Michael Carlos Santayana

February 8, 2016

Artifice

Wile E. Coyote orders acme paint then paints a picture of tunnel up ahead. Coyote observes his artifice on the wall hoping his plan works. His hope is that the road runner, the Coyote’s hoped for future meal, will run at high-speed straight into the disguised foreground thinking it is a continuous road and will then crash to his death. Wile E. Coyote watches, waiting for the bird to be fooled into the trap. This painting of a road on the wall is his artifice. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary “Artifice is a clever or cunning device or expedient, especially as used to trick or deceive others” (“Artifice”). Thinking about Artifice makes one aware of how important it is to avoid being on the short end of the stick. After clearing up what an artifice is there are two kinds of artifice to go over: ones that include devices and the ones that include a stratagem.

The Artifice as a device is a concrete example of its use. It is like something one might find in a magicians starter kit, a shiny, flashy, smoke and mirrors sort of thing that distracts.  Weighted dice, Trojan horse, fake ID, all work well the first couple times. For instance, when Lewis Dodgson hired the chief programmer in Jurassic Park as a corporate spy, he arms him with an artifice. “’The can's a little heavier than usual, is all.’ Dodgson's technical team had been assembling it around the clock for the last two days. Quickly he showed him how it worked.” (76). The purpose of an artifice is to increase the probability that the victim will be fooled. This form of artifice works well because people place their trust in familiar objects (shaving cream can) more easily than in the person using the device itself. The Artifice was made to help pull off a small plot and fool someone, to help place people’s trust more with the use of a device than they would have in the actual person. It is like a trap for the perceptions, in the sense that it catches and retains someone’s understanding allowing the trapper to achieve his own end. The perpetrator, in this case Dennis the programmer, of the artifice gains control over the perceptions of the victim; InGen, the company. The artifice is a seemingly innocent object or process that is only meant to deceive. When the time is right, Dennis lays his backdoor to the parks system and removes 1.5 million dollar worth of embryos in his artifice. However, while an artifice can be the bait to a trap or any other part of the trap, it is not exclusively for traps but can be used to create elaborate misperceptions that will guide people to act in a way they would never have acted without the artifice. Thus a corporate spy may have many concealed gadgets, but a federal spy in comparison may have even more sophisticated tools.

Artifice is not always a physical object, but a normal process or in the example of the spy, a person who also happens to use devices that are examples of artifice. Now the abstract artifice may look like an action. This is more difficult, but can be less traceable than the artifice in the form of a device. The abstract artifice can be a phony idea or story that lets the perpetrator get what he or she wants. If the user of the Artifice is using it well, the result can be deceit or entertainment. The fooled may never know that they were ever tricked, like Ingen in the previous example. Abstract artifice can be a stratagem disguised as a true story or situation when in fact, the story itself is really untrue. If the trick is ever brought to light, smart people try to not let it happen twice. Ted Shackley, Famous spymaster of World War II, wrote that “legal travelers could include Communist Party types, Business-men-technicians, and religious figures. Another form of third-country national who turned out to be very useful was the foreign diplomat, Finn, let’s say, under assignment to Hanoi or Beijing.” (9). It is not unusual for individuals to enter a country of interest, in this case Germany, and exit with valuable knowledge that helps the cause of  their country’s war, while still remaining innocent of the whole process. Professional spymasters use a military strategy in espionage known as the “indirect approach” and how it is not easy to implement, but less conspicuous and more successful. They position people to help them who do so unwittingly by delivering or carrying something they are not even aware they have. Eventually, Germany recruited spies in Egypt posing as American intelligence and got them to serve the German cause while the victims thought they were working for American intelligence. Artifice is trickery, duplicity, guile, cunning, artfulness, wiliness, craftiness, slyness, and chicanery. Artifice is not transparency, candor, trustworthiness or innocence. People of good faith, who believe everyone is as honest as them, they are natural victims for artifice.

By the way, Wile E. Coyote’s artifice failed in the cartoon. Yet a real life street artist implemented the same artifice with success as captured in the online magazine Inquisitor.com, “The photo shows a fake tunnel painted onto the side of a wall and the Road Runner from the popular cartoon created by Looney Tunes. The Road Runner is peeking around the side of the tunnel, in the same manner he used to do in the famous cartoon.” (Road Runner Faux Tunnel). Unfortunately, a real car actually crashed into this all too convincing “tunnel.” Artifice can be used for acting, amusing, tickling and entertaining us.

No one likes to be tricked and no one likes a trickster who deals in artifice to take advantage of others. Often the Artifice is not necessary for a winning strategy and was actually overkill. Additionally, artifice is really only as good as the user of the artifice. Sometimes in life there is justice and it can be both satisfying and funny. When Wile E. Coyote put up his artifice and was waiting eagerly, the Road Runner runs through it with ease as if it was not a painting on wall. When Mr. Coyote investigates the matter, a little justice is served as he gets hit by an incoming truck from the solid road ahead. Unfortunately, if we are not aware of artifice, the story will not end as happily for us.

Bibliography

1. “Fast and furry-ous.” The Road-Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Writ. Michael Maltese. Dir. Chuck Jones. Warner Brothers, September 17, 1949. Film.

2. Finney, Richard A. Spymaster. Dulles: Potomac Books, 2005. Print.

3. Crichton, Michael. Jurassic Park. New York: Ballantine Books, 1990. Print.

4. "Artifice." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2016.

5. Mooney, Paula. “Road Runner Faux Tunnel Painted on Wall Causes Car Crash-gets 3 Million Views in 9 Hours” Inquisitr.com December 16, 2015. URL.