Fake Child Abuse?

The world was recently horrified by the story of a woman named Kerry Campbell who proudly described (and showed on video) her injections of her eight-year-old beauty pageant-bound daughter with botox. After investigations by Child Protective Services, the mother came forward, saying her name was actually Sheena Upton and that she had been paid $10,000 by a tabloid to pretend to inject her daughter with botox. The actual truth is now unclear; some claim that the video of the woman clearly shows her injecting her daughter with something, while there also appears to be testimony from the UCLA Medical Center that claims there is/was no botox in the eight-year-old's system.

At some point the question becomes not whether or not the woman tried to paralyze her daughter's face, but why all of this is of interest to readers or viewers. Are we happy that she didn't actually do this to her daughter, or are we annoyed that someone came up with this idea for media attention, or do we feel something else? How different is agreeing to pretend to be a horrible person on Good Morning America from actually being that person? One of the biggest problems with this story for me is that it proves how little news can be trusted. If, indeed, someone can get everyone to believe a fake scandal for only $10,000, what stops any "news" group from doing it?

The Truth is Out There...Really, Really Out there.

Over the weekend I attended the U.S. Premier of a documentary called THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE, perhaps not surprisingly starring and co-produced by Dean Haglund of X-Files and The Lone Gunmen fame (and directed by Phil Leirness). The film explores conspiracy theorists and theories, and although this subject does not exactly fit with that of my blog, I figure I can stretch it to the dimensions of my interests.

The film mostly consists of a cleverly cut together series of interviews between Dean Haglund and various conspiracy theorists from around the world (mostly North America and the U.K.), in which for the most part Dean Haglund simply lets the theorists talk to him about their theories. These theories cover UFOs and aliens (including alien-human hybrids), crop circles, food production, government, banking systems, angels, the military, 9/11, consciousness itself, and probably several other topics I've already forgotten about. Rather than passing judgment on any of the theories, the film (and Dean Haglund) lets the theorists speak for themselves and the audience make its own judgments; of course the audience laughed at various figures on the screen, but I imagine that a different audience would laugh at completely different interviews. The ultimate effect, then, was not one of ridicule as I had expected, but of contemplation and even acceptance to some extent. In a way, I realized that I, too, was a conspiracy theorist.

But of course I am always thinking about truth and lying, so while watching the film I often considered the sincerity of the characters on the screen. From my perspective, every person interviewed in the film was completely sincere, whether he talked about consorting with angels, seeing UFOs, or destroying cancer cells with apple seeds. Although most of the country would agree that most of the theories probably aren't verifiable, no one in the film really thought she was making something up. Phil Leirness mentioned that one woman, who believed she was an alien-human hybrid, was one of the nicest people he had ever met and someone he would trust to look after his pets. Are these conspiracy theorists harmless wackos who can be left to their own devices? Should people try to convince them that what they believe is not the truth? Or must we all just realize that truth actually is subjective and there's no hope for anyone believing anyone else's truth, so we should all just live and let live?

I'm not sure I've really given a review of this film, just as I'm not sure I've come to any conclusions about it or conspiracy theories or truth. A second film with the subtitle "Ancient Knowledge" is forthcoming, and I look forward to watching that as well. I welcome any comments and questions.

Making Yourself Sick

MISS HOOVER: My Lyme disease turned out to be PSYCHOSOMATIC.
RALPH: Does that mean you're crazy?
JANEY: No, that means she was faking it.
MISS HOOVER: No, actually, it was a little of both.

I don't generally write about unintentional fakers but I was interested enough in a recent study on Morgellons Disease to discuss it here (and it was a good excuse to quote The Simpsons). Sufferers of Morgellons Disease apparently have "delusions of parasitosis," falsely believing that they are infested with invisible parasites that cause itching and rashes on the skin. The story linked to above explains the disease as a phantom one, but the Mayo Clinic website seems less willing to relegate the disease entirely to psychology. The site calls the condition "mysterious" and urges health care professionals to "keep an open mind."

Our minds contribute to all sorts of physical ailments, and though I'm not a medical doctor, I would guess that some of the most common psychological ailments involve skin conditions (rashes, hives). These ailments, while usually not brought on intentionally, perhaps could be (see, again, a Simpsons episode where Bart wills his body to stop fighting infection in order to stay home from school and actually becomes ill). I don't want to suggest that people with Morgellons want to be ill, but I'm curious about a person's psychology that causes him to manifest real physical reactions to an imaginary infestation.

He Who Mimics Best Wins

The attached video shows the Australian lyre bird, who (somewhat magically) mimics not only any other bird's call, but also the sounds of various human noises such as car alarms and camera shutters. According to David Attenborough's narration, the bird performs this mimicry in order to attract a mate, creating an extraordinarily complex and ultimately unique song out of the songs of "all the other birds" he hears. What is perhaps most interesting to me is that the female lyre bird is attracted not to the kookaburra or the sparrow or the chainsaw, but to the unique combination of their sounds reproduced by the male lyre bird.

Besides fueling my fascination with the vocal capabilities of various birds, this video causes me to think about human mimicry and social relations. All of our language and gestures arise from mimicry, first of our parents and then of other people, but it's hard to say whether this mimicry is equivalent to that of the lyre bird. We do not make car backfire noises to attract mates, but do we not amass knowledge and mannerisms (that we essentially copy) from dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of people and other sources to impress others and prove our intelligence or wit or creativity. Is uniqueness, then, well-ordered or unusually fluent mimicry? Are we original only in how we combine what we've copied?

Thou Shalt Not Lie

I discovered this story prominently displayed on Yahoo! today, a story which mostly ridicules a church pastor for pretending to have been a Navy SEAL. It points specifically to the fantastic story, saying "the prevaricator in question seems to have lifted at least some details of his account from the 1992 Steven Seagal SEAL-themed blockbuster, Under Siege." Despite his apparently ridiculous story, though, Pastor Jim Moats made everyone believe it for five years and was only recently outed as a fraud by Navy SEALs themselves.

I laughed at the reference to Steven Seagal, but this story also made me think about the association of lying with religion and religious figures. Lying is neither against one of the Bible's Ten Commandments nor is it one of the seven deadly sins, and Christianity has a long history of manipulating the truth for its own ends. Is truth something we should expect from our religious leaders, and if not, what do we expect from them? Pastor Moats probably got some good sermons out of his Navy SEAL stories, so should we equate them with the Bible's parables, made up to teach a lesson? Is it okay to lie if you're imparting a good moral lesson? Is that what Pastor Moats was doing?