Dictators: Text vs Orality (and how ufologists use both)

Copyright 2019, InterAmerica

Adam Gopnik’s piece (a review of two new books on modern dictatorshps) in the December 23, 2019 New Yorker, mentioned here the other day) – Tyrant Chic – presents some intriguing thoughts by him and those authors he’s reviewing [Frank Dikötter and Daniel Kalder].

For instance Gopnik writes [Page 89]:

“Where the Marxist heritage, being theory-minded and principle-bound, involves the primacy of the text, right-wing despotism, being romantic and charismatic, is buoyed by the shared spell cast between an orator and his mob. One depends on a set of abstract rules; the other on a sequence of mutual bewitchments.”

Above this was:

“The Soviet Union, and left totalitarianism in general, is a culture of the written word; the Third Reich, and right authoritarianism in general, is a culture of the spoken word.” [ibid]

Explained in Gopnik’s piece is the idea that Lenin and Stalin used the written word as part of their hegemony whereas Hitler and Mussolini (and Franco too) used oral persuasion and speeches for theirs.

The left uses text and the right uses speech.

I’ve noted that Jacques Derrida has advocated the idea that oral presentations are more viable for truth-rendering than text, even though he once was said to have written “The text is everything” – a sometimes disputed attribution. 

Since Derrida often praised or defended, obliquely sometimes, anti-semites – Paul de Man and Heidegger – I‘m guessing that Derrida would prefer the tight-wing category of rhetoricians over left-wing writers.

And this takes me to my point here, as it applies to UFOers, some who prefer to write (books, blogs, article) and others who prefer to talk (podcasters, TV hosts, newscasters and conference speakers).

One can assume, rightly I think, that those who are speaking all over the place have a tendency to like fascism, the Nazi model whereas those who prefer to write have a tendency to like leftism, the Marist approach.

(What to do with those who use both, text and speech is problematical, making for the proposition that they are inclined neither way but are opportunistic when it comes to getting their messages across.)

But we who are trying to determine who is best at getting us the truth can decide if we want to hear from a rightist or choose instead a leftist; the right being more dogmatic and sneaky (maybe) or the left being more charismatic (as Gopnik indicates) and open to sentimentality, but just as sneaky (maybe) as their right-wing oriented colleagues.

The odd men out are those who neither write nor speak (publicly) but rather comment quietly in their circle and online.

Getting at the truth – UFO and otherwise – is tough, and knowing who among us is Marxian or Fascistic is of little help, but it’s one was of deciding who, with other caveats and insights, might bring forward what we can count on to be as near the truth, as accurate, as possible.

Give me both Nicks, but hold back the conference, podcaster people and the over-texters – wait a minute…I’m an over-texter.

Never mind.

RR