On The Forged Gift

Recently a member posted this link on the Gaddis listserv, asking the group whether the story might be the "most Gaddis-like" yet. The story involves an impostor Jesuit priest who has been donating forged artworks to American museums and institutions for the past 20 years. Like The Recognitions, we have here an impostor, forged art, and apparent disinterest of the forger in monetary gain; furthermore, like those in the novel, the people who have discovered the forgeries cannot imagine an act of this type of deception without monetary gain as its end. The article makes a point to say that the impostor "pays for his own hotels and airfare while traveling, but gets wined and dined by the institutions because he has told everyone that he has many more works in his collection." The curators are the Recktall Brown of real life, judging all value in terms of money. I'm sure Derrida would have much to say about this false gift-giving (but I'm still reading Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, so you'll have to conjecture on your own).

But the problem here is that we know nothing about this impostor. Readers of The Recognitions can (at least sometimes) understand Wyatt Gwyon's motives because he tells us what they are. We can conjecture that this false Jesuit will reveal himself eventually, but he has spent twenty years not revealing himself. It is difficult to even guess at his motives. If he is caught, what will his charge be? The article mentions that museums have been "a little bit embarrassed" that they were taken in by the forgeries, but have they lost anything other than pride? A few dinner dates? I hope the federal authorities do catch this forger, if only so I may better understand him.

"I am that Illiterate Undergrad!": The Forger Looks for Credit

An article/confession was published in Friday's edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education which discussed a man's job as a writer of academic papers for hire. The confessee humorously includes badly written emails from clients, half-brags about his salary, and admits to having written everything from personal statements to PhD dissertations. The article is interesting, entertaining, and perhaps even shocking at times, but mostly tells educators what we already suspected about academic dishonesty--that it is easy, pervasive, and getting worse.

But this post is not about the millions of high school and college students who cheat, and I suspect that the article isn't about that either. Pseudonymous or not (and quitting his job or not), "Ed Dante" is Michaelangelo yelling "I am Praxiteles!" when his forgery is mistaken for the real thing. He makes a point of saying that he has "attended three dozen online universities" and written papers toward hundreds of degrees, in an apparent attempt to both bolster his esteem and undermine the American education system. He offers no solutions to a problem, delivers no scathing exposé on a specific company, and hides behind a pseudonym. His confession is not one because he risks nothing and says little that most people do not already know. "Ed Dante" is proud of himself for helping to weaken our education system, and he wants you to know it.

The Real Thing (Also The Title of a Great Story by Henry James)

A recent article in American Scientist discusses our tendency to choose a real object over a textual or digital representation of one when shopping, even if we have to pay more for the object in front of us. I suspect that this tendency has decreased significantly in the last ten years or so, but its continued presence is interesting to ponder. The article suggests that being able to "grab" the item increases its desireability in our brains, and that items (such as food) behind glass, even if instantly available, become no longer more desireable than a picture of them on the computer. Certainly there are many neurological factors at work here, but the study points to our suspicion of the two-dimensional representation. It seems we are hard-wired to not believe everything we see, and touching and tasting what's in front of us verifies its authenticity.

I wonder to what extent this phenomenon extends to people. More and more people are finding dates online, but a large group of the population still considers online dating unnatural, suspect, or even dangerous. Meeting my date in person will (probably) tell me no better that he or she is dangerous (or intelligent or attractive) than would his or her picture and "profile" online, but I would not consider a date or relationship "real" until I met the person. I also wonder whether we are willing to choose less attractive people to date if they are in front of us (much like the students who spent 50% more for physical items than for their online counterparts). It seems to me that we would forgive many more foibles (like grammar errors and bad haircuts, say) in a live, 3-D person than in an online representation of one. We want as much information as possible before making decisions, and we still believe that the real thing simply gives us more than its two-dimensional representation.