Wendy McElroy unskeptically says our age lacks skepticism

In her latest column, foxnews anti-feminist (and “ifeminist”) Wendy McElroy tells the story of Norma Khouri, a longtime con artist who wrote a fraudulent account of honor killings in Jordon. Wendy’s point is that people nowadays aren’t skeptical enough:

McElroy’s language clearly indicates a change over time; society “has become” gullible, and “no longer” requires evidence. But when did this less gullible age take place, exactly? Although McElroy assumes that people are quicker to fall to frauds nowadays – due to an alleged new belief in victimhood – in fact, people have always been susectable to frauds, including literary frauds.

For example, the author of the acclaimed 1965 novel The Painted Bird led people to believe that the novel was based on his own life story as a boy brutalized in Holocaust-era Europe. (This book is only one of several best-selling fake holocaust stories – a particularly annoying breed of hoax, since holocaust deniers sieze on these lies as proof of their own lies. Oy.)

The Ern Malley poetry hoax – in which the literary world was fooled into lauding the deliberately awful poetry of a made-up author – took place in 1943.

So scratch off the 20th century in our search for a time when people were smarter skeptics. How about the 19th century – when PT Barnum took an 70ish black woman and put her on tour as the 160-year-old nurse of George Washington? I don’t think so.

The 1700s were also a time of stunning hoaxes, such as an English teacher who drew up a fake 14th-century “Roman” map of Britain which was so widely accepted that it screwed up history books for a generation. That was minor league compared to the widely celebrated “Homer of Scotland,” Ossian, whose works were mostly made up by a schoolteacher.

There’s no reason to believe that there ever was an age of skepticism. Nor do current-day frauds need claims of victimhood to pull the wool over our eyes; Tom Carew’s bestselling hoax Jihad! painted the author as a daring military hero, for example, not as anyone’s victim.

McElroy complains that Norma Khouri’s hoax “should have immediately collapsed of its own weight. But, then, that would have required asking a question.” McElroy’s own claim – that people are any more gullible nowadays – should also have collapsed immediately. But, then, that would have required McElroy to conduct a five-second google search.

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Here’s what I wonder: Why didn’t McElroy use this incident as another opportunity for her signature feminist-bashing? My guess is because many of the people responsible for exposing the hoax were women’s rights activists in Jordon, whereas prominent anti-feminists like Kay Hymowitz fell for the hoax.

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Further links: If you love reading about hoaxes, check out the wonderful blog Museum of Hoaxes. And this blog has more posts on Wendy McElroy, if you’re interested.