In 1912, a fossil skull was discovered in a British gravel pit. Some scientists hailed Piltdown Man as the ‘missing link’ between apes and man, but many were suspicious. After four decades and some 250 research papers, Mr. Piltdown was conclusively proven to be a hoax.
But why were some scientists so ready to accept Piltdown man? Consider the context: fossils of early hominids had turned up all over Europe, but not in the United Kingdom. The raging theory at the time was that human development had been led by the brain, and not the other way around. In other words, the hoax worked because it was what those British scientists wanted and expected. The fake skull played right into a narrative.
Piltdown man is an example of the unending human capacity for self-deception, a phenomenon I’ve written about more extensively elsewhere.
Witness Joe the Plumber and Jo the Victim. Each of them spoke straight to a narrative about Obama that could never come from the McCain campaign itself. Joe fed into the “Democrat = Socialist” meme, while Ashley Todd went for the “black = scary” boogeyman. In both cases, campaign spokesmen and staffers tried leading the press towards their narrative, even in the face of solid evidence of the contrary.
McCain is actually on a “Joe the Plumber Tour” right now, even though Joe the Plumber has admitted his taxes will be lower under an Obama administration. Then yesterday, a McCain staffer politicized the false story about a black mugger mutilating a McCain volunteer. That storyline died less than 24 hours later after Miss Todd admitted to perpetrating a hoax.
In each case, the fraud is glaringly obvious, has been deliberately fanned by the McCain campaign, and was aimed directly at our worst cultural memes. For just as ‘Liberal’ is always ‘Socialist’ in the rightwing mind, ‘Black’ has long been ‘Scary’ and ‘Rapist’ in the racist mind. The elements of racist mythology were tangible in Todd’s account of violence and sexual assault by a large, strong black man against a small white college coed. As any student of American history knows, an awful lot of lynchings began with allegations of sexual aggression by black males against white females. This ancient racist libel was played to devastating effect in 1988 when Bush Sr. made Willie Horton a household name to defeat Dukakis.
But just as the Piltdown hoax eventually destroyed the life’s work of its promoters, the Piltdown politics of John McCain are eroding his credibility. Colin Powell cited the thinly-veiled racism of the McCain strategy when he endorsed Obama on Meet the Press, and it appears a whole list of influential Republicans is now following suit. Polls show Obama’s lead widening, with an Electoral College landslide in the making.
Which leads me to this thought: in the age of the internet, Piltdown politics can be debunked in 24 hours. Piltdown man was not conclusively disproven for 41 years. Is it possible that truth is finally catching up with lies? If so, it would be a remarkable shift in the political universe.
“Piltdown politics.” I should build a Wikipedia page…
