Rosario, Argentina: Can you believe they put a man on the moon?

Action
After viewing a museum exhibit of the iconic image of the first steps on the moon by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, our guide turned to us and said, “Llegó o no llegó?” Josh and I looked at him blankly. He repeated his question. We repeated our blank stares. We understood the words he was using, “Did he or didn’t he arrive?” but we just couldn’t figure out what he was referring to. Finally, another museum guide came along and explained that there’s some skepticism as to whether people actually did land on the moon. Perhaps it was just a production filmed by Stanley Kubrick, suggested the first guide. He argued that the way the astronauts walked and the flag waved weren’t consistent with a zero-gravity environment.

A couple of weeks later, I was on a bus and began chatting with the young man sitting next to me. After discussing cultural and political differences between the US and Argentina, he asked me if I thought Osama Bin Laden really existed. When I asked him about man landing on the moon, he also confessed to being a skeptic. Josh later told me the young man had offered him a beer (at 8 in the morning), so maybe he was not the most clearheaded fellow.

Cora, a friend of ours, once explained to me that Argentines question everything because of their rocky history. Argentina was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1976-1983. In the financial crash of December 2001, when Argentina went through five presidents in a week, Argentines learned that having elected leaders wasn’t the magical solution to their economic and political problems. According to Cora, they’re still trying to figure out how to improve their democracy.

During one of our classes, Mirta, a language student of mine, brought up Argentine skepticism. She said that Argentines question what they hear and evaluate it by discussing issues, reading further and listening to radio and TV programs. “Maybe North Americans don’t do this so much because they are more secure,” she offered.

Reflection
If I had to name one difference between the thinking of Argentines I’ve met and North Americans I know, I would point to the skepticism of Argentines. I think Mirta is right that one of the reasons for this difference is the relatively stable economic and political condition many Americans live in. It’s easy for me to be complacent when I have a steady job and can count on a pension. But I imagine if I had lived through a crisis or a series of crises, I would soon learn to question whatever system I was in. How could I be sure that the current economic or political model would allow me to live comfortably in the future if I wasn’t even living comfortably now?

I believe that humans landing on the moon is questioned here especially because Americans, a.k.a. “Yanquis,” are the ones who claim to have landed on the moon. While the museum guide might have questioned us just to egg us on, I think it’s also the result of suspicion of people and entities who have power. Given the extreme things the last Argentine dictatorship did to stay in power, it’s not unreasonable for Argentines to imagine that the US government fabricated the mission to the moon in order to appear to have a space program superior to the Soviet’s. Though I still believe that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon, my Argentine friends have succeeded in encouraging me to be a more skeptical reader of newspapers.

Question
When have you doubted a common assumption? What led you to doubt it?