by Ray Evans
There was a saying one time that we heard often, “seeing is believing”. Simply put, this just meant that if you just heard about something, it may not be true. It might just be gossip, for instance, or maybe the speaker might be prone to exaggeration or even worse he might just be a liar. Perhaps he or she may just be a politician, just stretching the truth a little bit to get elected. We understand why a politician makes promises that can’t be kept, if they didn’t the other guy would get elected making a career change a necessity! The saying was never true, seeing alone by itself can be very deceiving.
Long before I was born, (well not really all that long) folks were held spellbound by magic tricks. All kinds of other things and ruses were used too, to sell from horse drawn wagons and buggies, miracle cures for all ailments, real or imagined. For awhile hypnotism was played up as a way to solve almost everything. People in the know, those who were skeptical called these people hucksters, snake oil salesmen or worse. Some were known as charlatans!
The adage, “seeing is believing” was wrong in those early days and it’s just as wrong today, perhaps even more. The advent of radio didn’t really apply nor the modern telephone service. There was plenty of deception going on with those appliances for sure but there was just no way that you could see it.
The things that are sold on TV today and the way advertisers sell them would place those early day “snake oil salesmen” as rank amateurs. They have a really good device there, to sell their wares, so that no matter what they are trying to sell, they can show it to you. Seeing is believing, right?
Recently I’ve seen on TV such things as all kinds of miracle drugs, four wheel drive automobiles that drive underwater, under snow, and climb almost vertical slopes. Sure I believe that, why not, “seeing is believing”, right? I’ve seen great stories of men climbing the highest mountains alone, well they said he was alone but I wonder who was holding the camera? Am I supposed to believe this just because I saw it? How about the “so called” journalism of today, newsmen don’t even try to be accurate anymore. Why bother, they know that if you see it, you are supposed to believe it! I may be overly skeptical but it seems to me that a lot of the characters in reality shows and things like that are just actor wanabees’ or at least a good share of them are, in my opinion!
The deception shown on TV doesn’t even come close to what we see on the internet; no one can be held responsible for anything you see there. There are no editors to correct falsehoods, very little oversight of any kind, deception is rampant. The old idea that “seeing is believing” just doesn’t work anymore.
Not only do we see verbiage that is deceptive on the internet, about seventy five percent of the pictures we see are questionable too. It’s just amazing what can be done with a computer program if the artist wants to deceive. Some of those pictures are truly a work of art; presented as art they would be wonderful.
Nowhere is deception practiced more than on the email system. Almost every day I get something that promises to make me a millionaire. One week I added up all the promises that I got which totaled many millions of dollars. Just last week I received a sort of proposal: “She was a beautiful young woman”, she said, “and she wanted to travel the world with me”. Well I might have believed that alright but she didn’t enclose a picture. Besides, I’m a happily married man!
No, “seeing is not believing” but there is one old adage that you can rely on. That adage says “let the buyer beware”.
© Copyright by Ray Evans 2010
This entry was posted by Ray Evans on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 12:00 am and is filed under Reflection.
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We must make one exception to your depiction of the Internet as deceptive, Ray. And that exception, of course, is Bonzer! which is carefully edited and then scrutinized by its legion of readers who, if they were feeling deceived would by now have hounded the editor and her helpers.