tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post1994041247516240349..comments2024-03-07T12:48:21.070+00:00Comments on MAGONIA REVIEW: 25 YEARS AGO: MAGONIA 35Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-33198134519563024912015-02-23T07:03:44.205+00:002015-02-23T07:03:44.205+00:00Otto, actually the crew at Magonia, Rogerson, Rimm...Otto, actually the crew at Magonia, Rogerson, Rimmer and whoever else, have gone to considerable effort to transfer and scan old Magonia print issues, and BUFORA related stuff, to the web. At no financial benefit to themselves, and for a limited audience. The '20/25 Years ago' thing is to bring to the attention of Magonia readers, linked articles on ufology related matters, written by some of the most knowledgeable people in the field, made available online. You ought to be grateful. <br /><br />If Magonia is shining some light in the dark fog and dumbed down circus of ufology, you ought to be appreciative, and not rant and blame them for not doing enough to change the state of affairs, which is actually ridiculous. It would be like blaming the more small budget serious 'independent' film directors in the States and elsewhere for the fact that garbage B grade palaver sells at the box office, and for not doing enough to change the tastes of tens of millions of adolescents and twenty-something audiences across the Western world. It would be akin to blaming small selling but award winning and highly regarded writers, for the fact that book publishers churn out and the adult public lap up dross like '50 Shades of Gray' and the Harry Potter books. Just plain shoot the messenger.Lawrencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04531198239870181089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-73749697507117206352015-02-21T10:00:25.593+00:002015-02-21T10:00:25.593+00:00@Otto
> if your worldview truly mattered, you ...@Otto<br />> if your worldview truly mattered, you would surely be doing your best to inspire a new generation to carry the torch.<br /><br />That's exactly what they're doing. I am inspired.<br /><br />Conversely, thanks for nothing, Otto.Terry the Censorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07442516952399215568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-61001251152180560922015-02-20T20:46:51.145+00:002015-02-20T20:46:51.145+00:00All of this is true, but unhelpful. Yes, ufology h...All of this is true, but unhelpful. Yes, ufology has become a joke religion that puts the Subgenius Foundation to shame, and is vastly funnier (though admittedly that isn't much of an achievement). But what, exactly, are you doing about it?<br /><br />The day of the self-published print 'zine is long gone, so it's understandable that Magonia no longer exists as a thing that will drop through one's letterbox at quarterly intervals, and nobody expects you to go on producing a journal in a form that's not remotely cost-effective in addition to being obsolete; you might as well try to sell music on mail-order cassettes. Instead, you've got a blog which concentrates almost entirely on book reviews (nobody's grudging you the free books to add to your library, but it's all a bit passive), plus the odd bit of nostalgia of the "ee, when I were a young lad this were all fields" variety.<br /><br />Well, that's fine if the intellectual, philosophical and psychosocial standpoint you used to care about is just a fad which became outmoded, and you're now in the sad position of pensioners turning down your hearing-aids every time that terrible rap "music" starts playing in your local, instead of proper music like (tick the appropriate box for your age-group). Alas, however regrettable this may be, you can't expect today's youngsters to get all excited and start looking on ebay for washboards and tea-chests because skiffle is awesome.<br /><br />But if your worldview truly mattered, you would surely be doing your best to inspire a new generation to carry the torch. Instead, you've got a tired website consisting of book reviews, the ancient history of a dead UFO club, and plaintive wimbling about the way a topic which almost nobody really, truly believes in the way they believe in gravity or World War 2 or Australia has changed for the worse and gone all commercial. As social trends do.<br /><br />You know what you should do? Relaunch Magonia, not as a print journal, but as a website far more interesting and dynamic than this one. You might have to get some new people involved, probably people younger than the remaining Magonians, if only to end up with a well-designed site, but there's nothing stopping you from applying the same standards of quality to everything that appears on it as you did when you worked in non-electronic media.<br /><br />Seriously, Magonians, in the (incredibly unlikely) event that this website is still active in 2040, do you want to be publishing articles such as: "25 years ago we published an article about how ufology was better 25 years ago, even though it was even then a lot worse than it had been 25 years before that. Well, guess what - 25 years later, it's even worse. Please, somebody, switch off my life-support machine?"<br /><br />Stop whining about how it ought to be done the way you did it in The Good Old Days. Show, don't tell! Or if you truly can't muster the energy any more for age-related reasons, find people who can. If you can't do that, maybe you were always wrong, but if you have the courage of your convictions, at least you should try. And if you can't even be bothered to try, then there's no point to it at all and there never was.<br /><br />Harsh words, I know, but I'm sure you've heard infinitely worse from people who think you don't believe in space-aliens enough, don't disbelieve in them enough, believe in the wrong kind of space-aliens, etc. etc. etc. Please consider this not an insult but a challenge. I will be genuinely delighted if you rise to it by proving me wrong. And slightly saddened though not the least bit surprised if you don't.Count Otto Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13915670684585417091noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1485997200234349788.post-65140977393373498482015-02-14T07:05:13.925+00:002015-02-14T07:05:13.925+00:00How true that ufology has "regressed spectacu...How true that ufology has "regressed spectacularly in the interim", a lot like much else. Who could have imagined it circa 1990, ever getting worse? The ET nuts and bolts crew have degenerated into out-and-out parody, and beyond. However establishment science, and I include the social sciences in particular, must share a big part of the blame for the circus of ever increasingly dumbed down ufology. Academics, scientists and the relevant journals (including those pertaining to inter-disciplinary studies) wouldn't - as a rule - go near the topic, even though the psychological-sociological aspects to ufology are important to an understanding of contemporary culture, society, religion and ethnology/sociocultural anthropology. Even though the groundbreaking work of cognitive dissonance theory, one of the landmark advances in psychology in the last half of the twentieth century, is rooted in Leon Festinger's study of a UFO cult. <br /><br />Razzmatazz, hucksterism and entertainment, which is what sells, filled the void. And what sells comes to the foreground. The void was left by academics, cultural commentators and scientists across multiple disciplines, running as fast as they could, away from ufology, to safer and more conventional fields of study. It is their loss. In hindsight though, with our 20/20 retrospect vision, there is a terrible predictability to all of this. And I do mean all of it.<br /><br /><br />Lawrencehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04531198239870181089noreply@blogger.com