I’m stunned by when I see it. A person, quite normal by any other standard becomes a raving lunatic when their pet ideas regarding the paranormal are threatened. No sooner than someone asks an innocent question like ‘“could your experience(s) have been anything besides an alien spacecraft?” A perfectly normal question anyone with a reasonable grasp of reality might agree.
But no! To many who have experienced the paranormal, this question is thought to be an attack, a deeply personal one too. This can be surmised by the level of counter attacking resorted to by some abductees. Some (most from my experiences) immediately jump on the person who asks the question. They are branded “debunker, skeptic” or the ever popular “skeptibunky.” These are bigoted epithets, no different than calling a Chinese person a “chink,” a Jewish person a kike or a black person a “nigger.”
Rod Brock put’s it this way.. on his blog
There’s a word the ufologically “faithful” use to “demonize” their skeptical opponents. Various lengthy attempts have been made on certain UFO lists to “objectively” define this particular word. These attempts have been little more than hot air; in practice, anyone who dissents against the views of one of the faithful, regardless of the quality of his/her argument, will be conveniently labeled with this term. It’s an old propagand trick, a standard in rhetorical argument. Within ufological circles, it’s the kiss of death, leveled with all the venom of more extreme pejoratives, such as “asshole,” “scum,” “vermin,” etc.
The word is “debunker.”
On the other side, some skeptics delight in calling people who experience paranormal phenomena “woos,”“believers,” or a few other choice phrases.
It seems that, to “one of the faithful,” the level of insult to a label such as “woo” is far more and above the level of insult than words like “idiot”“debunker” could ever be to someone more skeptically bent. I say this only after long experience which segues me into the double standards part.
I’ve noted a singular double standard between the way paranormal experiencers behave vs. their expectations of how skeptics are supposed to behave. Skeptics, according to some are people with a very profound and personal ax to grind. They relish the status quo, heartlessly and vociferously harassing the poor experencer, calling them all kinds of vile and regrettable names in a cowardly attempt to hide their own ignorance. Skeptics are sub-humans, even the slightest criticism is reason to take offense. They should never be permitted to speak, if they do they are to be driven out, punished and ridiculed. If you happen to be a skeptic and want an example of this, go to any one of thousands of open mail groups and pose an innocent question or two. (I know a couple of good ones if anyone wants to get with me privately.)
On the other hand, at places like JREF (the James Randi Educational Foundation ,) people having other than skeptical viewpoints are welcomed so long as they can keep to minimal standards of net courtesy. Very few experencer can and the list is littered with users who have either gotten banned for bad behavior or left because they could not handle a vigorous debate. And you will get a debate there, that’s what the JREF is all about.
I’¢m not saying that every experencer I run into is like this.I’ve had long conversations with people who sincerely believed that aliens abducted them. We have had very interesting and (I think) productive conversations that never devolved into personal slights or ad hominem.
How is this possible? Simple (I think.) The people I’m referring to reframed from flaming at first blush. They sought understanding, not battle, communication, not conflict. They truly wanted to understand my point of view and I theirs. They didn’t try to force feed me their religion or their belief system. We both came away better from the exchange.
In so the power of hypocrisy and double standards are deceiving. They are not a very good ways to influence people, they are terrible ways to get people to listen to you. they serves an incompetent masters, ones who cannot find a good counter argument. Crackpots use these tools. Double standards serve people who cannot reconcile their strongly defended beliefs to even look at the other side of opinion. Fighting seems to be their only alternative. Insult their only tools of persuasion.
Is it any wonder that the world turns away from them, brands them or ignores them? Any wonder at all?
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