Copyright 2019, InterAmerica, Inc.
Steven Connor, writes, in The Madness of Knowledge
(recently lauded here) this:
“ … a great deal of academic and other kinds of research is
concerned less with the effort to answer a question than to form or secure an
argument.” [Page 84]
The sentence rang a loud bell with me as I had just been
involved in a heated colloquy with my academic pal Bryan Sentes, about those
1561 (Nuremberg) and 1566 (Basel) broadsheets said, by some, to be showing UFO
battles.
I won’t be going into the UFO nonsense or Bryan’s view that
the iconographic depictions are just drawings endemic to the time-frame, or my
view that the pics are “editorial cartoons.”
But I will go into how Bryan and I engaged in a longish
back-and-forth that was more about sustaining an argument (as Connor notes)
than settling the speculative matter of what those broad- sheets were really
showing or about.
Bryan was “infuriated” (as I saw it) with my apparent
stupidity about depictions of perceived events and fantasies in the 16th
Century, and I was nonplussed by his refusal to see my conjecture as a
speculation, and nothing more.
The matter remains unsettled between us.
Now, a few days later, Matty, a rather newbie here, left a
comment under the Betty/Barney Hill note (below) that excoriates “depth
psychology” and Freud, in particular, along with the non-empirical approach to
“ UFO abductions” (only?) or the UFO phenomenon in particular.
Matty doesn’t know that I’m a Freud fanboy, having studied
Psychoanalysis in college and moderating an Abnormal Psych class for a short
period, during which I upset the B.F. Skinner crowd, with my Freudian leaning,
to the point where they were about to tar and feather me, only to be waylaid by
the Dean and the college newspaper’s support of my “free speech.”
I let Matty’s screed stand – it’s still online – although
its rabidity is a bit much.
One of my Facebook friends is Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson who
wrote An Assault on Truth, that disclosed Freud’s recapitulation of his
early child seduction theory only because he (Freud) felt his insights would
harm the Psychoanalytic movement.
A New Yorker writer, Janet Malcolm, took Jeffrey to
task, because he challenged Freud and told stories he found to be true as he
(Jeffrey) had access to the Freud archives, where he had found Freud’s
trepidations and reversal of findings that would offend those he (Freud) needed
on his side to make psychoanalysis viable as a “science.”
Jeffrey left his classes at U of M and moved from Ann Arbor
to New Zealand where he continues to thrive and champion animal rights.
I think Jeffrey is an intellectual hero.
He provided truths whereas Ms. Malcolm pursued the argument:
Jeffrey shouldn’t have told tales out of school.
Matty does likewise with his commentary: Freud stinks! Matty
disregards the resurgence in Freudianism and psychoanalysis itself by science
and cognoscenti.
And as Jeffrey disclosed an important truth about Freud’s
unethical recapitulation, Matty insists that “depth psychology” (his term) is
bogus and those using it to explain the Hills kidnapping are boobs.
But Matty is wrong, pretty much. Depth psychology or any
kind of psychology is exactly what the Hills episode needed and still needs.
The Hills were not abducted or kidnapped by alien
(extra-terrestrials) visitors, and despite my ongoing affection for Betty Hill,
she created a fantasy, not maliciously, but delusionally, and dragged Barney
into it via the psychiatric mechanism known as a folie à deux, as Otto
Billig states in his book, Flying Saucers: Magic in the Skies
(also lauded here),
Psychology helps answer what Betty and Barney experienced;
it recuses an argument.
Then there is this. Rich Hoffman (a FB friend) and Chris
Rutkowski, two prominent UFO guys, chided Tom DeLonge’s “tweet” about more to
come with the Navy UAPs and the investigation that ensued.
They dislike Tom’s popularity or new prominence in the UFO
field. They hate that a new guy comes in and gets a spotlight (attention) they
envy and long-sought (to no or little avail).
They attack DeLonge’s “hype” and everything else he’s done,
even though DeLonge has spurred (Matty hates that word!) an interest in UFOs by
news media and the hoi polloi.
They don’t engage in the improved ufological situation. They
just want to argue, as do a few here, about Tom’s insertion into the UFO
(their) domain.
DeLonge is a plus, as are Freud’s “theories” and the view
that the Hills may have been subject to a psychologically-related episode, not
a UFO abduction.
But argument prevails and, as Matty notes, UFOs remain in
the background, sadly.
RR
Facebook is a scourge of humanity and culture. That some
touting culture as the sine qua non of the UFO phenomenon use Facebook
as their primary source of culture or refinement is a sign of the madness that
now encompasses all things in society and its peoples.
