However, I haven't posted any articles or diary entries intended for "Edges" until now, because I could feel tension building up between some of the regulars on that page and the people who manage Op Ed, so I decided to wear only my "radical futurist" hat for a while and wait to see what happened. At the moment, it looks like the tension has subsided after a few members and even a manager or two have resigned or been banned, and the purge didn't result in micro-management of the site, as so often happens in these cases. So I've decided to become active on "Edges", and to start by expressing some of my opinions on "the cutting edge versus the lunatic fringe" -- a struggle I've been directly involved in for over fifty years.
When I first started writing for the underground press as a teenager in the late Fifties, exactly the same political, social, and spiritual controversies were being debated there as are being debated here on Op Ed today, and the traditional linear dichotomy between "liberal" and "conservative" was already starting to break down, especially in areas involving conspiracy theories, alternative spiritual belief systems, and unexplained phenomena such as UFO's and psychic activities. It's quite natural for an outsider to label everyone who does serious study in any of these areas as either a charlatan, a fanatic, or a nut-case, but the view from inside is quite different. The majority of writers in all these fields have always fit this negative profile, but there has also always been a significant minority among them who are reasonably honest, rational, and sane. I've done my best to belong in the second category, no matter how radical and unpopular my opinions are at any given time, and I've actually faced more opposition from the "lunatic fringe" than I have from true political, social, and spiritual conservatives.
People on the "real" right generally respond to my writings with deafening silence, because they don't want to give me free publicity by arguing with me, giving my work bad reviews, or trying to censure me in any medium where "freedom of the press" is applicable under either law or custom. Most of the destructive opposition I've encountered over the years has come from other members of various "alternative" communities who are behaving dishonestly or irrationally, and most of my defenders in those communities don't actually agree with my opinions but are willing to compete with me in a constructive manner with constructive criticism and logical argument for other theories. And ironically enough, it's political, social, and spiritual "liberals" and "progressives" who arent even that interested in the cutting edge of radicalism in any field who continue to give me media access to the public, year after year and decade after decade, simply in the name of "freedom of speech and expression". This is especially true in the Internet medium, and the people who run Op Ed News are excellent examples of what I'm talking about.
Cutting edge people, on the other hand, are simply those of us who behave ethically and sanely to advance opinions on some issue that differ widely from "Society's Commonly Accepted Myth". (And yes, it can be proven that some of these myths are indeed what the acronym for that phrase implied -- a SCAM by a special interest group to filful its agenda.) If our opinions are faith-based, we say so, and we don't try to push them on others with fallacies like appeal to authority, like the religious believers who say, "People who disagree with me are going to Hell." If we claim that our opinions are based on scientific evidence and others claim it's pseudo-science, we simply "agree to disagree" rather than trying to "convert" them to our way of thinking or allowing them to pressure us into converting to theirs. We agree with political progressives that matters of ethics and morality are deterministic rather than absolute, meaning they are derived from the social environment and there are no "universal standards of right and wrong". And we also agree with them that matters of personal taste, both positive and negative, are even more subjective, and should be given as little emphasis as possible as we search for objective truth.
After reading the last two paragraphs, it should be obvious that it makes very little sense to talk about either the "cutting edge" or the "lunatic fringe" in ideological terms like "right" and "left" or in catagorical terms such as "political", "social", "economic", spiritual, "scientific", "artistic", etc. The definitions I'm using for profiling writers as "cutting edge" or "luntaic fringe" are strictly methodological -- HOW they form their opinions, not WHY they form them or WHAT they form them about. For example there is definitely a "cutting edge of the center" that thinks outside the box about creative ways to resolve or avoid conflict and please as many people as possible. And there is a lunatic fringe there as well -- people who use irrational and unethical methods to push moderation on everyone in sight.
I noticed that during the recent power-struggle within Op Ed, both Cutting Edge and Lunatic Fringe people complained that subjects they were particularly interested in were relegated to the "Edges" menu while subjects they considered more controversial and marginal were listed on more "respectible" menus. For example, I remember someone being miffed because "911 truth" was relegated to "Edges" along with "UFO's". However, if we used a methodological definition of what belongs on "Edges", then controversies of this sort would disappear. Essentially, "Edges" would list articles that used unusual or controversial methods to do research and draw conclusions, no matter what the subject matter or ideological perspective. For example articles on 911 conspiracy theories that the Op Ed management felt were based on reasonably "solid and credible evidence" would put on the menus labeled "Security WMDs Terror", or "Government". UFO material of similar solidity would be put on "Life Art Science". Material of both kinds the management considered to be controversial in methodology would be consigned to "Edges" .... but so would similar material in other fields. For example, a lot of the "alternative" health and nutition theories I've seen touted on these boards are just as "far out" as most "conspiracy" or "UFO" theories.
I'm sure at this point, I'm sure some people are asking, "Is this guy advocating that the Op Ed management try to distinguish between 'Cutting Edge' and 'Lunatic Fringe' material, relegating the former to 'Edges' and censoring the latter?" The answer is that I'm not. IMO, this is a subjective value-judgement that individuals should be allowed to make for themselves. I'm advocating that both types of material be listed on the "Edges" menu and people who read these articles and the comments on them be prepared to make their own value judgments. The whole idea of having an "Edges" menu is a compromise anyway, with the extremes being to ban both "Cutting Edge" and "Lunatic Fringe" material entirely and to avoid profiling of this type completely by listing articles according their subject matter only.
And I decided to submit this piece as a "diary entry" rather than an "article" because it's more of a statement of my personal opinions on the techniques of writing "op ed" type material than a commentary on any particular issue or set of issues....
