The rise and rise of the urban myth

There have, of course, always been urban myths – stories that seemed plausible but, upon examination or even a little thought, prove to have little or no foundation in fact. However, the advent of the Internet has given a powerful medium for the rapid and easy and cost-free transmission of such nonsense. Often such urban myths betray a prejudice and are most likely to be believed by those sharing that prejudice.
I mention this because of a message I received today purporting to list various misdemeanours and even crimes of an organisation which at first is not identified. The message begins: “Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 600 employees and has the following statistics?” It concludes: “Which organisation is this? It’s the 635 members of the House of Commons, the same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of us in line.”
The give-away here is the reference to the 635 MPs. In fact, the Commons has not had 635 members since 1983. The number varies with the redrawing of boundaries and the impact of devolution and is currently 645. If the most public fact about the Commons is not understood by the author, how can one give any credence to all the other so-called statistics, especially when the members concerned are not named and no sources or dates are given
As explained here, this particular myth started at least a decade ago when it was originally focused on members of the United States Congress. Later versions changed the reference from the US Congress to members of the parliaments of Canada, Britain and India. The prejudice is obvious: all politicians are corrupt and therefore we should have no respect for them or the legislative process – a dangerously corrosive stance for those of us who believe in democracy.
It is the willingness of so many to believe urban myths and conspiracy theories and paranormal phenomena that led me to create a web page on “How To Think Critically”.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2007 at 9:50 am and is filed under Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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