[extropy-chat] FWD [forteana] Forteans: ""Add-on" vs. "Structural Revisionist"

[Terry W. Colvin]

Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:32:20 -0500
From: "T. Peter Park" <tpeterpark at erols.com>
  To: forteana at yahoogroups.com
Subj: FWD [forteana] Forteans: ""Add-on" vs. "Structural Revisionist"


Dear Forteans,
        On another list last Spring, I read an April 25, 2003 _Izvestia_
article, "Why Way Does Evalution Go?," sympathetically discussing
archaeology & prehistory revisionist and Darwin critic Michael Cremo,
author of _Forbidden Archaeology_ and _The Hidden History of The Human
Race_. The article reminded me of one of my own long-standing
observations on Forteans and Forteanism.
        Forteans, I've long thought, have either an "add-on" or a "structural
revisionist" view of the relation of anomalous data, Charles Fort's
"damned" and "excluded" phenomena, to the generally accepted mainstream
scientific world-picture (GAMSWP for short). We may thus call them
"Adders-On" and "Structural Revisionists" after their respective views
of what "damned" and "excluded" data if accepted would do to the GAMSWP. 
        The "Adders-On" see ghosts, poltergeists, "psychic" phenomena, Bigfoot
and other "Hairy Hominids," gnomes and other "Little People," Lake
Monsters (like "Nessie") and other "cryptids" or "Mystery Beasts,"UFO's,
abductions, "spook lights," crop circles, archaeological "erratics," and
"out-of- place" or "impossible" fossils, as hitherto ignored or rejected
phenomena on the outer fringes of the GAMSWP, which have to be
incorporated into that world-picture to make it more complete.
"Structural Revisionists," on the other hand, rather see anomalies as
showing the GAMSWP to be quite wrong or skewed in its basics, needing a
complete overhaul. Adders-On feel that the GAMSWP is largely correct in
its main outlines, but needs a few touch-ups at its outer edges, a few
gaps in its borders to be filled in. Structural Revisionists feel that
the GAMSWP is "all wet" in broad outline, and needs to be replaced by
something very different. In the language of mainstream history,
sociology, and philosophy of science in the tradition of Thomas Kuhn,
they believe that "damned" and "excluded" data demand a major
"scientific revolution" or "paradigm shift."
        Adders-On enthusiastically accept GAMSWP views on prehistory, human
evolution, pre-sapiens hominids, life on other planets, and advanced
civilizations around distant stars in our Galaxy. However, they would
just like to add what they feel is strong evidence that dinosaurs,
plesiosaurs, and pre-sapiens hominids are still alive on our planet
today, and that extraterrestrial visitors are even now exploring and
reconnoitering our planet, and studying our species and civilization. 
They accept the broad outline iof GAMSWP views on neurology, psychology,
brain physiology, and mind-brain relations, but would like to add that
there seems to be good evidence that the human psyche (and probably also
the psyches of at least some higher animals) have certain powers,
faculties, capacities, and activities that appear to be largely
independent of the physical laws and limitations of apace, time, matter,
and physical energy, and can perhaps even function apart from a physical
substratum like the brain. 
        On the other hand, Structural Revisionists like Michael Cremo, Zachary
Sitchin, Erich von Däniken, Richard Shaver & Ray Palmer, and various
"hollow earth" and "hollow planets" writers from John Cleves Symmes,
Marshall Gardner, Cyrus Reed Teed, and John Lloyd Uri onwards, basically
reject many or most parts of the GAMSWP altogether
        I am not saying here which variety of Forteanism is "right" or "wrong."
I do wish to draw attention, however, to the existence of these two
distinct Fortean approaches. I myself personally, by the way, am pretty
much an Adder-On in Forteanism.
        This distinction between Adders-On versus Structural Revisionists, I'd
also like to add here, applies to other fields of human thought and
activity as well as to science and Forteanism. It strikes me as also
applicable, for instance, in religion, history, and politics, each of
which seems to have its own respective Adders-On and Structural
Revisionists.
        In religion, liberal and middle-of-the-road believers, clergy, and
theologians--Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and
Buddhists alike--have an "Add-On" view of the relation of religion and
science. Moderate, liberal, and modernist Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus basically accept the correctness of the
GAMSWP and of modern mainstream secular history, archaeology,
linguistics, textual criticism, sociology, and psychology. At the same
time, they feel that all of these, as presented by the modern secular
scientific and scholarly "mainstream," are quite compatible with a
belief in God, Divine revelation, and eternal life. God, revelation, and
eternal life, they believe, lie "out there" outside or beyond the
GAMSWP, in areas or realms not touched by the GAMSWP.  Fundamentalists,
on the other hand, have much more of a Structural Revisionist approach
to religion and science & secular scholarship. They consider modern
secular science, history, archaeology, and textual criticism just plain
flat-out wrong where they contradict (or seem to contradict)  the Bible,
Church Fathers, Papal encyclicals, Torah, Qur'ân, or Vedas.
        The same contrast of approaches can be seen, again, in history and
politics, particularly in discussions of possible conspiracies (e.g.,
with respect to the Kennedy or King assassinations, or government &
military UFO cover-ups).Historian Richard Hofstadter once pointed out
that there is a distinction between locating conspiracies in history,
and seeing all history as a conspiracy. Adder-Ons here see some
conspiracies here and there in history, while Structural Revisionists
see history itself as a conspiracy.Adders-On may well find
conspiratorial and cover-up elements in the Kennedy or King
assassinations, or in government and military handling of possibly
frightening UFO and extraterrestrial visitation information. Structural
Revisionist conspiracy theorists, and "Holocaust Revisionists," however,
see all or most recent history (or ALL history) as a conspiracy. They
may see it as an age-old conflict between "Rangers" and "Wardens" (Poul
Anderson's science-fiction novel _The Corridors of Time_) or rationalist
republican pro-scientific "Platonists" versus irrationalist oligarchic
Goddess- worshipping anti-technologists and anti-industrialists
"Aristotelians" (Lyndon LaRouche). Or, they may see history as mainly
the record of a vast Jewish, Communist, Masonic, Illuminati,
Bilderbergers, or International Bankers' world domination plot.
Structural Revisionist conspiracy theorists are prone to dismissing
Holocaust as a Zionist hoax, rejecting the 1969 Moon landing as a NASA
public relations hoax, regarding all US presidents from FDR on as
Reptilian space aliens disguised in fake human bodies, or describing
generally respected and admired mainstream public figures like General
George C. Marshall, Dean Acheson, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jimmy Carter,
Walter Cronkite, or Al Gore as "really" pro-Communist traitors.
        Here again, in the religious and politico/historical as well as in the
Fortean fields, I don't want to get right now into the question of who
is "right" or "wrong," but only to point out the existence of these two
contrasting perspectives. However, here again, Id just like to reiterate
that I tend to be personally pretty much of an Adder-On rather than a
Structural Revisionist in my own approaches to religion, history, and
politics as well as to Forteanism.
                Regards,
                T. Peter <tpeterpark at erols.com>
                Garden City South, LI, NY


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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