Speaker's corner
For those who have something to say
OCTOBER 16, 2019
from IL FATTO QUOTIDIANO
translated by google translate
For those who have something to say
OCTOBER 16, 2019
I have always believed that there were endless files at the post office and that it was better to go at six in the morning - finding in that case the real crowd. Once I went at nine and strangely I hurried. The preconception I had was based on hearsay: after all, it is a story already heard and partly stereotyped.
At the base of a belief is the assumption, directly and indirectly, of a condition of superiority and confirmation. I rely on a "truth" and this is insurmountable, like a fenced field. What is in my field - the belief - is the certain; little by little other facts will enter and become part of my vision of the world. I believe this mechanism is fundamental in hoaxes. Very often they are so ridiculous that they cannot assume, to those who do not believe, that they are acceptable.
And yet there are those who do it and this cannot be explained by supporting the simple idiocy of those who believe: in fact it would not explain much. Behind the acceptance of a hoax there is the conviction of having found a proof that confirms the thesis: this means that we are all potentially buffaloes and gullible. Imagine, for example, finding a giant buried in your garden. Would you believe it an authentic find or not?
On October 16, 1869 (150 years ago) in Cardiff, a small township in the state of New York, two workers who worked for the farmer William Newell found a petrified man three meters tall. The news of the discovery spread immediately. Was he a giant?
Andrew White, president of Cornell University, was convinced that it was a stone statue. Other scholars claimed it was a statue of the 600 made by the Jesuits to impress the Indians.
Andrew White, president of Cornell University, was convinced that it was a stone statue. Other scholars claimed it was a statue of the 600 made by the Jesuits to impress the Indians.
But the general population found in that giant a proof of the truthfulness of the Bible. A Syracuse pastor declared "it is not strange that a human being, after seeing this wonderfully preserved figure, can deny the evidence of his senses [...] perhaps one of the giants mentioned in Scripture?" Newell, the owner of the field where the statue was found, he thought of another solution, that is to make money: to those who wanted to see the giant, he made them pay a ticket (whose price soared quickly).
Today the Bible is read almost "metaphorically", but at the time it did not happen so often, despite the 800 was a period of great development not only economic, but scientific, cultural, social, religious: progress seemed unstoppable. The origin of the species by natural selection of Charles Darwin had come out of ten years (1859). Yet there were those who were against that theory and still took refuge in the Bible - consider that creationists still exist today, especially in the US.
But was that a statue or a giant? It was a statue, of course. But it took some time for them to notice. Newell's camp turned into a bustle of onlookers and journalists and the fame of the giant grew. Also came a circus, Phineas Taylor Barnum, who sniffed the deal and offered 50 thousand dollars to get it. At Newell's refusal, the circusman had his giant statue built for him, passing it off as the real one (just as successfully - and he wasn't the only one doing it).
But how could they believe that he was a giant? The problem of buffaloes is not by itself in making stories plausible, but in making them organic depending on the context. To fit some hoaxes into a field of beliefs, they must have a possible connection with their audience. For example, to stay on the subject of "giants":
What we do in everyday life is to believe: the thing in itself is not a problem, but if this does not give space to the criticality, that is to understand its cognitive limits and ask and ask questions, we fall into the error of do not understand reality. And believing is not just a simple "seeing", or just opening up to the world, but defining our existence totally.
We have narrative structures of the world that allow us to approach things in a way that is sometimes sharp. But those who act always and in any case without the spirit of going further, without reconnecting the gesture to the thought, lose the possibility of changing opinion about things. Having an all-encompassing view of the world allows us to give absolute meanings to facts, which are placed in the imagination as an inviolable shell in which to take refuge and remain still, despite the changing world and the individual himself. But if we crystallized in our universe of beliefs, how much would we belong to a world that is constantly changing, as much as life?
Returning to the story: who put that sculpture in Newell's camp? Cousin George Hull, a profoundly atheist tobacconist, decided to carry out the work after having had a discussion with a Methodist group about the passage of Genesis 6.4 which talks about the existence of giants. Deeply annoyed by what he considered nonsense, he ordered a block of chalk saying he was going to make a statue of Abraham Lincoln. He later had the sculptor perform the opera in Chicago. A year before the discovery, he secretly buried the work.
Italians like us, how do you defend yourself from fake news? The vox: "I watch the sources and select. But many fall for it "
Just two months after the giant's discovery, Hull summoned the press and revealed the deception. However the buffalo continued to turn and for decades visitors continued to arrive. Today it is located at The Farmer's museum, while the copy made by the circus is at the Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum. It could be a current story, but it is simply a hoax of the past. Think though if there had been Internet in those days.
translated by google translate
