America is still young and, so far, remains the core of the proverbial ‘New World’. A brand-new world might, for some, require new thoughts and ideas taken from the ‘Old World’, or potentially, nearly new and separate religions. One might think of Mormonism or Scientology, but the rise of the Old World, emerging in the New, has found a solid foundation from the Anabaptists in the form of the Amish.
Finding their origins in the world of Dutch Calvinism, the Amish started as a series of small communities that spread rapidly. These communities were found within the Midwestern states, but in recent years, due to rapid population growth, have spread to over thirty states. This population growth in such a short space of time has left many wondering just how big the Amish population will be within the next few years across the United States.
As noted by Lyman Stone in 2018, it remains highly unlikely that the Amish will ever become a majority within the US largely due to structural factors relating to modernisation within certain groups and shifts from farming towards manufacturing. This is compounded by a lack of available farming areas for which they can use to move across the US. Most likely, in the coming decades, they will slowly become significant minority groups within many states, with Holmes County, Ohio most likely to become the first majority Amish County in the US this year, which will soon be followed by LaGrange County, Indiana.
For the Amish, all non-Amish are called ‘the English’. For the rest of this article, I will use the Amish’s own terminology (for my own sick amusement, knowing this article’s intended audience). The importance of this is because, at its core, what remains important is the examination of whether the Amish will bend to the knee to the English World or if the English World will learn anything from the Amish.
Will the Amish become fashionable as a cultural force that the English in America can rally around? Will they become fashionable, and can they not offer to help guide America back to its traditional roots? These are all important questions, which I hope might spark some debate amongst people and The Mallard readership. The good thing about writing online about the Amish, is knowing they will probably never see this.
Even prior to Covid, we have seen vast internal migration from around the US, from people fleeing states like California and New York towards that of Florida and Texas. Additionally, we are seeing a gradual return from the major built up cities towards the countryside. These trends are not unique to the US but it would seem that some kind of return to a more ‘tranquil’ and, dare I say, ‘traditional’ lifestyle has applied to many. Alongside this return to the countryside, the Amish have always, in one form or another, received attention from the body politic and general cultural zeitgeist of America. A friendly, devout, and non-violent group of Christians that merely wish to be left alone.
Following this, knowing that you have a high-trust, self-sustaining, and low crime faction of the population, may start paying dividends within certain states that have large major cities which suffer from various modern social ills (crime, drug abuse, etc.). As the Amish population grows, so too will the cultural weight they can throw around locally. Of course, we will never see Amish Congressman or Presidents. Instead, we will see a strong and firm cultural base in which a growing traditionalism-seeking group of people can find support within.
Will the Amish way of life ever become, by contemporary definitions, ‘popular’? Certainly not. However, similar to how people become Priests or Nuns, such paths may not be for them, but can be respected and admired. That admiration, the idea that such a group can do so much, may itself become fashionable; the Amish may come to symbolise a desirable form of of social stability, one situated in contrast to increasingly stormy issues emerging within American cities. As such, whilst the ‘full’ Amish way of life is not purely feasible for much of the population, elements may be worth emulating. A strong sense of local community identity, sustainability, and solidarity, as well as emphasising family and family-building; something that most agree is drastically needed.
In summary, will the Amish become a massive cultural force? It’s too soon to say. If demographic trends continue on their current trajectory, then within the next few decades, we may see the Amish become, not just a major cultural force, but the foundation of a parallel society; one providing an alternative to the excesses and drawbacks of globalised modernity.
It is entirely possible that the Amish, more than just playing a role as an increasingly culturally-influential Christian group within America, will come to provide a full-bodied blueprint for revitalising American ‘rugged individualism’. However, what is known for certain is that, in some distant rural parts of America, there still exist those who believe in the core values which made America into America – the will to flourish on the frontier of a new world.
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Current Criticism on Austen: An Overview of the Norton Critical Pride and Prejudice, 4th Ed.’s Back Material
“Short and easy will be the task of the mere biographer. A life of usefulness, literature, and religion, was not by any means a life of event…to the little disappointments incidental to human life was never added, even for a moment, an abatement of good-will from any who knew her.”
No, this quote does not refer to the late Queen Elizabeth II—though several aspects of it, from the humble understatement to the positive rapport among her acquaintances, could just as well describe the late monarch (ignoring the lacking a “life of event” part) as they do its actual subject, Jane Austen.
Written by her brother Henry and included as a preface to the posthumous volume containing Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, the brief biography is one of the many resources found in the 2016 Norton Critical Edition (the fourth) of Pride and Prejudice, edited by Donald Gray of Indiana University and Mary A. Favret of Johns Hopkins. Besides confirming that one cannot understand Austen without understanding her, as he puts it, “thoroughly religious and devout” faith (another parallel between Austen and Her Royal Highness, and many others), the biography gives several details that lend insight into not only P&P but Austen’s other novels, as well.
This is, of course, the purpose of Norton Critical Editions, which I have used since my first essay as a California kid at Oxford (due on a Monday after meeting my tutor on Friday). The Norton Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, bought, read, and cited in a two-day scramble, saved my grade that weekend, and it still graces my bookshelf for whenever I or mine might need it.
While pieces contemporary with the books’ printings, like the above biography, letters from the author to family and friends, and subsequent reviews at the time (for P&P from Scott, C. Bronte, Emerson, Twain, and others) provide a great context, as a student I found most useful the critical excerpts included in each edition, which attempt to give an up-to-date view on the literary conversation surrounding a certain work. For undergraduates who may not know where to look for sources on a certain author, I usually suggest Norton Criticals (and, by God, the several-page-long Selected Bibliography in the back—my brother and sister in Christ, THEY DO YOUR WORK FOR YOU), if only as a primer for larger critical discussion.
But the editions aren’t, and shouldn’t be, limited to the student; indeed, fans of Austen (or whom have you) might wear down their editions faster and more thoroughly than the student who buys it for a two-week paper. Although written with the academic in mind, works like Norton Critical Editions might very well contribute to the canon being preserved outside of the university, providing, as they do, the tools for a historical and critical understanding of one’s favorite work.
Literally one of the greatest novels ever written, and second in my mind only to The Brothers Karamazov, qua novel, Pride and Prejudice needs no encomium from me. Based on and in parts expanding my Goodreads review, what follows is a summary of and, at times, response to the recent critical sources in the 4th Norton Edition. I hope it will prove useful to Austen lovers as much as students.
D.A. Miller, “No One is Alone,” from Jane Austen; Or the Secret of Style (2003).
Discusses the break between Austen’s style and her characters, with the former being omniscient and the latter being little-knowing. Recounts how Austen’s style developed from reading 18th-century writers like Sam Johnson and how she novelized several aspects of their articles. Discusses the paradox of Elizabeth’s marrying Darcy (Miller cynically sees it as an unfortunate contradiction) by supposedly eschewing the very wit (or “impertinence”) that made her unique.
Jeff Nunokawa, “Speechless in Austen,” from Differences 16 (2005).
Discusses the timelessness in Austen (both narration and characters), whose writing seems to have no idea of the enormous cultural changes that were to come in the 1800s. Nunokawa identifies this confident changelessness as being part of why we read P&P, which, despite readers’ approaching it with nostalgia, has very little actual nostalgia within its pages. Discusses, like Elfenbein below, Austen’s use of space-as-social dynamic. Also contextualizes and discusses silence within P&P, and how Darcy must learn to open up because it is through sociability and inclusion, not mere rank, that one succeeds in P&P. Reasons that in Austen one can only know themselves through social interaction, and so Darcy’s attempting to only speak when he has something perfect or great to say ironically reduces him. Finally, examines the certainty of tone often used by both Austen’s narrator and her characters.
At times syntax/language felt a bit overwrought, but it may be because it’s an excerpt and, its being the first article I read after finishing the novel, I was still reading with Austen’s rhythm.
Andrew Elfenbein, “Austen’s Minimalism,” from The Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice (2013).
Examines how and why Austen leaves out descriptive details; identifies her as not being a realist (as has been argued) because of this selectivity. Contextualizes Austen with Johnson’s 18th-century advice to make writing timeless by avoiding too many details; shows how Austen nuances this by using detail to enhance beauty of characters/scenes, like the then popular picturesque school (which suffuses the book – see Knox-Shaw below). Identifies rooms and the outdoors not as physical places but as identifiers of distance and a context for the social interactions that make up the book. One of the best articles in the edition, both for historical context and argument flow.
Peter Knox-Shaw, “Pride and Prejudice, A Politics of the Picturesque,” from Jane Austen and the Enlightenment (2004).
Identifies the Picturesque as finding a medium between the Burkean-Romantic poles of pacifying Beauty and provoking Sublime. Follows the picturesque as a running metaphor through the book for Elizabeth and Darcy’s love, and thus, for Elizabeth’s breaking of gender stereotypes/politics. Argues that, like the picturesque, Elizabeth’s development depicts a nuancing of (if not campaign against) conventional beauty, while showing that beauty and attractiveness are not synonymous in the book (see Michie below). In conjunction with the other articles on the picturesque, Knox-Shaw’s was one of the more enlightening articles in the material.
Felicia Bonaparte, “Conjecturing Possibilities: Reading and Misreading Texts in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,” from Studies in the Novel 37.2 (2005).
Places P&P within the contemporary philosophical debate between the rationalists and the empiricists. Establishes how P&P identifies Jane Austen as an empiricist in the line of David Hume due to its consistent focus on skepticism regarding secondhand accounts, texts, and assumptions. Stresses how often characters’ epistemology is discovered to be faulty, and how the book encourages a general skepticism regarding first impressions. Argues that the Bennet sisters each, in their own way, undermines one’s ability to interpret reality with certainty, and that Elizabeth’s developing a “practical empiricism” is “the bildung of the novel.” Goes further to argue that Austen was even an early Nietzschean post-modernist in how she incorporates her characters’ mutual and self-reflective interpretations into their construction of, rather than deduction of, reality. Probably my favorite of the edition’s essays, for its historical context and depth of substance, as well as readability.
Vivien Jones, “Feminisms,” from A Companion to Jane Austen (2012).
Argues that, despite her focus on primarily women characters and their circumstances, Austen should not be classed as an early feminist because of her reaffirmation of marriage, which Jones interprets as an endorsement of the patriarchal structure she sees throughout the book. Identifies Austen, rather, as a postfeminist author, who (she thinks mistakenly) argues in her characters and scenarios that the inequalities facing early-19th-century women had largely been dealt with and that many problems experienced by women could be surmounted not by societal revolution and polemic but by individual reflection and reformation. Identifies Elizabeth as being in the vein of Mary Wollstonecraft, but Austen as aligning more with the conservative female writer Hannah More. Accuses Austen of contextualizing the benefits achieved by Wollstonecraft within a conservative/Tory context of twenty years later that reaffirms the social structure. Reads P&P as conservative reinterpretation of previous feminist ideals through the onus for individual, rather than broader social, reform. In my opinion, Jones’s view that Elizabeth’s marriage is a renegging on her previous independence (rather than a full expression of it) misses the point of the book, which his her growth out of her own pride and prejudice (an impetus and growth Austen notably gives to Darcy, too).
Janet Todd, “Jane Austen’s Hero,” from The Cambridge Companion to Pride and Prejudice (2013).
Argues that Darcy’s place in society allows him to begin the book as a boor, whereas Elizabeth’s requires her to adapt through the book. Sees Elizabeth as having no individuality in either Darcy or Collins’s eyes. Follows Alistair Duckworth’s 1971 Marxist reading of the book’s property entail (arguably refuted below by Macpherson), applying it to gender and property. Like Jones above, interprets Elizabeth’s growth out of her pride and prejudice as a negative, a product of her social standing and gender, and thus misses the point of the book.
Elsie B. Michie, “Social Distinction in Jane Austen,” from The Vulgar Question of Money: Heiresses, Materialism, and the Novel of Manners from Jane Austen to Henry James (2011).
Interprets P&P as Austen’s attempt to find the proper relation to wealth. Reads book as a response to Hume and Smith’s writings on the problematic effects of wealth on English society. Elizabeth as the opposite of Miss Bingley and Lady Catherine, both of whom present the negative effects of status via inherited wealth (shallow, arrogant, etc). Examines the growth of manners to replace the traditional virtues of the landed aristocracy (both shown in said characters). Points out how Elizabeth’s manners, as well as her disregard for inherited virtue or status, make her attractive despite her lack of apparent beauty (see Knox-Shaw above). Looks at what Darcy’s growing attraction to her says about him. A good essay for understanding and contextualizing the different dynamics in the Elizabeth-Lady Catherine interactions, as well as the changing social mores of the time.
Sandra Macpherson, “Rent to Own: or, What’s Entailed in Pride and Prejudice,” from Representations 82 (2003).
Lays out the laws of property entail—and, Macpherson points out, ironic humor surrounding the issue—that undergird the plotof P&P. Debunks Duckworth’s Marxist view that the book’s society is structured along class and gender lines (see Todd, above). Showing how entail cannot be blamed on any one person or group, explains the implicit joke in both Mrs. Bennet’s expecting something to be done about the entail and Collins’s continual apology for it (both of which Austen’s readers would have seen as ridiculous). Reads Austen as not being against entail, per se, because it is an image of social obligation, not one of exclusion. Examines Austen’s contrasting renting vs owning as makers of different personalities and virtues (vis, Bingley and Darcy). One of the more enlightening, historically based, and easy/fun to read of the back material; possibly my favorite, contending with Bonaparte.
Andrew Maunder, “Making Heritage and History: The 1894 Illustrated Pride and Prejudice,” from Nineteenth-Century Studies 20 (2006).
Examines the role illustrations play in forming (and revising) later perceptions of an artist and their work. Explores how, “Illustrations play a central role in how readers construe novels,” and “modify, challenge, and even dictate readers’ understandings,” of the novels. Argues in a footnote that later illustrations of P&P like , rather than the text itself, are to be attributed with the reading that Darcy becomes more emotionally responsive by the novel’s end; conversely sees the text as validating Darcy’s cold “legal and ethical formalism,” and pushing Mr. Bingley to emulate it. Explores the effect the 1894 edition had on how the novel was interpreted, despite it’s being merely a “gift book” among many similars flooding the market. Presents and critiques key illustrations by artist Hugh Thompson and describes others, unpictured; interprets Thompson’s stated desire to show Austen’s “sense of fun,” as going too far, into reinterpretation. Although Thompson and editor George Allen caused a revival of interest in Austen, implies the popularity had more to do with the reinterpretive lens than with Austen’s work, itself (see my own critique of the recent Persuasion adaptation, linked above).
Tiffany Potter, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” from Women, Popular Culture, and the Eighteenth Century (2012).
Reads Seth Grahame-Smith’s book/reinterpretation, P&P&Zs, as more than a pulp piggyback off of Austen. Presents book as a concretization of the implicit, unspeakable aspects of P&P, with the zombies being “a literalization of the threat of a social death in spinsterhood…in opposition to the socially constructed life-and-death quality of the marriage plot.” Interprets several moments from Grahame-Smith’s book as helping readers better understand Austen, such as Lydia’s becoming an “unmentionable” zombie as an image of the unspeakability of her adultery in Austen, or the steady death to zombiehood of Charlotte as a picture of her intellectual death in marrying Collins. An interesting piece that treats P&P&Z seriously, though Potter ultimately interprets certain aspects of Austen (e.g. Jane and Elizabeth’s marriages) negatively, like others above.
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British Conservatism is Ignorant of History and has Forgotten its Past (Magazine Excerpt)
This dictatorship of the present has been enabled by around thirty years of material abundance and relative peace following the conclusion to the Cold War. As John Keegan, the military historian put it, Britain and American can afford our universalist idealism and our fantasies of a benevolent world united and ameliorated through commerce, given our good geographical fortune of being separated from continents by bodies of water. We can forget that the tides of history have pulled whole cultures under in violence and war, instead indulging in an imagined progressive history, moving ever upwards towards ever greater enlightenment and prosperity.
Our leaders, if they deserve the name, have forgotten the lessons of history, because they do not know history. They do not know the fate of nations and peoples. They are ignorant of the importance of the landscape of the world and the moral landscape of the heart, and how the interplay between the two shapes the destinies of civilisation. It is not to engage in nostalgia for a vanished age that never existed to reckon with the fact that those who governed us in the past were well aware of life’s tragic nature, of the reality of necessity and the ultimate goal of the avoidance of anarchy, its own form of tyranny. Our leaders in the 19th and up to the mid-20th centuries had been baptised in the fires of historical experience and therefore knew that the maintenance of right order, in accordance with the good, true, and beautiful, was the precondition for any liberty. Utopian, romantic ideas of universal rights, spreading democracy and natural freedom were dangerous in their unbounded idealism, leading nations and government astray in the quest for moral perfection.
History never ended, in the sense Francis Fukuyama meant it. Hegel, and his disciple Alexander Kojeve, were both wrong in discerning a direction to human History that would see the creation of the perfect liberal democratic regime and state of being in our world. History is the story of the deeds men and women do and accomplishments achieved together as clans, tribes, cities, empires, and nations. It is a story that will only end at the end of all things. Awareness of the living past reminds us that our lives are part of the weave of time, stretching back across the years, our own lives and the actions we take adding the threads that continue into the future.
This is an excerpt from “Mayday! Mayday!”. To continue reading, visit The Mallard’s Shopify.
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Aliens are not real
In the past three years there has been a lot of open discussion on the topic of UFOs, both in the media, and in government. What initially started as the government “declassifying” video footage of unidentified flying objects captured by the US Air Force, along with vague explanations of their origin or their purpose, has, for many, snowballed into an irrational fear, or hope, that the existence of extraterrestrial beings will be soon made public.
Note that I’m not using the word “alien”. The textbook definition of “alien” simply means “foreign” or “belonging to a different place”. It is a phrase which is simply too broad, and too indescriptive of what these UFOs might be. In fact, the exact phrase used by the American government to explain the original viral video that was released in 2020 and further declassified materials has always been along the lines of “unexplained aerial phenomena”.
The most recent viral video that took Twitter and Instagram by storm was a hearing in Congress on the nature of UFOs/UAPs, where former U.S. intelligence officials testified on their dealings with such matters. The most notable of these testimonies came from David Grosch, who had worked on recovering “crashed” UFOs/UAPs.
In his testimony, Gorsch explained that on recovery of these objects, they recovered “non-human biologics” from the sites. This was the soundbite that took the world by storm, but still, it was incredibly vague.
Neither the committee, nor those giving testimony, could, or would divulge any specifics. “Non-human” biologics could mean anything. You’re surrounded by non-human biologics with plants and animals. You are covered in non-human biologics through the bacteria on your skin.
The fact that no-one on the hearing committee that was asking the questions pressed further to confirm definitively whether or not the source of these craft, and the accompanying “non-human biologics” were from another planet, or at the very least not from Earth, leads me to believe that there is a smoke and mirrors show going on.
By keeping things vague, it keeps engagement and speculation pumping online. It’s also rather convenient that these new developments in regards to “UFOs/UAPs” always seem to occur around the same time the current administration is copping heat for blatant corruption, or dirty back-door deals. Why would anyone care about Biden’s dealings with Bursima and Ukraine when they can be easily entertained and distracted by the government “cover up” about spooky aliens!
Now, let’s get one thing perfectly clear. Aliens are not real. They’re just not, guys.
I know. Gutting news to hear. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if things were actually Star Wars, and interstellar travel was right on our fingertips if it wasn’t for the pesky government keeping things so hush-hush. Oh when, oh when will our extra-terrestrial little green friends come down in their ships, share their technology, and launch us into a new Space Age where we’ll want for nothing, explore the stars, and live in the techno-future of our dreams? Luxury gay space-communism for everyone!
Never. It’s never going to happen.
On a less condescending note, I will do my best to explain why the existence of extraterrestrials is a farcical delusion at best, and at worst an intended deception to hide something more sinister.
Before we dive into that, we are going to have to go back to the beginning of the very concept of “extraterrestrials”. Where did we dream of the idea of visitors from another world?
The answer is actually rather modern, and only goes back to the late 19th century. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the works of H.G. Wells – the father of science fiction. Wells was an incredibly influential and popular writer during his time, and his most popular work War of the Worlds was by far the most impactful on the public consciousness.
Stories of “other-worldly” beings had been written about before, of course, but not in the same sense as Wells was able to. Through his incredible writing, he was able to describe a Martian civilisation that was incredibly similar to ours, driven by similar goals of conquest as we humans were, but expanded to a larger, galactic scale.
Wells described often how War of the Worlds was inspired by interactions between European empires and far less advanced tribes in foreign lands, and through this very real and observable reality in the 19th century of advanced civilisations conquering lesser ones, it made the concept that we too may also be the conquered savage’s one day made for a very terrifying thought indeed.
Wells would spark the wave of science fiction that would go on to dominate the literature market well into our time, and through this popularity of science fiction, came a way for us to try and understand things we previously thought unexplainable.
You see, UFOs/UAPs are hardly a “new” phenomena of the past two centuries.
Lights in the sky, unexplainable interactions with “beings” that don’t appear to be human, and many of the experiences that we chalk up to “aliens” and extraterrestrials used to be explained through other means; namely spirits, angels, demons, gods, and so on.
There are countless stories throughout history of people interacting with these phenomena. You can listen to a few of them with Voices of the Past’s excellent video taking five separate accounts through history.
The accounts, especially from the very distant past who were uninfluenced by works of science fiction, would’ve hardly thought that these experiences came from extraterrestrial visitors or “little green men” as we often do.
Even though these experiences that others in the past had with the unexplained or “paraphysical” phenomena were fantastical and unfamiliar, they didn’t get lost looking at the stars, and instead tried to explain them through more worldly means – whether that was through religion or myths.
For the secularists amongst us who don’t believe in the “supernatural” or “spiritual” realms and interactions from them being a more likely possibility for UFO/UAP experiences, there is always the statistic that ghost-sightings and stories of possession began to subside heavily around the same time that stories of alien abductions and UFO sightings took off.
If you don’t want to explain the mysterious lights in the sky and interactions with the unknown through spiritualism and religion, you can always explain it through mass psychosis and delusions. As Carl Sagan once regarded the noticeable increase of “abductions” amongst Americans in particular, “…because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
Let’s also not forget that some of the most famous stories of “extraterrestrials” and UFOs turned out to be nothing more than obfuscation to cover-up the truth about weapons tests and top secret technologies.
One of the most famous of which, the 1957 Roswell Incident, occured when a rancher discovered a crashed “alien spacecraft” on his land. The press ran wild with the story, and Roswell, New Mexico became a hotbed for alien enthusiasts the world over. It wasn’t until 19944 that it was revealed that the “alien crash” turned out to be a high-altitude balloon used to detect nuclear tests from the Soviet Union, as part of the top secret Operation Mogul.
Of course at the time it would not be in the best interests of the American government to have come out and said “no, this test aircraft is actually part of a secret surveillance program”. It is much better to let the fantastic and whimsical stories capture the imagination of the public and distract them from what’s really going on. From then on, any aircraft or weapons tests in the New Mexico/Area 51 area could be attributed to extraterrestrial visitors, rather than the development of next generation stealth aircraft.
It’s the perfect cover-up, really. Convince the gullible and easily captivated masses that you are hiding the truth of something as absurd as aliens, that they’ll never actually dig for the truth of what you’re actually doing. It’s such an effective method of obfuscation and misdirection that public officials, even Presidents, will believe it.
Looking at you, Ronald Reagan.
So, with pretty much all processes of logical deduction, one’s best assumption that these stories of extraterrestrials are delusional stories from the bored or mentally unsound at the very least, and at the most are stories that are allowed to spread like a virus to cover-up what government/military institutions are actually up to behind their hangar doors.
But what are the consequences of letting this mass delusion take up the public consciousness?
For one, the whole “aliens are real, and the truth of their existence will be revealed soon” line is a bit doomsday-ish. Not in the sense that they will be harbingers of destruction, but more that many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, are banking on the fact that aliens will finally interact with humankind within their lifetime, and bring an end to the “world” as we know it. Much like the XR folks are convinced we will all be dead in a decade, or how the Millerites in the mid-19th century were convinced that the Apocalypse would occur by 1843, it is mass hysteria distracting people from bettering their lives immediately by distracting them with an “end date” or singularity to wait, often perpetually, for.
Simply put, it’s putting false hopes into a false entity. Idolatry of the most basic kind. As Fr. Seraphim Rose put it in his book Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future in regard to the phenomenon and nature of UFOs; “the message for contemporary mankind is: expect deliverance, not from the Christian revelation and faith in an unseen God, but from vehicles from the sky.”
Unfortunately, the false hope of aliens “saving” us from our problems seems to be an all too-persistent opinion amongst many these days. In my own experience, I have known of very smart, successful, and otherwise very sound-of-mind individuals who are convinced that in the next decade we’ll be invaded by extraterrestrials. These aren’t schizophrenics that are becoming obsessed with the world beyond and apathetic about the world around them – these are regular people like you and me.
And just like with the cover-up surrounding test aircraft and weapons programs in the Cold War, the American government is far too enthusiastic embracing the “UFO/UAP” publicly that it is incredibly suspect, especially given the myriad of scandals, abyss of financial debt, and extreme corruption that is persistent in Washington DC and beyond.
It is much better to distract the masses with a smoke-and-mirror show about the prospect of potentially existential-altering news, rather than have them dig deep into the crimes and lies which are staring them right in the face from very real, very tangible, and very accountable human beings.
Why would people want to try and seek justice for themselves with their time on Earth when the threat/promise of extraterrestrial beings looms over them? With the imminent threat of invasion/promise of a Roddenberry-esque future, that seems like small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. We’ll just have to wait patiently until they deliver us from our Earthly coil with their advanced technology that will save/destroy us!
It’s foolish to think this, and it’s time to grow up and understand that no one is coming to save us. Not beings from another planet, and not a miraculous apocalypse that looks like something from a Kirk Cameron televangelist B-film.
It is up to us, and us alone to seek the salvation, justice, and enlightenment we need. With the guiding principles of Christ, and living as best as we can with fundamental Christian principles and lifestyle. Even then, it may never be enough, we are flawed after all – but it’s better than losing our minds in the stars and essentially burying our heads in the sand.
Hopefully, for any fence-sitters or extra-terrestrial enthusiasts that have read this I have been able to convince you to grow out of your obsessions with the little green men – or at the very least I have been able to persuade you to come at the topic with a healthy amount of skepticism and caution.
“But what, pray tell, are those darn lights in the sky and abductions?” I hear you ask from beyond the screen in front of me.
The truth is we may never know for sure. Frankly, it’s probably better that we don’t. There is a hidden world beyond human comprehension that is out there, that is largely responsible for the paranormal, the “otherworldly”, and the unexplainable. Certainly there are countless accounts and stories throughout human history of these experiences and interactions that are convincing enough that the world we occupy isn’t just inhabited by the physical, but that there are other energies, and possibly entities out there.
But, like with anything that steps on the edge of that unseen world – whether it by psychoactive substances, Ouija boards, the occult, or those mysterious lights in the sky – sometimes it’s better to let them remain hidden, unexplained and to not invite them into your life and become obsessed by them.
No good can come of it, and most stories of human interactions with that hidden world point towards the fact that no good ever has come of it.
