“UFOs, Secrets and Government Cover-ups: Why a 1977 Spielberg Film is Being Revisited
Steven Spielberg’s new film brings UFOs, cover-up theories and questions about what governments know back to the fore.”
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The debate on authority cannot be reduced either to its demonization or to its unconditional acceptance. Likewise, the masses are not inherently virtuous nor naturally endowed with collective wisdom. History teaches that both rulers and crowds have been creators as well as destroyers of civilizations. The pursuit of truth requires constant questioning, critical thought, and commitment to reason—free from myths, dogmas, and comforting certainties.
There are certain widely accepted narratives to which we ourselves, perhaps unconsciously and against our better judgment, often succumb. Such narratives must be re-examined—and, where necessary, challenged—without hesitation. Otherwise, fiction, the manufacture of truths, conspiracy theories, and imagination become powerful adversaries of science and reason. History, in particular, is among the first disciplines to suffer such blows, especially since the “pen of Thucydides” has always been devoted to the search for and preservation of truth.
Authority is often one of the victims of the distortions described above. The tendency to attribute all the evils of the world to authority remains one of the most popular narratives of our time. The masses readily reproduce such simplistic myths, often as a means of concealing their own responsibilities, omissions, and weaknesses.
We have examined this issue many times before. Our perspective begins with the well-known biblical phrase: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” The reference to Caesar is not accidental. Caesar symbolizes authority itself—power, governance, and the state.
Authority is exactly what its name implies. The state, moreover, reveals its nature even through its linguistic roots in ancient Greek thought: it signifies power, domination, and enforcement. It does not hide behind the mask of the crowd. From the outset, one knows what one is dealing with. It presents itself openly and with an identity. One may either accept its nature or reject and oppose it, in theory or in practice.
No authority can exist without subjects. Some regard authority as necessary and willingly choose it; others tolerate it because they believe they have no alternative. Responsibility, therefore, for the conduct and historical trajectory of the state is shared. At the very least, it is distributed between those who represent and embody it and those who consider its existence indispensable for the preservation of order.
Others, however—those who either reject authority altogether or accept it only under the condition that it be a “state governed by law” (a concept which, in our view, contains an inherent contradiction)—often see themselves as hostages of authority and of those who support it.
If we attempt to investigate the truth between these competing positions and feel compelled to side with one or the other, we can only proceed through reasoned argument, negotiation, and above all through the tools of Logic and History.
Can order, security, and protection exist outside the framework of the state, organized society, and therefore authority and enforcement? The Enlightenment thinkers of France—and later most modern political systems influenced by their ideas—offered what they considered a solution through the famous concept of the “social contract.”
Yet such an agreement, particularly when presumed rather than consciously entered into by the individual, cannot derive legitimacy merely from the possibility that it might be beneficial. In reality, it often resembles a Procrustean bed: whatever exceeds the predetermined measure must be cut away to fit. Even Enlightenment thought, despite its achievements, did not deny the coercive and extractive dimensions of state power.
The explanation is simple because it is grounded in natural reason. As such, it can be understood by every mind, even the least sophisticated. The answer itself contains the explanation:
Would the victims of wars, bloodshed, and violence throughout history have been fewer or greater under organized societies structured as states and systems of authority, or within primary and voluntary communities of coexistence without institutionalized power?
Logic and History answer decisively: far fewer in the latter case. And they do so without hesitation.