Debunking debunked

[m berst]

Is it just me?

The debunkers scare me a lot more than the tin foil people, which is ironic, because one of the main raps on the tin foil people is that they are scaring us.

What is the terrible social calamity that would result from rampant tin foilers? On the other hand, the cold-hearted, practical, realists - they remind me of the people running all of those Eastern European governments in the old days. "Nothing to worry about comrade." Of course false rumors abounded in communist countries then; that is a symptom of a police state, no? But, just because many of those rumors were false, that did not justify ridiculing or dismissing people's suspicions. The level of quality of information on the street was much higher, in any case, than that from the authorities, even if it was sometimes more creative and flamboyant.

The tin foil we should be worried about - look at all of the wacky theories that supported and justified the installation of this regime. Gays are destroying marriage. Saddam took down the WTC. Anti-war activists lost the war in Viet Nam. Reverse racism is holding down white males. Those are conspiracy theories that kill people.

With all of the truly bizarre things that this administration has done it shouldn't surprise us that people become suspicious, and that some people become alarmist. It surprises me how calm people are.

Certainly people should be careful with their claims here. But on the whole, would you say that the American public is sufficiently alarmed by and suspicious of this administration, or not sufficiently alarmed by and suspicious of this administration?

So I don't fault people for being alarmed. If they are a little off the mark here or there, I can live with that, and I appreciate their passion and concern.

At what point in the development of a police state should people stop using the phrases such as chicken little, the sky is falling, tin foil, and conspiracy theories to dismiss their fellow oppressed and misled citizens?

Which is more prudent? Erring on the side of listening to voices on the street, or erring on the side of listening to the authoritative voices?

[unblock]

1. that's a load of bunk!

tee hee!

actually it depends on what the debunkers are debunking. in your description, the tin foil hat people are the skeptics, and skeptics play an important and useful role in furthering our understanding.

my father has been known to give a few "debunking" lectures, what he debunks are things like the occult or esp, showing that such things are readily explained by known science, classical magic tricks, or simply gimmickry. in this case, it's the debunker who is playing the role of the skeptic.

what is most dangerous is believing so passionately that you ignore scientific evidence to the contrary.

[m berst]

3. ahhh precisely right

The skeptic could be either the debunker or the debunked.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Uncommonly well thought-out......

interesting perspective.

Maybe I should get up early more often?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. George Orwell and Eisenhower, the original tinfoilers... n/t

[ET Awful]

5. If you debunk debunking, isn't that "rebunking"? :) :) :) n/t

[dbt]

6. Consider the missionary ZEAL of the debunkers.

When you express an opinion that they regard as tinfoil-hat, they will follow you to the ends of the Earth to "save" you from your ignorance. Then, you begin to wonder how you suddenly became important enough to warrant all this attention--which is, of course, being applied for your own good.

Debunking, for some, has become an obsession. Here at DU, it has led to the establishment of groups where it is not permitted; this, apparently, was the only way that certain subjects could be discussed without being utterly hijacked by the "rational."

All together now:

:tinfoilhat:
dbt

[m berst]

10. ok, now I will be really controversial

I think that many of the debunkers will wind up on the other side of the fence from the tin foil people, and many of the faithful on the Republican side will wind up standing with us against authoritarianism. The underlying battle is not Christian versus non-Christian, Republican versus Democrat, or conservative versus liberal, but rather it is a battle over ideas about how society should be organized - autocratically authoritarian, or less organized and less rationalized.

Many who now are now nominally Democrats are not in temperament or philosophy anti-authoritarian, rather they want to supplant Church and corporate authority with a different brand of authoritarianism based on academia and science.

Many who now vote Republican are mainly anti-authoritarian, but they have been led to believe that there is more to fear in this regard from academia then from the Church or corporations.

We may see many people switching sides in the coming months, and we may see the division resolve into resistance to the government and to the tyranny of the state regardless of which party is in charge, and acceptance and compliance with the underlying rationales for the state regardless of how much compromise with those in authority is required. Right now it seems that most Democratic party politicians, while saying they offer an alternative to the Republican party, are not challenging the fundamental premises of totalitarian rule - in fact, they act and speak as though it isn't an issue.

In the 30's this tension broke down as the working people against the fat cats. In the 60's as the dissidents against the establishment. If the divide in the country now re-organizes itself to better match the divides at other times of great social unrest in the past, it will cut right through the middle of each of the two parties. The Evangelicals, rural people and the dissidents and minority people may find common cause while the corporatists, social workers and mental health professionals, and middle management people may find common cause. This pre-supposes that the phony "values" issues pitch of the Republicans is phony and not relevant or important to anything, but is just a clever advertising and marketing program to artificially create a false division in the electorate.

[indigobusiness]

7. Exactly!!! View everything with an open mind.

Let the weight of falseness sink the lies. Otherwise truth is possibly sacrificed by narrowed vision.

Better to momentarily entertain the possibility of lies than to disbelieve truth.

Lies can almost always be trusted to reveal themselves, eventually.

[DemonFighterLives]

8. Don't know how this fits in

There sure were a lot of debunkers after Michael Moore. I get a kick out of them. Most start out by calling him names and such and then mix the information up worse than Michael ever could.
The debunkers for the last few years mostly seem to be right wing hacks concerned with losing the sheep.

[m berst]

11. fits in well

Much of the time when people say "I don't believe this" they mean that they don't want to believe it.

On another aspect of this, it also seems that the more rational and calm a person sounds, the more in the grips and at the effect of their own emotions they may actually be. The prizing of a superficial calm rationality over the experiencing and expression of emotion is so powerful now, that anyone saying that they are angry, or fearful, or sad immediately loses credibility, and anyone maintaining a cold, calculated and authoritarian rationality gains credibility. That cold dispassionate rationality scares me more than the off the deep end tin foiler stuff does, because it can become such an asset for tyrants, and because it has such a deadening and de-humanizing effect on the reader at a time when it is so important that we be fully integrated and creative human beings in response to tyrannical authority.

[Demit]

9. "the tin foil we should be worried about..."--good point to keep in mind!

...as a rejoinder to the accusations that we are conspiracy theorists.

"Gays destroying marriage. Saddam took down the WTC. Anti-war activists lost the war in Viet Nam..." YES! those are the truly wacky theories, and we should be repeating that like a mantra, every time...