Truth and lies are two sides of the same coin. Now, whether or not the coin is fake is another question. And, as numismatists know well, there are fakes that are marvelous, true works of art far superior to the clumsy original and, therefore, detectable and valued as such.
Throughout history there have always been falsifications of all kinds, some of undeniable brilliance, not to mention convincing, and, therefore, considered authentic for centuries; others, however, are easy to detect, although not always uninteresting. But when it comes to separating the churras from the merinos, rather than mixing them, you need the expert eye of a critic with enough desire and knowledge to hunt down the faker, who, no matter how clever he thinks he is, always leaves traces that will end up betraying him. .
In 1990, Princeton University professor Anthony Grafton published Fakers and Critics. Creativity and imposture in the Western tradition (Criticism, 2001), an essay that explains notorious cases of the extent to which forgers are capable of fooling us, as it continues to happen now—and how!—with, although in a very accelerated manner, with the fake news and the rampant misinformation that plagues us mercilessly every day. Of course, another thing is plagiarism, which would deserve a separate chapter.
Forgery is, explains Professor Grafton, a kind of crime that must be pursued by detectives (critics), in order to clarify the motives, means and circumstances behind each case, not to mention its purpose, which of course are varied. Sometimes it is simply for profit, sometimes to make a fool of a conceited writer, or with the aim of falsifying history, as has so often happened and as demonstrated by the enormous amount of apocryphal texts that have come to light thanks to to the efforts of stubborn and conscientious critics who have seen the forger’s feathers.
Halfway through his essay, Grafton blurts out, not without irony: “Those who study the history of Western falsification may end up wondering if the human mind harbors some kind of deep desire to be fooled more and better.” Well, at this point in the film, whether it is just Westerners or not, it is more than evident that the 21st century has done nothing but prove it completely right… and in the most alarming way, since there is very little left for it to be completely erase the fine line that separates the lie from the truth, and what is worse, there will be no critic capable of recovering or redrawing it.
Towards the end of the essay, Professor Grafton states – forgive the length of the quote, but it fits perfectly with what we are experiencing -: ‘The forger seeks to protect himself, and us, from the critical power of our past or of other cultures. He offers us a place to take refuge from the rain of speculation about our ideals and institutions that could arise from the reading of vigorous texts. First of all, he lacks responsibility, because, leaving aside the goodness of his goals or the elegance of his techniques, he lies. It seems inevitable, therefore, that a culture that tolerates falsification ends up despising its own intellectual currency, even to irredeemable extremes; so it happened, in the Hellenistic period, to the admirers of false exotic mysteries, or, in modern Germany, to the admirers of international anti-Semitic literature.’
And finish off the joke with this lapidary phrase: ‘The exercise of criticism is a sign of health and virtue; the preponderance of counterfeiting is a symptom of disease and vice.’
Clearer, water.