The American Appetite for Deception

David A. Eisenberg * American Thinker

The “Feejee Mermaid,” reputed to be a “specimen of a veritable mermaid” from the South Pacific, was one of the more outlandish wonders exhibited by P.T. Barnum. In a painting outside the museum where it was on display, the mermaid was depicted as “a beautiful creature, half-woman, half-fish, about eight feet in length.” Inside, the “mermaid” was nothing more than the head and torso of a monkey sewn to the body of a fish “that a boy a few years old easily could run away with under his arm.”

Outrage would have been a reasonable response to a ruse so outrageous, but in fact, the exhibit was a resounding success, both popularly and financially. “The public appeared to be satisfied,” Barnum later reflected, though he acknowledged not everyone was amused. “Some persons always will take things literally, and make no allowance for poetical license, even in mermaids.” A Dutchman who, expecting to find the stupendous, beautiful lady-fish depicted outside, came face-to-face with the diminutive, ugly monkey-fish inside, exclaimed with unmitigated scorn, “Well that is the poorest show I ever did see.”

Barnum’s success as a showman can be attributed in no small part to his understanding of mass psychology. As Daniel Boorstin observed, “[c]ontrary to popular belief, Barnum’s great discovery was not how easy it was to deceive the public, but rather, how much the public enjoyed being deceived.” In an age of universal haste, life as it unfolds naturally is insipid. Those who inhabit such an age expect more from life; in fact, they demand it, and though their demands may be unrealistic, they would rather have them met than have them disappointed. That is, they prefer the factitious to the spontaneous, the false to the genuine, the artificial to the natural. They are willing, even eager, to sacrifice authenticity for excitement, truth for novelty. For Aristotle, it was the unexamined life that was not worth living; for modern man, it is the uncontrived life.

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