David L. Ulin's recent book "The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes,
Prediction and the Fault Line between Reason and Faith" is an
interesting example of the discussion of where myth and narrative meet
hard science. In the US, geologists became very interested in the
possibility of earthquake prediction in the 1960's and 70's, but all of
the science fell short. He addresses much of the territory discussed
in this thread on the list, exploring people's need to have something
to hold onto other than randomness and addresses an area of
"geopoetics" in the reportage and people's memory surrounding a major
earthquake.
While not Nazis, earthquake territory is by turns interesting and scary
because it does require different truth statements than one would ask
when seeking a pure truth. "This type of thinking have value to this
person: true." To convince a person of looking at something a
different way one must ask different types of questions. How or why
does the belief system seemingly support the person? What fallacies
underly the belief system? Will addressing the fallacy change the
person's opinion? Does the person both see the fallacy and choose to
ignore it (lots of people compare birth signs than believe in
astrology)? Is the belief harmful or innocuous?
I like Raymond Williams' essays on cultural studies because he
addresses various levels of cultural information, some very close to
logical "truths" and others far from it, but all valid as a subject for
research. I think Ulin has made the best of this sort of examination
of truth, myth and our need to construct narratives.
Best,
Alan
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