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Con Learnings

Have been watching Inventing Anna lately and don't know what to make of it. At some level, the average person will experience schadenfreude at how Anna was able to fool the elite, classist, undeservedly rich hoping it is true what they say about the fool and his money being soon parted. In a sense, Anna was trying to test out this axiom and came somewhat within striking distance. 

Makes you wonder this whole saga might be a demonstration of Peter's Principle that enabled a woman that young with no "credentials" to bamboozle an array of rich, powerful and influential. So while she is a consummate con artist it is also true that the victims were not particularly astute, so perhaps they had "failed up" to those positions they were not capable of holding. Men do what Anna did all the time and there are not only no consequences, they are rewarded. 

Based on how the story was told in the series, its hard to feel any sympathy for the victims. That said, it is a cautionary tale of the dangers created by someone repeating lies and fabrications with such self-conviction that it becomes the truth for them. Convincing others of something you deeply believe to be the absolute truth yourself is not impossible. Sadly some in their orbit will develop a deep loyalty with them despite facts and reality. We see that here with her lawyer and her friend Neff.

On way smaller scale many of us average folks have fallen victim to cons ourselves and if we were to look back we were distracted successfully, had our weaknesses played upon until our natural instincts of self-defense were impaired. Most often, people are able to recover quickly and not remain the the thrall of the con-person. That is what one might expect people who required to perform at levels that they have the ability for. In this story, such was not the case and the con-person was able to stay in the game for a lot longer. 

There is a reason for "our evergreen fascination with scams"- it is a instructive and one hopes we can learn from the mistakes of others. When the victims are such that they don't evoke any sympathy from the average person, there is the guilty pleasure of rooting for the scam-artist. People must always have their guilty pleasures - it's what makes life interesting. 

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