One of the most salient ...

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves.
 Harry Frankfurt

Quotes from the same author

I was raised in Brooklyn and in Baltimore. My father was a bookkeeper. When I was 36 years old, my mother told me I was adopted.
 Harry Frankfurt
It is only because a person has volitions of the second order that he is capable both of enjoying and of lacking freedom of the will.
 Harry Frankfurt