“That was Father Bob with our early-morning Sermonette. Here with a Rebuttal is Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness…”
(I think this may have been a Charles Addams or a Gahan Wilson cartoon.)
I think you’re putting a finer point on it than I intended with the OP . . .
Whoa, I’m not talking about banning anything, or abridging anyone’s freedom of speech. The media gives the people what they want–as it should be; anything else would be fascism. What I’m asking is what we, as skeptics, we should demand of the media. I recognize, of course, that skeptics are a pretty small minority, but do we have an obligation to oppose, say, the X-Files? Personally, I find it very enjoyable to watch–but should I forswear this program, even speak out against it, because it has a tendency to reinforce belief in the paranormal amongst the unskeptical?
As luck would have it, just as I was reading this thread, I was also going thru some e-mail sent in with news for the Skeptic News site. One of those items is about a Hong Kong movie that has cut a ghost scene in a train because of fears it would scare commuters away from taking trains.
Make of that what you will.
Anyway, my thoughts on the matter are that some skeptics overreact to some media portrayals. When some came out and complained about “the force” in Star Wars: Episode I, I thought that had gone too far (indeed, I did a parody review of Muppets from Space under an assumed name for the Inquiring Skeptics of Upper New York – you can find it in their back issues by scrolling down to the article entitled, “Muppets Teach Children Irrational Belief”).
Now, don’t get me wrong – I think that the promotion of paranormal beliefs in certain situations – even fictional – does encourage people to believe. For example, I was reading a fairly popular fictional mystery series. In one book, the main character, an intelligent and scientific person, ends up consulting with a psychic detective. Her FBI cohort says that the FBI has used that psychic before. The psychic ends up giving some decent predictions, but is never really made a part of the story that matters. In other words, the story would have been just fine (better, IMO), without the psychic. So why put her in there? Especially in a series that is well-liked in large part because of real criminological information they contain? You know that people are going to read this and think, “Hmmm. This author knows what she’s talking about. I wonder if there’s any truth to this.”
I also am not personally fond of The X-Files. This dates back to its premiere, when it claimed to be based on real cases. They stopped that after the first episode, but it left a bad taste in my mouth.
All in all, I don’t mind obvious science fiction stories in the far future, or fantasy that never happened (dragons and wizards) into that genre, but I do mind it when they stick paranormal crap into modern-day books, shows, and movies.
Well, look at the millions of books, movies, plays and teevee shows in which the hero or heroine meets that One Perfect Person, falls in love, gets married and lives happily ever after, all their problems solved and starry-eyed with bliss.
THIS almost never happens in real life either, but lots of people have been dangerously misled to believe it can and will happen to them . . . A lot more dangerous than John Edward, if you ask me (and speaking of him, my grandma always told me, “never trust anyone with two first names”).
Like James Randi? 
quote:
Originally posted by Eve
(. . .my grandma always told me, “never trust anyone with two first names”).
Like James Randi?
Actually, “James Randi” is a stage name. His real name (as you can tell from the appendices to his book The Truth About Uri Geller is “Randall Zwinge”.
I used to frequent a StarTrek BB a while back. In a 2nd season Voyager episode, the crew came upon a delta-quadrant planet of humans that had overcome their alien abductors from the 20th century and thrived into a teeming society of millions with advanced cities. In the epsiode, they revive, of all people, Amelia Earhart.
On the BB, a girl actually asked, truthfully, if anyone thought that the aliens would return her (since it was still the 20th century). And this episode aired a few months after Amelia’s remains, wreckage and logs had been discovered on a South Pacific island.
I am of the opinion that only through enlightened education can critical thinking overcome this bold-faced belief in anything fanciful.
The only real threat, IMHO, is that the unfortunate dumbing-down of the uneducated masses might be problematic to our evolution as a species. Aw hell, I’d rather not evolve with them anyway.
I wonder about this question at times. I’m a thoroughly skeptical, agnostic unbeliever type person. I also write fantasy, horror, and science fiction (no publications yet, but I’m still in there pitching). I joined a writer’s group a couple years ago. The first story I submitted was about vampires. I was surprised when one of the other members told me, in somewhat gushing tones, “I BELIEVE!” Kind of freaky when you find someone taking the products of your imagination as truth.
That said, I must point out that this reaction was unique in my experience. Nobody else I know who reads F/H/SF with any regularity takes it seriously. Including myself, as I was a reader long before I was a writer. And yet I never seemed to have any trouble distinguishing between the world I lived in, where ghosts and psychics and such don’t exist, and the fictional worlds I was reading about, where they do. With that one exception, I have never encountered anybody else who had any such trouble either.
All fiction, to some extent, takes place in worlds different than our own. “Friends” takes place in a universe where waitresses and struggling actors can afford large Manhattan apartments. “Law and Order” takes place in a universe where all cases investigated by a particular set of detectives are invariably assigned to the same prosecutor. “X-Files” takes place in a universe where beings from another planet have regularly visited earth. This last one may seem like a greater logical leap, but I believe the difference to be one of degree, not of kind.
I don’t imagine David B would care for my stories all that much, as I do stick “paranormal crap” into modern-day settings. To me, that’s sort of the point. The tension between those two worlds–our own world where such things can’t happen, and the fantasy world where they do–is exactly what I’m interested in exploring. Nearly all horror stories, and a great many science fiction stories, operate on this tension. Some of the most basic texts of science fiction, from Verne and Wells forward, were set in a period contemporary with their composition. To me, at least, that’s so much more interesting than the far future or an undefined fantasy past.
Why do I write about things I don’t believe in? I have no idea. But that’s what I’ve always been interested in. Those are the kind of books I enjoy reading. Those are the kind of movies and TV I enjoy watching. And when I sit down to write, those are the kind of plots that occur to me. There’s always a risk that some people will take them too seriously, I suppose. But the key to that, as Wrath says, is education. Somehow, we have to help people make the distinctions I spoke of above, between the real and the fantastic.
Sort of relevant to MrAtoz’s post, Mercedes Lackey has a novel series out about Diana Tregarde, a pagan detective, which is of the “modern-day-paranormal” genre. It has secret societies and pagan rituals and such, set in the real world.
She had to discontinue writing the series and go into personal and family defense mode because some whackos were making a lifestyle out of the books. Claiming that they actually belonged to the secret societies Lackey had made up, sending death threats for “revealing secrets”…it made a total chaos out of their lives. Lackey stopped writing the series and aired her frustrations out on her website. The link is to that rant/explanation and puts events much more clearly than I have above.
There are going to be crazies in every crowd, every genre. Wishing that all paranormal fiction had a disclaimer that “this is fiction and not real life” is an interesting if futile idea. If they can’t figure that out now, they’re not going to listen to a sticker/screen/narration/whatever.
jayjay
“Mr. Atoz? Just how many of you are there?”
Ironically, that’s a quote from Star Trek. I love Star Trek. It’s great fun (except Voyager, no hijacking please). Did I mention that I am a professional astronomer and know that about 95% of all Star Trek physics is self-contradictory? I still enjoy the show.
I agree with Podkayne up to a point. Fiction is fiction, and for some reason it’s fun. I prefer fiction when it is at least based on some sort of reality, and as a bottom line it must be self-consistent (why aren’t transporters used to reverse aging? That’s the kind of thing in Trek I find irritating). Larry Niven does a fair job of self-consistency while using outrageous physics, for example.
But paranormal? I must admit I do like those kinds of things. For better or worse, we live in a place where the X-Files can be aired as well as van Praagh and John Edward, both of whom are of course frauds. It may be a cliche, but the price of freedom truly is vigilance. I actually consider it a personal task to help people separate fact from fiction. Sometimes it’s quite an onus, but usually it’s fun. I wish more people would do it.
Regarding “Mr. Atoz”:
Do you know that it was years before I realized that “Mr. Atoz” was really “Mr. A to Z”
Duhhhh.
Oh, something should be said, but it should (possibly) change peoples’ minds. If that doesn’t prove practical, then stopping the misinformation at the source seems like the only other solution. Which would be a freedom of speech issue.
Funny, I just went to dinner with an ex-coworker who avidly believes in Area 51, but can’t understand how anybody intelligent is religious. I think the idea that Area 51 is hiding UFOs/aliens is obvious and utter nonsense, and much religion makes fine sense. So where should the skeptics start?
It took me awhile, too. Perfect name for a librarian, though, which is what I am. I was just glad nobody else had snatched it up as a screen name.
I think fictional works showing paranormal stuff is just fine. The only problem, of course, being the people who believe the obvious fiction for truth.
Myself, I believe there’s plenty that the human race doesn’t understand yet, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if there -were- some “really wierd things” in the universe (In fact, I’m sure there are). But at the same time, I don’t believe for a moment that shows like the X-Files are portraying reality through that. 99.999(etc)% of the stuff on TV is complete bull, I’d say, though perhaps with a little bit of truth mingled in there to make it seem more reasonable (Such as real-world events or traditions).
Basicly, I think it’s good for a story, but you (That is, easily-believing people) shouldn’t read too much into it 
MrAtoz said:
Well…
I have a quote from the late Isaac Asimov that I occasionally use as an e-mail sig. Alas, I can’t recall where I got it from, but here it is:
“I never imagined people would believe that crap.”
– Isaac Asimov, discussing his science fiction,
which sometimes included things like ESP
So the reaction of that person is apparently not quite as unique as you thought…
David B said:
Of course not. Note that I said, “unique in my experience.” That is, it was the only time I have personally encountered that reaction. Granted, I’ve never been published, so I’m not that widely read. If and when I become better known, I don’t doubt that I may encounter it more frequently. I should note for clarity, by the way, that I don’t think my story caused this woman to believe in the paranormal. She believed it already, and was pleased to find someone else who (she assumed) believed likewise.
I have no proof, but I still think reactions like that are the minority. This is based purely on the number of SF/Fantasy fans I have interacted with. Only a very few of them seem to be “true believers.” Most of them are just ordinary people who enjoy a good imaginative story. I could be dead wrong in this assessment, but I hope not.
And when I say “I’m not that widely read,” I mean of course, “my writing is not that widely read.” I, on the other hand, am as erudite as they come.
MrAtoz said:
Oh, I agree. And, like you, I don’t think science fiction stories cause people to believe this stuff.
However, as I noted in my earlier post, I do think people can have their beliefs reinforced by certain uses of the paranormal in stories, such as the detective novel I mentioned.
OK sureshot, explain me