and after this? And how does it relate to me, the one who is asking about the thing? What is this thing’s ultimate beginning? What is its ultimate end? 

Thomas was able to ask these questions untiringly because he had, among other things, the assistance of many friends: The fathers of the church, Aristotle, Avicenna, intellectual rivals. Above all though, Thomas regarded the Holy Spirit as his friend. Thomas thought things through with the Holy Spirit. He didn’t just think about God and for God, but with God with a radical openness to receiving all and only what the Holy Spirit wanted to give. We should imitate what Thomas did to speak so clearly. 

We should also imitate why Thomas bothered to speak so clearly. I suggest that it was useful in two ways: it was useful for evangelization, and for his own contemplation. Only if we think clearly about things can we speak clearly about them to others. For Thomas, speaking clearly in general was useful for speaking clearly about God. More importantly, though, speaking clearly was also useful for Thomas’s own contemplation of God. My sense is that Thomas’s primary motivation for speaking clearly in general was so that he could speak clearly with God. The way that we attend to our words is habitual. If we’re sloppy or formulaic when we speak with others, we’re more likely to be sloppy and formulaic when we speak with God. It’s not that we intend to be this way, but rather that we can’t help but be whatever it is we are before God. 

If we want to speak clearly with God, the solution is to begin doing the things that will help us speak clearly with others, and then to allow God to be with us in this process. This is to say, our praying should include getting granular with God, listening to the curiosity of God, and allowing him to be with us even when all we have to say is Balderdash. 

Sr. Anna Wray is a native of Connecticut and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia of Nashville, TN. She received her Ph.D. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, having written her dissertation on Aristotle’s account of the activity of contemplation. She is an assistant professor on the faculty of Catholic University’s School of Philosophy in Washington, DC, where she regularly teaches courses in rhetoric, philosophy of religion, and philosophical psychology. She is also an adjunct professor for Aquinas College, where she teaches metaphysics and epistemology.