Bullshit ability as an honest signal of intelligence
Harold Bloom in &quot;How to Read and Why&quot; cautions us against bullshit thinking (cant)<p>Bloom quotes Samuel Johnson pg 23:  
<i>“My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a man, &quot;Sir, I am your most humble servant.&quot; You are not his most humble servant. You may say, &quot;These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times.&quot; You don&#x27;t mind the times ... You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in Society; but don&#x27;t think foolishly.”</i><p>pg 159
<i>There is no misandry in Jane Austen or George Eliot or Emily Dickinson. Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse are not concerned either with upholding or undermining patriarchy. Being vastly intelligent persons, like Rosalind, they do not think ideologically. To read their stories well, you need to acquire a touch of Austen&#x27;s own wisdom, because she was as wise as Dr. Samuel John-son. Like Johnson, though far more implicitly, Austen urges us to clear our mind of &quot;cant.&quot; &quot;Cant,&quot; in the Johnsonian sense, means platitudes, pious expressions, group-think. Austen has no use for it, and neither should we. Those who now read Austen &quot;politically&quot; are not reading her at all.</i>