Over the last two weeks I have written ten thousand words, of which only four thousand have survived (well, that’s not strictly true; they still exist in old file versions) and hopefully the ‘Introduction’ (for want of a better term) will be finished by the end of next week, at which point I can begin work on the lecture my colleague and I are giving at the Skeptics Conference at the end of the month.The Introduction has been a tricky thing to write; it exists in two versions. (more…)
Category: General
Irregardless, ‘Irregardless’ isn’t a proper word
‘Irregardless, with its illogical negative prefix, is widely heard, perhaps arising under the influence of such perfectly correct forms as: irrespective. Irregardless is avoided by careful users of English.’ – New Oxford Dictionary
Well, that’s damning, seeing that I use the word all the time. Still, supervisors are there for a reason and one of those will have to be the cleaning up of my wanton language use.
In other news, aside from the typing, the public lecture on the Shakespeare authorship controversy was good. Nothing ground-breaking in re content but well-delivered and very funny. I now want to learn more about the conspiracy theories around Marlowe’s corpse. What a great book title that would make: The Marlowe’s Corpse Conspiracy. I can see it being the next DaVinci Code, except better written.
Which reminds me, I should put up the notes I made on that travesty of the written-form.
So he geeks out
I have suspected for quite some time now that, in the last year, I had read all there was in the Philosophical community on the subject of Conspiracy Theories. I was glad to be partially vindicated and surprised today upon reading the contents page of David Coady’s ‘Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate.’
Vindicated because all the articles in there I had read; surprised because a) I had never heard of Coady and b) because the book contains not only the articles I had read but a few follow-ups, never before published, by those various authors explaining their views here and now.
Hooray (thought I), new material.
For the last few months my reading has mostly been journalist’s reports and conspiracy theorist diatribes. It isn’t as fun as it sounds; as a sceptic I end up looking for where I think the account fails to be strongly suggestive of a conspiracy and sometimes the authors make it all too easy to find error. The few cases (historical) where conspiracy is evident don’t quite have the panache of a global malevolent conspiracy. The death of Caesar is interesting and important, but it pales in comparison to claims about the Bilderberg Group seeking to destroy Western Civilisation through some kind of radical secular democracy. And let’s not forget the reptiles.
So, when I find new Philosophy that excites me in a way that shows that, yes, I am destined for the tweed suit and an awkward laugh in social situations. More importantly, it’s the kind of stuff that Departmental Head’s like to see; peer reviewed material is much more exciting to the tenured lecturers and colleagues than a journalist with intuition and the ability to make connections where, let’s face it, they sometimes don’t plausibly fit.
Expect a little more philosophising in the next few weeks as I digest this material and work out ways to rephrase it as my own work. Because that’s what academics do. Even the good ones.
Lawrence Miles
As some of you know I was in the UK and whilst I was in the UK I was involved in the Doctor Who fan scene. It’s an exciting time to be a fan of Doctor Who and if you know the right people in London there’s a lot to do and numerous people to meet. In my six months there I met fans, I met actors and I had a wonderful time, but the only personage of Who fan that I meant and was impressed by was Lawrence Miles.
For those of you who are asking ‘Who?’ well, read on. (more…)
Upcoming Public(?) Lecture
30 August
Emeritus Professor Mac Jackson
Was Shakespeare Shakespeare? Reflections on the authorship controversy
6.30pm, Old Government House Lecture Theatre, The University of Auckland.
There are a whole lot of conspiracies in re the writing of the Shakespeare canon; I don’t know that Dr. Jackson (who suddenly sounds like a character from Stargate) will cover tham but it could be quite an interesting look at the controversy. For those who want to ‘bone up’ before class I recommend the following light reading:
Shakespiracy theory – The New Criterion
Wiki wiki wiki
When it comes to doing good, proper research the Wikipedia is not your friend. When it comes to finding out fan theories on subjects pop culture the Wikipedia is your only ally. For Conspiracy Theories… Well, Wikipedia exists somewhere inbetween.
Wikipedia’s entry on Conspiracy Theory is a funny thing. It reads badly; too much editing and it jumps about the place like a misplaced herring in heat. It’s the major reason why I haven’t even begun to contemplate making edits to it… Well, that and the fear of having said edits revoked. Still, the entry does have a links section and that is where the gold is, so to speak. By and large these links are very self-indulgent (All Embracing But Underwhelming is on there, for example) which is what makes them oh-so-interesting.
Especially for the site that I fear the most.
It starts oh-so-innocently:
Yet, in the space of one post we get a letter to an editor (of what I don’t know) ‘critiquing’ the 9/11 story. The best, though, was saved for third place, with the Mel Gibson cover-up:
It’s hard to know where to begin with this. In fact, so hard is it to find the right place to lay the mighty smackdown (for the target is large and placid) that it seems all too easy and I’m just not going to. Exactly why people feel the need to excuse Gibson’s behaviour fascinates me; if Marlon Brando was still alive they could form a club devoted to making accusations against the Jewish people which they later apologise for knowing that their fans will make excuse after excuse for their actions. The mind boggles, it really does.
[Unfortunate but true: the posts onConspiracy Enquiries become a little more rational after the Mel Gibson post, although by a little I don’t mean by all that much.]
Very scary.
My intuition of this study is that belief in conspiracy theories will turn out to be interestingly rational (and no, I can’t currently phrase that in more informative terms as I’m still trying to work out what I mean by ‘interestingly’) and quite normal. It’s the ‘quite normal’ part that I’m afraid of. I’m already seeing it in current discourse; the whole Labour Pledge Card fiasco going on in New Zealand (NB. Yes, I’m a supporter of Labour (well, more socialism in general, really) but I do think the Government is in the wrong in this matter and the longer they try to spin this out the more uncomfortable I feel about an administration I’m losing love for anyway) is a good example. The Right think it was a conspiracy to buy the election (which is a poorly reasoned conclusion as there is no proof that the pledge card itself was a deciding factor in the election (for we can form a valid counterexample where the Labour Government overspends and doesn’t win the election); the Left thinks that the Auditor-General and the Solicitor General… Well, it’s hard to know what the Left think about those two, apart from somehow having changed the rules. Whatever the case, people who normally wouldn’t believe in conspiracy theories are muttering about them on ferries and on buses or shouting at talkbackers whilst driving their cars into work.
Which has always been normal, truth be told, and probably always will be.
Except for me, of course. I’m the model thinker. Which reminds me, if you buy that then I have some reclaimed land in Bayswater I want to sell you.
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08/21/2006