Speaker's corner
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?
