When I learned that Neil Diamant's much-awaited study on Chinese constitutions was titled Useful Bullshit, I wrongly assumed that, ever the cynic, Diamant would cast People's Republic of China (PRC) constitutions as useful only insofar as they were brazen and transparent efforts to garner legitimacy for communist rule. This common view is well summarized by a colleague in China, quoted in the introduction: “There's no point researching that useless document,” the colleague said, referring to the 1954 constitution that is the primary subject of this book (i). In fact, however, Diamant argues against that sentiment and demonstrates constitutions were far from useless, even as they were not useful in the ways we often suspect. He engages with the philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt, who uses “bullshit” as a specific and sharply theorized analytical concept. Bullshit, for Frankfurt, is different from lying and is more akin to an act of bluffing...

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