Venial and Mortal Sins (in Ufology and life)

Copyright 2020, InterAmerica

I generally irritate an academic pal by badgering him about touting such figures a Heidegger and Paul de Man who were sympathetic to the Nazi regime and published or wrote anti-Semitic passages that make me question their overall thinking, no matter how brilliant my pal sees some of Heidegger’s pronouncements.

I tend to avoid lauded them, especially Heidegger, although I, admittedly, do have a few of his books staring at me as I write this.

Paul de Man is a lesser light, so he’s easier to ignore.

Whenever I find that a “thinker” or cultural figure had or has anti-Semitic proclivities, I eschew them and their works.

But lo and behold I just read a review in the TLS (Times literary Supplement) – Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania by Cristina A Bejan -- that one of my all-time favorite savants, Mircea Eliade, in his youth, belonged to The Criterion Association, a New Right [Fascist] oriented “salon of intellectuals” sprung up from The Legion of the Archangel Michael or The Iron Guard, a right-wing fascist group that thought liberalism was a weakness of the Enlightenment.

They moved against Jews verbally and sometimes physically.

Those who belonged to Romania’s New Right included playwright Eugene Ionesco and philosophers Emil Cioran and Constantin Noica, and Eliade, also one, Nae Ionescu [sic], who studied under Edmund Husserl, the principal founder or phenomenology, from whom Heidegger developed his ideas of consciousness and intent with the overlay of phenomenology.

I’m sorry to present this prelude to my point, but I’m trying to establish that some rather important thinking and ideas often come from even those who stink as human beings, in one way or another.

Do I need to remove any works, by these crooked-thinking men from my bookshelves.?

And should I keep irritating my academic pal with my distaste for Heidegger’s misbegotten and ignorant Nazi sympathies?

That for another time, but it leads me to examine how we UFO buffs go after or admire UFO notables, some still living and some not.

I’m not a fan of Linda Moulton Howe, who is often pilloried by some UFO enthusiasts, and I dislike some of the Ancient Alien crowd or their thinking, not them actually.

David Childress and Linda Howe are fine with me, naïve in their thinking but sweet in a way, like our visitor here, Daniel.

The AA-oriented Wilcock is smug, like Martell and a few others, but should one shun them for being smug?

Erich von Däniken is provocative – his famous book Chariots of the Gods? ending with that question mark, which is often forgotten or not displayed and Giorgio A. Tsoukalos has that hair. What’s not to like?

Stanton Friedman was a promoter of some MJ-12 documents and the supposed Roswell alien crash-victims, but can we dislike him for that? I don’t think so.

When it comes to UFOers who seem to offend almost everyone, Phil Klass, for instance, can we curse him for thinking UFOs and flying saucers were bunk?

Is George Adamski anathema for hoaxing everyone? Not as I see it.

Can we keep “stabbing” Tom Delonge because he likes UFOs and is seemingly capitalizing on them, or his buddy Elizondo who appears to want to get at the truth? Nope.

What about Robert Bigelow? He’s not bothering anyone or calling for the elimination of Jews.

And what about Ray Palmer, who milked the flying saucer meme for all its worth. Do we hate because he was a promoter of a quirky adjunct to a 1940w/1950s fad?

What about MUFON, that misuses its UFO files and expertise to engage in tawdry UFO programming?

Then there is Philip J. Imbrogno, whose false credentials were outed by Lance Moody. Do we condemn Phillip to a lower circle of Dante’s Hell for lying about how much schooling he had? Mr. Imbrogno deserves to be removed from the UFO community and he has been, although he still shows up in some UFO retrospectives.

You see, there are Venial Sins and Mortal Sins, as the Church so brilliantly established:

 https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/mortal-and-venial-sin

And thus our personal dislikes and favoritisms in Ufology should be based on these determined two categories

No one should be a part of Ufology who is anti-Semitic, racist, or misogynistic, or a child abuser or molester, or anything worse.

But those who differ with one’s views should not be castigated nor ignored necessarily.

As for Heidegger, I’m not giving him a pass and I’ll continue to ignore Paul de Man as I have to evaluate my like for Jacques Derrida, who covered for and excused de Man and Heidegger too I think,.

Mircea is now on my list of persons to be cautious about lauding, if he should be lauded at all. He was young the reviewer and book author state but that for me is little excuse for his egregious lapse.

We’ll  see, but as for UFO people I find wanting, I’ll still cut them some slack. After all, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

RR