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dr wu23
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 2294
Location: Indiana
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 Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 3:21 pm Post subject: Meme Wars...by Colin Bennett |
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This could have been put in ufos or even the paranormal area but here it is
Bennett usually writes about the intersection of myth, folklore, science, and sociology (Looking For Orthon, The Politics Of Imagination ) and how ii affects what we believe.
Long piece and it's just part one..link to part two at bottom of article. Not for the reading challenged or the die hard skeptic. 
http://realityuncovered.com/memewars.shtml
read more of him at his own site:
http://www.combat-diaries.co.uk/diary30/diary30.htm
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man
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Ataraxik
Joined: 22 Jul 2007
Posts: 635
Location: Manteo, Roanoke Island, NC
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| Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2007 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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"die hard skeptic" is an oxymoron.
_________________
I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde
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Somerville Changeling
Joined: 09 Sep 2007
Posts: 396
Location: Central Texas
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 6:03 am Post subject: Re: Meme Wars...by Colin Bennett |
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| dr wu23 wrote: |
This could have been put in ufos or even the paranormal area but here it is
Bennett usually writes about the intersection of myth, folklore, science, and sociology (Looking For Orthon, The Politics Of Imagination ) and how ii affects what we believe.
Long piece and it's just part one..link to part two at bottom of article. Not for the reading challenged or the die hard skeptic.
http://realityuncovered.com/memewars.shtml
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Good links, I enjoyed most of Politics of the Imagination and meant to get Looking for Orthon, but it's one thing to end a biography of Fort with a Fortean look at the Kennedy assassination but another thing to take Adamski at face value. What interests me with the UFO contactees are the ones like Menger who were nobodies and who delivered virtually senseless messages. Contactees that try to start movements and really capitalize on them don't fit into the Fortean mix. Still, I should give it a read one of these days.
Bennet's a postmodernist, and I guess I'm an amodernist (ie I really don't believe that we ever reached modern times, we just put a veneer of secularity on popular culture and a veneer of science on our folklore and myths). I'll read the links and get back to the discussion.
Yes, the aliens are being manufactured, but the Entertainment state is a bit on the silly side. I'd almost forgotten about that rather odd bit in The Politics of the Imagination. It's partly true, but like most partial truths, it's being a bit overused as a theory of postmodern everything.
I disagree about his rather old fangled ideas about priesthoods and God, regardless of the priesthood or the god. There's always an element of spectacle, but spectacle and rituals do not control, they channel the numinous, they tame dread. Sometimes, that allows for greater societal control, but just as often it leads to reformation, rebellion and the desperate seeking of a way out. After all, the Numinous is not tame, not tame at all.
I'll make a small defense of Stanton Friedman (and also Gerald Schroeder as well). Friedman may not be a physicist, if physicists need Ph.D.'s but he worked in the field, albeit decades ago. Schroeder might be a physicist with mid level work on his resume, but he at least has a Ph.D. Though that does not excuse the marketing use of their backgrounds, it does defend them from being charlatans.
Neither a Ph.D nor an M.S. provide authority, but they provide at least minimal competence in conducting science, much more than the over rated B.S, or B.A. for that matter. I'd never consider myself a Political Scientist and I generally adhere to the notion that if the field has science in it's name, it certainly is not -- especially when it attempts to make use of mathematics, which is the bedrock on which science rests. That's why I was into medieval political theory and not statistical analysis of voter behavior in mid term elections. My favorite professor used to say that to really understand the politics of a time period, read it's fiction, not it's political theory or government edicts.
Personally, I think Tipler's the fringe physicist who's on to something interesting, and he's still doing work in his field while still employed at a university. Yet, he gets rougher treatments from the guys like Ataraxik than either Friedman or Schroeder. It reminds me of how Sagan quickly dropped his early interest in interpreting myth as the arrival of ancient aliens to reinvent himself in the skeptical mode to preserve his career. It's also similar to the way many scientists who might express an interest in I.D. are being forced to keep their mouths shut at universities and at the Smithsonian, all because of the culture of science as the bastion of a misguided modern skepticism.
Ataraxik, why not give up on being a die hard skeptic? Let atheism go and become agnostic instead. That way, you could be a genuine skeptic in the mode of Marcello Truzzi. Zeteticism might not get any more answers than modern skepticism, but it avoids the fanaticism and faux religion of the infidel class.
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In a Web and Media age, the idea of "facts" should be replaced by the idea of warring information systems battling for Prime Time. |
Ideas have always warred for the prime time equivalent in their culture. The ancient Christian heresies battled for control of local churches and then attempted to lobby synods. They failed and were named heresies by the winners. In some cases, they had too literal an interpretation for the mainstream and in other cases they had too allegorical an interpretation. Yet, the facts in that case was the text as it had survived transmission.
Today, in regards to MUFON et. al., the texts are the stories told about UFO facts. The reason they cannot be called facts is that they cannot be verified with scientific accuracy. The stories battle for control of particular websites and the storytellers attempt to lobby Congress, which mislabled scientific Ufology mistakenly believes is the synod that can decide the matter.
His analysis of CHAD is interesting, but a bit conspiracy oriented. The only reason CHAD seems to work is because it fits the viral marketing model of video games and movies on the web. In reality, the claims of retro engineered technology from alien piecework is of the same old same old mold as that technician at Area 51 who claimed academic credentials he didn't have and knowledge of UFOs he didn't have. What was his name? All I recall now is that he said it was powered by a very unstable element that was later discovered but didn't have the properties he claimed.
If there's any validity to a conspiracy, it's not in seeing how far a belief can go on the web or in general culture but a stage setting for the real alleged aliens to arrive. The whole UFO mythos needs a return of the gods in the same way that Christianity needs Jesus to return. As a Christian, I look forward to Jesus returning but I dread the return of the gods, who will just be the nefilim setting things up for the rise of the Antichrist. God willing, my family won't be here to experience the nefilim's return, but most of my friends and interlocutors on the web will be. So, don't take any aliens at face value but use a bit of logic and spiritual discernment.
I'll fully admit I enjoyed Bennet's alternative idea to my religious view of the aliens, if there are aliens to have views about. The idea of alien trash culture and tricks played on the locals, regardless of whether the aliens are ETH or EDH is good. In fact, it's better than the one entity fits all Ultraterrestrial or Trickster motif other Fortean writers have had.
There's the mechanistic interpretation that Medievals who saw hats in the sky, or Irishmen who saw flying fairy houses were trying to describe alien space ships in word they could comprehend, but why make that assumption? They saw hats and houses flying through the sky. The only similarity in their stories to our mechanistic UFOs is that some UFOs resemble the orbs and tubes described in medieval Germany and the behavior of abducting aliens resembles incubus and succubus attacks in their banal lack of desire and their truly alien lack of purpose.
The second site's a bit too much for me. I don't mind nudity, but I separate what's natural from what's exploitive. What we have with Bennet's personal site is merely old school shock theater. Perhaps postmodernism is getting old in a rut and should consider getting a philosophical face lift?
_________________
Two Western, two Middle Eastern and two Asian religions expect the end of an age soon. Whatever happens. Don't take the mark. Don't be deceived. Search for the truth and the truth will set you free.
Last edited by Somerville Changeling on Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:46 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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dr wu23
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Posts: 2294
Location: Indiana
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Ataraxik wrote: |
| "die hard skeptic" is an oxymoron. |
Not at all....but feel free to elaborate as it should be fun to read.
_________________
"Some say the valley has always been haunted ever since River ran.
The rippling waters fast as the colors conceal the Green Man."
Roy Harpur from The Green Man
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Somerville Changeling
Joined: 09 Sep 2007
Posts: 396
Location: Central Texas
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| Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2007 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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| dr wu23 wrote: |
| Ataraxik wrote: |
| "die hard skeptic" is an oxymoron. |
Not at all....but feel free to elaborate as it should be fun to read.
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Skeptic don't die hard, their debunking just makes everyone else die laughing.
Believers and skeptics, two sides of the same clipped coin.
Yea, I should talk. I guess my face is on a coin too. 
Regarding Bennet's blog, could you give a warning above a link next time stating that there's full frontal nudity with sex toys? I missed Bennet's own warning because I scrolled down too quickly to find a Fortean story. All that postmodernist snarkiness at politicians and culture just doesn't work for me, there has to be a Fortean angle. The first link was top rate though, quite an enjoyable read, even where I disagree with postmodernism.
All of our computers are in the living room and my six year old was on his PC across the room. He, or my more prudish wife, might have seen something they didn't want to see. As it is, I closed the link quickly. I thought about editing that link out but I'm a free speech with proper notification kind of guy. IMHO, message board links should have that warning.
_________________
Two Western, two Middle Eastern and two Asian religions expect the end of an age soon. Whatever happens. Don't take the mark. Don't be deceived. Search for the truth and the truth will set you free.
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