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The Zero-Sum Game in Ufology
Monday, January 23, 2017 13:43
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As a reviewer, Barbara Graziosi, defined in a London Review of Books piece for the July 26th, 2016 issue, about Tim Whitmarsh’s book, Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World, the zero-sum game is:
… “if I am right, you are wrong.” [Page 32]
Of course, the zero-sum game is a little more complex than that, as Wikipedia provides:
But for my purposes, Ms. Graziosi’s definition fits the zero-sum game as I see it; applicable to ufology and for the UFO community in toto.
In ufology, there are UFO believers, skeptics, agnostics, atheists, and a rather apathetic horde.
But within the debate milieu the back-and-forths come down to “as I am right, you have to be wrong.”
But that is non-intellectual, not academic, and illogical, especially when it comes to a bona fide enigma, such as UFOs or flying saucers.
When it comes to UFOs, there is no right or wrong; there never has been a right or wrong.
Even the Roswell incident remains controversial and unsettled. (Go to Kevin Randle’s blog for an example: kevinrandle.blogspot.com)
To take a hard-core skeptical position, like that of Zoam Chomsky, is rather irrational, stifling dialogue and a wholesome debate about the issues that the phenomenon provokes.
The book mentioned upfront here deals with theogony, the genealogy of god myths, which is pertinent to ufology, the genealogy of flying saucer myths.
But the zero-sum game distorts discussion, and creates mind-sets.
We, in the UFO community, don’t need a détente, but we do need an open environment where the pros and cons can be discussed without the taint of bias.
That’s a utopian desire, mostly because ufologists and UFO buffs, generally, are an uneducated lot, remiss in the humanities, certainly, and devoid of erudition in logic and philosophical methodology, as real UFO researcher Richard Hall instilled in me long ago.
Let’s hope the zero-sum game is suppressed, or dismissed altogether.
RR
http://ufocon.blogspot.com – The UFO Iconoclast(s)
Source: http://ufocon.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-zero-sum-game-in-ufology.html
