'the frightening reverse to this obsession with authenticity is the complete lack of respect for what is actually authentic'
Sounds like the reliance upon 'truthiness' problem in a somewhat different context.
'And maybe unquestioning accptance of historical inaccuracy isn't as important an issue as some other manifestations of this kind of complacency'
Well, yes and no. Some bits of fake history are dynamite - like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for instance.
And though I have no time for Opus Dei, I think they should be held in suspicion for what is really known about them, documented stuff, like their historic links with fascism, not some paranoid fantasy.
How far all of this is a new problem is an interesting question. I remember back in the late seventies watching a really bad documentary on the Shroud of Turin. Two or three 'scientists' were wheeled on to expound some rather unlikely theories as to its provenance. We were never told their areas of expertise; they could have been geologists, or astronomers, or climatologists, or anything. The magic word 'scientist' was supposed to make the viewers genuflect in reverence and assume that they must know what they were talking about. Mind you, none of them claimed to have received any visions.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2006-05-14 09:37 pm (UTC)Sounds like the reliance upon 'truthiness' problem in a somewhat different context.
'And maybe unquestioning accptance of historical inaccuracy isn't as important an issue as some other manifestations of this kind of complacency'
Well, yes and no. Some bits of fake history are dynamite - like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for instance.
And though I have no time for Opus Dei, I think they should be held in suspicion for what is really known about them, documented stuff, like their historic links with fascism, not some paranoid fantasy.
How far all of this is a new problem is an interesting question. I remember back in the late seventies watching a really bad documentary on the Shroud of Turin. Two or three 'scientists' were wheeled on to expound some rather unlikely theories as to its provenance. We were never told their areas of expertise; they could have been geologists, or astronomers, or climatologists, or anything. The magic word 'scientist' was supposed to make the viewers genuflect in reverence and assume that they must know what they were talking about. Mind you, none of them claimed to have received any visions.