Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Ufo Skepticism Debunkery And Belief

Posted by Unknown On 8:33 PM
Ufo Skepticism Debunkery And Belief
"No, this isn't about UFOs "per se"; it's comments I found in a New York Review of Books piece by Ian Buruma about Simon Leys book of collected essays THE HALL OF USELESSNESS. [NYRB, August 15th,

2013, Page 68 ff.]

Many comments in the review struck me as pertinent to what we find from visitors here and elsewhere in or at UFO blogs and web-sites, mostly by radical skeptics and/or out-and-out UFO

debunkers, but also some rabid believers.

FROM THE PIECE (WITH SOME REPLACEMENT COPY BY ME):


The desire to destroy [ideas]... applies not just to [thought] but as much, if not more, to ethics. "The need to bring down to our own wretched level, to deface, to deride and debunk and splendor that is towering above us is probably the saddest urge of human nature." [Page 68]

"What people believe is essentially what they "wish" to believe. They cultivate illusion out of idealism - and also cynicism." [Page 70]

ABOUT ATTENTION SPAN:


"Whenever a minute of silence is being observed in a ceremony, don't we all soon begin to throw discreet glances at our watches?" [Page 70]

TRUTH:


Truth, Leys writes, referring to science and philosophy... is grasped by an imaginative leap. [Page 72]

... images [and thought] expressed in another language [foreign UFO reports, for example] can lose their spark and easily become banal or incomprehensible. [Page 72]

The... truth... often lies in what is left unsaid... [Page 72]

AND AN ANECDOTE THAT COULD APPLY TO ROSWELL TALES:


Leys mentions the legendary fourth -century calligraphy of a prose poem who extraordinary beauty was celebrated by generation after generation of Chinese, centuries after the original work was lost. Indeed, it may never even have existed. [Page 72]

"(Image from VirtualSkeptics.com)"

RR


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