The beginnings of the Great Exhibition of 1851 begin with Prince Albert. After spending time as the President of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Commerce and Manufactures a few years prior, and having seen the success of the Exhibition of Products of French Industry, the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 was created. Spearheaded by Victorian England’s greatest industrial thinkers, including Henry Cole, Owen Jones, and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, plans were immediately drawn up.
Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace was the chosen design for the structure. Measuring 1,851 feet with an interior height of 128 feet, the purpose of the structure was not only to be practical and cost effective, but a statement too. The Crystal Palace was representative of Victorian ingenuity and innovation, combining practicality with beauty. Without a need for interior lighting and being of a temporary nature, the structure was perhaps the greatest exhibit of all. Inside, exhibits included the Koh-I-Noor diamond, the Trophy Telescope, the first voting machine, and the prototype for the 1851 Colt Navy. Over the course of the next six months, over six million people would visit the exhibition, including the likes of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Queen Victoria on 33 occasions.
The Victorians were longtermists, and thus understood that influencing the long-term future was essential to maintaining a strong and capable society. Indeed, many civilisations of the past were longtermist, and they understood the importance of building not only for functionality but for its wider contribution to culture. The Great Exhibition was such an example, proving wildly popular not only for its technological vigour, but for its cultural significance. Considering the success of the Great Exhibition and the exhibitions that preceded and proceeded it, I care to ask why we haven’t hosted such an exhibition in recent history.
If a new Great Exhibition is to succeed, it really needs to capture the spirit of 1851. This cannot be used as a soulless quest for more tourism. It needs to be genuinely meaningful, productive, and awe-inspiring. Recent attempts to plan and host such an event, namely being the Festival of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, probably passed by without many of us knowing of its existence, let alone care. These events are terribly unproductive, and undoubtedly lead to a greater financial input than the value received. A genuine event of real value needs to break boundaries.
What would a modern-day exhibition look like? It should be noted that the structure used in 1851 was itself ‘modern’ and ‘different’ by 19th century standards. The point here is to create and innovate. To create something new, even if to be inspired by the past. Perhaps, this would serve an opportunity for architects to search for new architectural design, one to move us past the heavily criticised architecture of recent times. Whatever it is, it needs to be magnificent and grand. The Great Exhibition showed us that technological advancement does not have to be clouded in grey.
Moreover, the exhibits should be genuinely innovative and valuable. In 2013, Peter Theil famously said that “we wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” Technological innovation has been narrowing towards internet-based services, whether that be social media or management software, and has left us in a ‘great stagnation’. There is huge opportunity to innovate outside of this and break the frontiers of technology, particularly as the United Kingdom begins to pivot towards a tech-based economy. We can be the first to lead the revolutions in medicine, transport, manufacturing, and energy.
In 1850, Prince Albert said: “The exhibition of 1851 is to give us a true test and a living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived in this great task, and a new starting point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions.”
This speaks greatly of the attitude needed today, and hopefully the attitude a new Great Exhibition can birth. We need to once again strive to break the frontiers of industry and technology, and to understand its importance to long-term civilisational thinking. Only by innovating can the United Kingdom hope to regather its former power.
Ultimately, this is about developing and refining a culture, just as Prince Albert pursued his vision of Victorian industrialism. What is our vision? Who do we seek to be? Much has been said of the United Kingdom’s lack of identity and purpose, but the answers need to stretch further than basic policy reforms. Groundbreaking change is needed to sway the current direction of the country, to alter its path. Given it is planned correctly, a new Great Exhibition can do just that.
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Little Dark Age and Murdering the Author
Roland Barthes’ essay Death of the Author is required reading for many students who wish to study the humanities, such as English Literature. The general thesis of the essay is that narrative intent from the author cannot be discovered as it is impossible to know what the author’s thoughts were at the time of writing. Thus, Death of the Author can be understood to mean “art without the artist” – by the reader is the only true reading. The authority of the author, and therefore the author himself, perishes.
It is an interesting and incredibly influential essay that has played a large part in the development of critical theory over the course of the 20th century. Using this as a basis, it is my belief that we can take the theory further.
Rather than experience the art in a passive way, accepting what the author produces as is, and making our own interpretations from that point, I propose that we instead take an active participation in taking art from the artist and use it to our own ends. This is much easier to do thanks to the internet, and the emergence of meme culture.
It is from meme culture that murdering the author rises. 2016 can be seen as the black swan moment for this with the election of Donald Trump and the reignition of right-wing populism. In this moment, a new breed of meme was born, and it is one of these memes that I think best exemplifies how effective murdering the author can be.
In 2017 MGMT released their song “Little Dark Age”, a protest song lamenting the election of Trump. As the title suggests, the zeitgeist as the artist saw it was regressing back into a period of ignorance, ultimately taking the past 70 years of Progress with it. As recent as 2021 however, the meme remixes of this song have become increasingly popular. The song is used as a backdrop over footage designed to ignite reactionary pride – praise of Christianity and the heroic spirit are commonplace within this. My personal favourites are the ones that glorify the British Empire.
The popularity of the meme is an example of the remix culture unique to the internet, an issue with 21st century creations in general. 21st century art is stunted, and we can only find creative outlets in what has come before. This is a problem with all art and culture in the West, but has been commented on before so I will not belabour the point, except to say that our obsession with nostalgia seems to have left us bereft of creating our own cultural milieu and we are forced to stand blindly on the shoulders of giants.
We are indeed in a little dark age, and MGMT clearly felt that. It just isn’t the dark age they think it is. For a generation of people brought up in countries whose hour of greatness was over, and on whom all the world’s ills could be blamed, it is little surprise that a song like Little Dark Age could be used in the way it did. With lyrics like “Forgiving who you are for what you stand to gain/Just know that if you hide it doesn’t go away”, the song seems to be calling out to those who are trodden on by the current regime, such as political dissidents, delivering the Evolian message of riding the tiger. In the remix culture that epitomises internet trends, this is an example of destroying the meaning of a talented, well intended but misinformed artist and rewiring it for a different purpose.
No matter how MGMT feels about the current political and cultural climate, the fact remains that Little Dark Age is reactionary. It speaks of cultural degradation, inauthenticity – the sense of something being lost. MGMT have put their finger on the pulse, and their diagnosis seems apt – but the wrong patient has died.
Their anger is correct but misdirected, which is why we on the right see the song as something to be hijacked. We are not witnessing the death of the author here – instead, we are the author’s murderers. We are Lenin storming the Tsar’s palace in 1917. We take what is theirs and subvert it to our own ends.
The fact is that reactionary media, be it music, film, literature or television, is entirely hegemonic to the left’s favour. Reactionary discourse is repeatedly shut out of the Overton window, which is panned by boomeresque false idols on one side and comical Marxist villains on the other. In order to make a point, we must use the tools of the enemy. We must be the Vietcong stealing M16s from a US military base. We take from the author what is theirs, deconstruct their arms and create something entirely new using the skeleton of their works.
We are the murderers of the author and this is our strongest weapon.
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The First Year of Joe Biden | Sarah Stook
At just past 12PM on Wednesday, the 20th January 2021, Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th US President.
It’s been a year since Biden became President. A lot has happened to put it lightly. The COVID pandemic saw no signs of slowing down. Afghanistan fell back in the hands of the Taliban. Prices shot up. Legislation stumbled through Congress. It’s not been an easy ride for America’s oldest President.
What’s Year One been like for Biden?
● COVID Testing & Mandates
With 50 states, the United States was never going to have a streamlined response to the virus. When campaigning for the presidency, Biden criticised Trump’s blasé attitude to the pandemic and promised to be more serious about it.
Biden has taken a federal government approach to COVID or as much as he can in a decentralised system. The government has mandated masks on federal property and pushed for mandatory vaccines in as many areas as he can. Unfortunately for Biden, there has been pushback in several states on mandatory masking and vaccines.
Vaccines have been rolled out with relative success within the USA, though there has been a significant number of people who refuse the jab. Certain minority groups are concerned about the vaccine. Others are concerned about a vaccine that was introduced relatively quickly. Mandates are extremely controversial and it is yet to be seen if this strategy will work for Biden.
There has also been a huge problem with testing. Widespread, free testing at home has generally been unavailable in the US. It was only recently announced that rapid testing would be available to order from home, but these tests would take 7-12 days to ship. Yeah, people could have had it by then. This follows a u-turn after widely criticised comments from Jen Psaki, Biden’s Press Secretary. She said:
‘Should we just send one to every American? Then what happens if every American has one test? How much does that cost and what happens after that?’
Not the greatest idea.
● COVID Economics
Passing legislation has not been easy for Biden and many, mainly Democrats, have blamed two figures. They are Democratic Senators Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona) and Joe Manchin (West Virginia). Seen as conservative Democrats, the pair represent states that are usually red on a federal level. They dug their heels in when legislation got a little too spendthrift, mainly when it came to a raised minimum wage.
The full scope of the economic plan that was passed can be found here. Biden also passed executive orders on deferral of student loans and the extension of a memo on foreclosures and evictions.
Stimulus cheques are included in the aforementioned plan. The ceiling for these cheques is a yearly earning of $100K. Not everybody received these and they have also apparently stopped. A petition for $2K a month stimulus cheques has crossed three million signatures.
● Non-COVID Economics
Biden has pushed towards left-wing economic policies. Some, like raising the minimum wage, have been put on the back burner in order to get other legislation passed.
Biden’s main economic legislation is the Build Back Better Act. Costing roughly $2.2 trillion, the bill includes money for climate change provisions, housing and Medicaid among others. It passed the Democratic-held House of Representatives with ease. Unfortunately, it’s in limbo in the Senate due to Joe Manchin. He has concerns about the bill and political climate. At the time of writing, discussions are undergoing.
Other economic plans have included the explanation of the welfare state, reducing unemployment and expanding help for parents and educators.
● Energy and the Environment
The Keystone XL Pipeline, an oil pipeline that travels through Canada and America, is controversial. Environmentalists oppose it, as do the Native Americans whose land it goes through. Barack Obama temporarily delayed it, Donald Trump continued the permit and finally, Biden revoked it. Many Dems generally approve of this, while Republicans and others worry that it robs Americans of their energy independence.
Planned legislation would spend $555 billion on combating climate change, a larger sum than what has been given to other issues.
Biden has also signed a number of environmental executive orders, including having the USA rejoin the Paris Agreement. He attended the COP26 summit in Glasgow, though he did seem to nod off a bit.
Other proposals include limiting leases for oil and gas on federal land and expanding offshore wind energy.
● Education and Childcare
The American Families Plan plans to boost child tax credits, make Pre-K free for all and make community college universal among other things. As this was part of the Build Back Better plan, it is yet to pass.
One campaign pledge was the forgiveness of student loan debt, something that many young Democrats pinned their hopes on. As it stands, this pledge has barely been delivered. Some have received student loan forgiveness, but not all are eligible.
A notable issue that has come up is that of CRT- Critical Race Theory. Simply put, it is a theory that presents history, law and other social areas through the lens of race. Proponents argue that it’s a legitimate theory, that racial history needs to be taught and that America’s systems are embedded with racism- either intentionally or not. Critics argue that it’s racist towards white and is indoctrinating young people.
Controversial in schools, it was something used in the Virginia Gubernatorial election. Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe was winning what should have been an easy race until he disparaged parents deciding what their children should be taught. Republican Glenn Youngkin ran with that and along with a good campaign, he won a race that should have been blue.
This is of course not necessarily Biden’s fault, it is symptomatic of his administration. Yes, the opposition party usually does better during midterms, but Virginia should have been blue. Even New Jersey came close to going Republican- perhaps if the GOP had put the effort in, they’d have taken it.
● Immigration
Quite easily Trump’s most criticised area- and that’s saying something- immigration is of huge importance to many Americans.
Biden immediately undid many of Trump’s policies- the ‘Muslim’ ban and building the wall being two of the first to go. Unfortunately, there was also the issue of unaccompanied minors. Upon hearing news that they would not be turned away, more children came across the border. Trump was criticised for ‘kids in cages,’ but Biden had even more children in detention centres.
There are also plans to soften immigration policy by offering a path to citizenship for illegals and making it easier for those who came to America as children to stay. Biden is yet to see those proposals come to any fruition.
Unfortunately for Biden, there were more bad optics in the form of a bridge in Texas. Around 15,000 migrants, mainly Haitians, crowded under a bridge in the city of Del Rio. Concerns were raised about conditions and the risk of COVID. Both sides were worried for different reasons. Eventually, the bridge was cleared.
Biden seems to want to push for a new immigration policy, but the makeup of the Senate means he most likely won’t get anything through. Democrats from border states also need to toe the line.
● Afghanistan
Oh boy.
The US government had signed an agreement in 2020 that would see their troops pull out of Afghanistan. As that date approached, the Taliban started gaining new ground. It was expected that they would possibly have Afghanistan by the end of 2020, but it came much quicker than most people thought. As they approached Kabul, experts said that it would last for a few more months. The capital soon fell.
Government leaders fled and the Taliban immediately took over. The only place of exit was Kabul Airport. Foreign countries, including the US, were allowed to evacuate personnel.
The scenes, however, were shocking. Desperate Afghans fell to their deaths from high altitude, having held onto the planes as they flew into the air. Families stood in the baking heat in hopes of being allowed out. Parents attempted to pass their children onto servicemen in a last ditch attempt to get them out.
It soon transpired that Americans had given the Taliban a list of all those who were to be allowed into the airport. This, of course, wasn’t a great move, as the Taliban now knew of those who had assisted the West. Many of those who should have been evacuated weren’t.
Then a suicide bomb exploded in the crowd. Among the dead were thirteen American soldiers, many of whom weren’t even old enough to drink.
This widely dented Biden’s popularity on all fronts. Months later and the Taliban still have their tyrannical grip on the country. Many question what was the point of the two decades of occupation that led to Afghanistan metaphorically turning back the clock.
● China and Russia
Biden has continued the policy of sanctions and boycotts towards China. He has encouraged a boycott of the Beijing Olympics and has criticised China’s human rights violations. Despite talks with Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, there has not been much leeway. Some imports are still banned and sanctions have come from both sides.
Unfortunately, Biden’s son Hunter seems to have some dealings with the Chinese. There have been investigations into this but they are yet to come up with anything close to criminal convictions.
Russia has proven a complication once again. They’ve started circling Ukraine. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is about to start talks with his Russian counterparts but we do not know how this will go. The US has also been the subject of a number of attacks by Russian hackers. It is possible that Russian aggression will lead to the Americans
Approval Ratings
Joe Biden’s approval rating for his first year is 48.9%. This is the second-lowest since records began, only edging out Trump. As of writing, Biden is on a pretty measly 42%. His lowest so far was 36% in November. His current disapproval rating is 52.3%.
He’s broken 50% at least, something Trump himself struggled to do. Still, it’s clear Biden isn’t doing super well in his first year. Most worryingly for him, approval among Democrats is going down.
Relationship with Kamala Harris
Let’s put it bluntly. The VP isn’t super important. It sounds harsh, but they don’t really have any constitutional power besides overseeing the Senate. In modern times, they serve to balance the ticket, be it geographically, ideologically or something else.
Very few Presidents and Vice Presidents have actually been friends. In living memory, you can only really count Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.
Biden and Harris may put on a front of friendship, but they’re likely more just colleagues. She has mainly been dispatched to greet foreign dignitaries- a job the president should really do- and handling the border.
Unfortunately, Harris has even worse approvals than Biden. Her all time low was 28% in November and her first year approvals were only 32%. They are certainly not ideological soulmates and do not seem to work very closely together. Harris was picked to be VP as Biden promised to have a woman on the ticket- and being an ethnic minority helped too. He has pledged that she will be his ticket mate in 2024.
What’s Next?
Well, COVID is still a thing for a start. Biden needs to ensure a downturn in cases, though we must admit that’s not really in his control.
With prices rising, especially fuel costs, people are getting angry about the cost of living. That is an essential area that Biden needs to address. Nearly every voter will see this directly. Employment also needs to go up and inflation down.
There are more than a few people who think Biden will get another term, whether he chooses not to or will lose to the Republican ticket. There could be a rematch with Trump in 2024. It could be Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or somebody else entirely.
How would you rank Biden’s first year in office?
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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.
