the epistemology of excrement
saw a post yesterday exploring the different types of linguistic shits (dogshit, bullshit, etc) and there's an important experiential aspect of this that I feel is being overlooked.
to be honest I did not really become aware of this until I started caring for chickens. have you seen a chicken shit? have you stepped in chicken shit? let me tell you, they are walking around dribbling out shit all day. just small amounts of little turds. wet and sticky turds that spread out on your shoes and also glue dirt or mulch or straw or whatever else is down there onto your shoe. chickenshit is bad, but in a pathetic and ignominious way.
bulls are big and they take big shits. you look at them and you know this. they are machines that transform grass and hay into shit. all bovine shit comes in bulk. bullshit indicates a massive amount of shit, an all-encompassing amount of shit, the kind of shit that requires dedicated chore time to manage. bullshit is obvious, it's almost your own fault if you step in it. it was right there. something inherently insulting about an attempted bullshitting.
horses shit as much as bulls do but it's always surprising because they seem more graceful. horseshit contains an element of the unexpected, but in a bad way.
dogshit is a day-ruiner, but also there is definitely someone to blame, someone somewhere who should have known better, been more considerate. dogshit is a subtle, everyday sign of the breakdown of society.
and bats? bats move erratically and can maybe give you rabies, but if you are experiencing batshit you are probably in a cave or something. why are you in a cave, this is already unhinged behavior. touching bat shit (or being shat on by a bat in real time) in a cave would tip anyone over the edge.
the phenomenon of apeshit will be left as an exercise for the reader.
