Thursday, November 29, 2012

Truth And Fiction.

When I was very little my older brother told me that when you die your earlobes keep growing. I expressed a four year old's disbelief until he told me that when "they open up people's coffins, they find the earlobes have grown down to the feet." The image has stayed with me all my life. I believed this until I was about six or so when I realized it couldn't possibly be true. How could I have believed in the first place? Well, I was four and I adored my brother and trusted him. The extra detail of the visual image helped make it seem real to me.

As we grow older we develop an ability to see through such nonsense. We've learned enough in school and through experience to recognize misleading statements and falsehoods. Or, one would think.

Lately I have noticed a lot of misinformation and outright lies that are disseminated and believed. Am I to understand that some of us have lost the childhood filter of "nyah-uh"? Apparently!

I will give you a few examples.

1. Some people seem to believe anything posted on Facebook. Really. Lately a rumor has been posted by more than a few of my friends. "In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, graphics, comics, paintings, photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!" The post continues for quite a few paragraphs including scare tactics about how you, the user, have completely given up your privacy. This is a hoax and completely false. I spent much of the last two days explaining this to my more gullible friends. How did I discover the truth? I went to google and asked. In seconds I was reading snopes.com telling me not only was the story false but that it has been around for a couple of years. Even if it were true, I discovered, the post itself does not protect the facebook user who had to agree to terms and conditions when he/she signed up.

2. I recently read an article in The Onion designating the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un "the sexiest man alive." It was very funny. The next day, China's online newspaper The People's Daily reported the story as true and published a 55 page picture spread of the dictator. Guess they don't know The Onion is satire.

3. Fox News... need I say more? The number of people in this country who get all their news from this mouth-piece of the far right is disheartening to say the least.

The truth of any statement or claim is fairly easy to verify these days. snopes.com is a terrific site that debunks urban legends. FactCheck.org does a great job checking claims made by politicians. Common sense will take care of the rest. So, why do so many people seem to fall for hoaxes, rumors and outright untruths? Well, I think some people are like my four-year-old self. They trust the source and so don't question veracity. (My friend wouldn't post something untrue!) Others may be initially suspicious but when given greater detail are happy to believe. (I used to exaggerate saying, "I saw that movie 14 times!" or "I've tried to reach you 14 times! Where were you?" I used "14" because it sounded more believable than "a million.") My father (who makes things up all the time) used to tell me, "If you say something with authority, people will believe you!" He is right. People will believe if the speaker seems completely confident and clear and offers detail.

Other folk fall into a different category. They believe because they want to. Perhaps a pundit is speaking to a particular group of people who are looking for a reason to discredit the president. Perhaps these folk don't want to be identified as racist. Ah, well then..."Maybe this president is illegitimate because he was born in Kenya! Yeah! Let's go with that!"

Then there are those who will believe anything repeated again and again. The more some individuals hear an untruth the more it seeps into their brains and becomes "true."

Satire reveals truth, as do parables. Yet many people will take satirical pieces and stories as gospel. =).

I have no conclusion to this line of thought. I find the phenomenon troubling. It takes so little effort to discover the veracity of any claim. One just needs to suspend belief a bit and check.