"Suspending Disbelief" - How we get had...

There is a very sober, serious show on the BBC called "Panorama". It covers studious subjects, in great depth and head-nodding sincerity. On April 1st, 1957, Panorama ran a segment calmly informing the British public that spaghetti grew on trees. Literally. It showed a group of Swiss farmers (you might think that would have been a red flag..) harvesting strands of air-dried spaghetti from the low hanging branches of, well...a Spaghetti Tree.

The BBC, certainly then and I think also now, presents the stuff of the moment with a quiet authority. We Brits have an endearing nickname for our most-watched channel. We call her "Auntie Beeb". It was a term of mock affection, used to humorously liken the censurious attitudes of the number one, global broadcaster, to the morals of a repressed, maiden Aunt.

And the piece on Spaghetti trees was delivered with such sober mastery, that people just believed it. I mean also, we were not that familiar with pasta at the time. It was mainly sold in cans by the Heinz company, but still considered "a bit foreign" and hardly any household had seen it fresh. My parents were not daft, they were only just emerging from the austerity of war rations - there were no cooking shows and Google was what babies did. So they swallowed it.

Hundreds called the BBC - not to accuse them of April Fool skulduggery, but to actually find out where they could get such a marvelous tree. "How can we do this at home" they asked.. Aunty Beeb duly obliged, and invited callers to place a strand of spaghetti in a small pot with some tomato sauce, and just wait. Golden...

Nearly forty years later, in 1996, a rather different audience found itself in a similar position.

An American fast-food chain announced, via full-page newspaper ads, that it had purchased the original "Liberty Bell" to help reduce the national debt. The chain in question was called "Taco Bell" and the newspapers said that the most lofty of American symbolism, the clanging, ding-dong herald of independence, abolition and freedom, would henceforth be known as the "Taco Liberty Bell"

Again.. it was perhaps just too believable not to be totally believable.. But "We the people" didn't take this one like the Brits ate up the Spaghetti trees, served up by Aunty Beeb. They were absolutely hopping mad. Phones rang in high places. Outraged citizens surfaced like ants on a dropped ice-cream. The White House was asked to comment...

Until of course, the moment when the folks at Taco Bell "tee-heed" into their tortillas, and 'fessed up that it was an April Fool. Two different countries - two splendid moments in time..

Amongst the myriad common denominators lies the fact that although the ideas might (in hindsight) seem utterly bonkers (less so for me with the Liberty Bell joke..) In both cases, they were just plausible enough.

Presented with confidence. Framed with authority. Delivered by thrusted sources, without a hint of irony. And that's all it takes, folks. Belief and truth are sadly, but mostly, ships that pass in the night. It all comes down to how the facts are presented, by whom, and the amount of attention we give to actually questioning it.

Many decades later, things are more complex. We are no longer (because we can't) relying on a single, trusted voice. There are hundreds of them, all yelling at the same volume, reporting from more angles than a Picasso. Images. Stories. Op-Eds. And let's not forget our A.I. pals... It's all presented convincingly, vying constantly, for our undivided attention.

And somewhere in that constant stream of nonsense, something familiar is happening.

We are still suspending our collective disbelief.

Not because we are just gullible, and certainly not because we are naïve. It is because we are so busy. We are moving so quickly - not really paying quite enough attention to pause, look or listen. Not asking the right questions, because the day is already too short.

Paying real attention requires a bit more time - generally something we feel we don’t quite have enough of as it is. But in a world where we should perhaps be less trusting of the information overload - that many versions of what happened, can't possibly all be the truth -

we need to pause more. We need to listen. We need to choose to no longer outsource our opinions.

So maybe this weekend, take a walk in the woods. Find a tree to pause under. And this time, maybe not choose a Spaghetti tree...