Budd Hopkins
Budd Hopkins
The dictionary defines a bigot as a person
"utterly intolerant of any creed, belief or opinion that differs from
his own." Prejudice is defined as "an unfavorable opinion or feeling
formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought or reason." The
literal meaning of "prejudice" is "pre-judgement," making up one's
mind in advance, irrationally, with no specific supporting
evidence.
A handful of coarse examples will help illustrate this primitive and
destructive way of thinking:
A Ku Klux Klansman can pass an African-American he's never met and
know that that person of color has an inferior brain.
Many a right-wing Protestant fundamentalist can encounter an
anonymous Roman catholic and know that that catholic's religious
practices are not only unchristian but also morally and spiritually
inferior to his own.
An anti-semite can glance at a Jew he's never met and know that that
individual is a corrupt, money-grubbing Shylock.
Certain science-fundamentalists have only to hear about someone who
has reported a UFO abduction exzperience to know that that individual
is either a liar seeking publicity or is in some way psychologically
impaired.
In each of these cases a bigot has irrationally pre-judged a total
stranger - a fellow human being - on the basis of no evidence
whatsoever. To avoid the taint of bigotry and smug, irrational
prejudice, one would have to admit that:
The African-American whom the bigot had never met may or may not be
intellectually inferior. He may, in fact, be far more intelligent
than the bigot himself. The Roman catholic may or may not be
spiritually and ethically more "Christian" than the Protestant
fundamentalist. The Jew may or may not be corrupt; he may be far more
altruistic than the one who condemns him.
And finally the individual reporting the UFO abduction experience may
not only be intelligent and psychologically sound but may also be
telling the truth, in which case the proper attitude towards him
should be one of sympathy and understanding.
With regard to these four hypothetical individuals, one should never
make such destructive negative judgements about any of them unless
one were acquainted with them personally and had extensive, reliable
information to buttress such judgements. Anyone issuing any of the
damning opinions I've described above without having first gathered
persuasive and highly specific supporting evidence is a bigot, pure
and simple.
I raise this issue because of a recent personal experience. In late
September I participated in a TV program with a number of young
people who believed they had had UFO abduction experiences. They were
all strangers to me and to one another. I was able to talk briefly
with two of them - a boy and a girl - before we went on the air; both
seemed genuinely frightened by their experiences and reluctant even
to be appearing on TV. They were there because of pressure from their
mothers and friends, the theme of the program being something about
"mothers who think their children are crazy because they believe
they've been abducted by UFOs."
Also appearing on this misbegotten TV show was a man named Joe
Nickel, a member of CSICOP and a journalist with the Skeptical
Inquirer. His behavior presented a chilling textbook demonstration of
bigotry in action. Like a racist attacking the mental abilities of
African Americans, or an ill-educated religious fundamentalist
blindly railing against evolution, he asserted that UFOs do not exist
and that therefore these young people's experiences were fictional.
Though he'd never met or spoken to any of them, he exhibited
absolutely no curiosity about their experiences, nor any doubt that
he nevertheless knew the truth: all were either lying or suffering
from some kind of psychological impairment.
For my part, I had no way to know without further investigation how
valid any of their accounts might be. By comparison with the
self-proclaimed wisdom of the bigoted Mr. Nickel, I was handicapped;
I needed more information before I could venture even a tentative
conclusion about the truth of their statements.
When the program ended and we all filed off the set, Mr. Nickel began
literally bellowing to the assembled young people: Don't believe!
Don't believe! There are no such things as UFO abductions! UFO
abductions don't exist!"
Properly rephrased, his message was: "Believe as I do! I know UFO
abductions cannot exist!" Behaving like a street-corner evangelist or
a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, Mr. Nickel knew the falsity of
each child's account, though he had absolutely no objective
information about any of them and had asked not one single question.
For this kind of CSICOP true believer, no investigation is ever
necessary. In the mind of Joe Nickel, science - the search for truth
- has been replaced by religious certainty.
But there is another lesson here for anyone involved in UFO research.
We must, ourselves, avoid any hint of bigotry in our dealings with
people holding different opinions from our own. If a skeptic states
that so far, he or she has not seen enough evidence to accept the
reality of UFOs or UFO abductions - that is a fair, reasonable,
non-bigoted position to hold and we must respect it. The wording of
that statement avoids any personally damaging explanation for UFO
abduction reports, and eschews any theory which attacks the honesty,
the intelligence or the mental acuity of people the skeptic has never
met and of whom he knows virtually nothing. Bigotry occurs when one
steps across that line and makes exactly those unsupported
accusations. At that point a UFO skeptic is as guilty of mindless
bigotry as the racist who instinctively demeans the intelligence and
mental acuity of anonymous African-Americans.
I remain hopeful that, along with the racist in my example, Mr.
Nickel might eventually come to recognize the damaging and irrational
nature of his behavior. I look forward to the day when he abandons
the murk of bigotry and quasi-religious dogma and chooses, instead,
the clarity of open-minded, scientific curiosity.
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