Blaming the victim
In 1972, writer Clifford Irving sold a fake autobiography of reclusive millionaire Howard Hughes to publishers McGraw Hill. Despite lie detectors, phone calls from real Hughes and extensive tests by handwriting experts to see if the signature on the contract were really by Hughes, the publishers stood by Irving.
In his account of the hoax, Project Octavio, Irving tried to shift some of the blame onto McGraw-Hill
“A moment in time arrives…when the victim’s willingness may lead him, consciously or otherwise, across the thin dividing line between gullibility and culpability.”
It’s an excuse that con artists from the smallest street hustler to the largest Ponzi schemer uses to excuse their actions and assuage their guilt: - You can’t con an honest man.
It is true that scams, by their very nature, require a certain willingness from the victim. If the victim is not willing, the scam becomes petty theft. The mark must freely hand over the money.
Exploiting the weakness of the mark does not make the mark culpable. Certainly, the mark may be guilty of a crime but not the crime with which we accuse the con artist.
Imagine I tell you I want your help in a card cheating scam. However, the scam is a double bluff and you end up penniless.
Do you deserve to be scammed?
Does being the perpetrator of one crime, make it ok to make you the victim of another?
As a con artist, am I less culpable for my crime because you are particularly gullible or particularly dishonest?
You should watch, F is for Fake by Orsen Welles. It features Elmyr de Hory (who painted that pic) and clifford irving (who wrotr about de Hory)
This is the same type of question to ask those who go into Multi-Level Marketing and/or Pyramid Schemes. Do they deserve to be scammed?
Do promoters and practicioners of psuedo-science alternative medicine deserve to be scammed?
My answer:
We may find a person getting scammed by the same scam they are perpetuating (even if they are not fully aware of it) satisfying at times(some people erroneously call that karma). For the betterment of society, I would wager that to stop all scams would be an ideal goal. Any condoning of any scam just seems too hypocritical to me. The “revenge syndrome” can blind us of our humanity.
nice post. thanks.