The Atlantis
Syndrome P.3
The Atlantologists frequently present themselves as hurt and
affronted by the rejection - or worse still the indifference - of the
professionals. (Their hurt on occasions can take an oddly childish turn, like a
schoolboy sulking over a low mark.)
They put the
professionals' attitude down to, at best, an unadventurous conformism that
blinds them to the insights of the "alternative" camp. Soon after
that relatively mild judgement, they usually go on to accuse the professionals
of looking to their own jobs and reputations in wilful
disregard of the compelling theories of the "alternative" thinkers;
in the end, dark hints of gigantic conspiracies to do down the noble truths of Atlantology and "alternative archaeology" in
general may be advanced, sometimes with imprecise but unsettling implications
about the machinations of national security or religious orthodoxy. Men in
Black, you might say. At the least, the Atlantologists
usually imply that professional scholars have closed ranks to deny them. Those
who know the world of professional scholarship are not likely to recognize it
in the caricature frequently put forward by the "alternative"
authors. Archaeology has its rival schools of competing approaches to the
study, not noticeably indulgent towards one another and to older generations of
scholars. The "New Archaeologists" of the 1960s, with their emphasis
on the methods and outlook of the natural sciences, frequently disdained their
predecessors of the old culturally descriptive school; the 'postprocessual'
archaeologists of recent years have in turn rather gone back on the science
emphasis, in favour at times of something almost
subjective enough to embrace a certain of "alternative archaeology."
And I wish I had the space to quote at length from a treasured issue of Current
Anthropology to show what the academics are capable of saying to one another's
faces: it might cheer up some of the martyrs of "alternative
archaeology," at the cost of relieving them of their martyrdom.
No, mutual
regard and support have never been noticeably the foremost traits of the
academics, however it may look to outsiders. If they appear to tacitly come
together to cold-shoulder the Atlantologists, it is
more likely to be the result of a shared estimate (needing no consultation) of
the negligibility and futility of the "alternative" workers' efforts,
rather than of any fear for their jobs or reputations. It may be a hard thing
for the Atlantologists to face up to, but
professional archaeologists are as likely as not simply uninterested in their
shoddy speculations and dilettante dabblings. What is
the use, or even passing interest, of theories that there might just possibly
be sort of something to, if - just if - a whole string of feebly based or
baseless conjectures turned out perhaps to have something in it? Especially
when no means are available for testing the theories generated in this dubious
fashion, nor likely to become available, and these theories are at odds with
everything we reliably know? You don't need any zealously policed guild of
vested interests to steer clear of such unprofitable doings. On the contrary,
it is the "alternative" fraternity who give off an air of solidarity
against the professional archaeologists: whatever their own differences,
however hopelessly incompatible their own particular versions of the Atlantis
theme, they are the ones who come together against the academics in a sort of
trade unionism of the Atlantologists. And, as a
matter of fact, the record of orthodox science in adopting new theories that
are well argued and well supported is rather good: relativity and the carbon-dating
revolution in archaeology being cases in point.
It really is
shabby to impugn the professionals in the way some Atlantologists
do, even if it is understandable. They would be well advised to settle for a
role as purveyors of popular entertainment and leave the academic
archaeologists alone. As it is, it's as though a skilled and entertaining
conjuror were suddenly to claim to possess real psychic powers - whatever they
would be - and then question the motives of those who doubted or disdained him.
And for all their sniping at the attitude of the academics, the proponents of
"alternative archaeology" are often rather pathetically keen to have
on board any sort of academic figure who might be thought to support them.
Sometimes it's a case of quoting the work of geologists or archaeologists in a
neutral situation where the age of some geological context or some
archaeological find might be thought to chime in with an Atlantological
proposal, or at least not to directly conflict with it. More usually, it is a
matter of making much of the theories of some admittedly academic figure
operating right outside his own field. Thus the geological theories of a
history teacher or the Egyptological theories of a geologist may figure with honour in the literature of Atlantology.
The familiar
antagonism to the academic professionals will be set aside in cases like these:
such authorities will be gleefully billed as 'respected geologists' though they
are pronouncing on Egyptology or "Harvard professors" though they are
purporting to translate alleged graffiti in long dead languages, for which endeavour a lifetime in invertebrate zoology might not be
the best preparation. Sadly, even a distinguished career in one branch of
learning is no guarantee at all of sound work in another. On the whole,
university people know this and respect one another's fields, but laymen often
do not and are too impressed by academic qualifications as such even when their
possessors have wandered far away from all they really know about.
In this
connection, one might ponder the current magic of the mere word
"research." When I was a boy, research conjured up a picture of men
in white coats doing something innovative with test tubes. Later on, I
understood it to mean the undertaking of original enquiry - with extremely
rigorous standards of scholarship, which would be independently tested - into
new fields of learning. Nowadays, for many people research appears to mean no
more than doing a lot of reading-up after your own bent of whatever you can lay
your hands on in the library and on the Internet, and then speculating about
it. This is really playing at research, playing at scholars. So it happens that
so much cold hat (and the same "old hat," at that) keeps circulating
through all the Atlantological literature, sometimes
looking faintly like real fresh research till you chase the notes that appear
to support it.
The sedulous
provision of the apparatus of notes that now seems de rigueur in the
publications of "alternative archaeology" is an interesting
development: it invokes the aura of scholarship without being scholarly in fact
and blurs the distinction between real scholarship and the
"alternative" output in a way that quite possibly takes in a good
part of the untutored readership. Some of these Atlantological
works carry more notes at the back than a Flashman novel, though not above half
as entertaining, or in most cases as informative.
On the other
hand, the illustrations with which the Atlantological
books are furnished, particularly the photographs, are never of a scholarly
tinge. Traditionally they have been indifferent photographs, badly reproduced
in monochrome, of a random range of ancient monuments more or less related to
the text, if possible with one or two studies of the author intrepidly
scrutinizing some column of hieroglyphs he can't read in a reasonably exotic
tourist location. (This last feature is in line with the personalized
"quest" motif of so much of this school of writing and the sort of
blurb its publishers like to put on their dust jackets.) The frequent lack of
any close relevance to the text and the anecdotal inclusion of personal
appearances marks this mode of illustration off from any scholarly intent. No
more scholarly, but certainly much pleasanter to peruse, are the sort of
illustrations that have recently been introduced in certain publications:
excellent photographs reproduced to a high standard, to the point where one
might be tempted to say they are much the best thing in such books. I don't
think we can ever expect this standard of illustration as a general rule,
however, since the publishers of this literature seem to have concluded -
probably rightly - that there is little sales advantage in it: oddly enough, in
this visual age, it remains the enchantment of the ideas to be found in these
works that sells them. (We have tried with the photographs in this present
volume to suggest something of the flavour of both
approaches to the matter of illustrating Atlantology.)
And it is the
ideas to be found in these works by which they must be judged. I have tried to
advertise some of the deficiencies of those ideas and I have had some fun doing
it. I hope some, at least, of my readers have shared in the fun. To a large
extent, I believe, the Atlantis Syndrome is indeed just fun, and - as I have
said more than once - there would not be so very much wrong with it if it truly
was presented as just all good fun. (Even if, with some of the more serious
practitioners, it can be rather hard going to get to the fun of it at all.) But
the Atlantologists will go on putting it out as
though it were also the truth, or might be. And so, in the end, I think it is
fastidiousness about the truth that requires us to give this genre the thumbs
down, for all the fun of it. Not in the end perhaps because it spreads false,
or even dangerous, ideas about the past. It isn't alone in doing that and
millions upon millions of people across the globe go through their entire lives
with their heads full of their local versions of nationalistic and religious
untruth, and always will. To some extent, in this area or that, we all do. It
may be a regrettable situation, but it is also inevitable.
When it comes
to factual claims about the world presented as rational enquiry then I think we
should always summon up enough fastidiousness to want to know, as far as we
can, what really goes on in the world and what has gone on. It is not possible
to know the complete and absolute truth of things but there are sound methods
by which some of the truth can be arrived at, more as time goes by, and -
perhaps more importantly - by which untruth can be seen for what it is. For all
the fun of myth and mystery, the truth as far as we can get to it is more
satisfying to a fastidious mind. And the truth has its own charms (while
untruth has its own dangers).
Fastidiousness
of mind calls for scepticism towards all speculative
and ill-evidenced modes of enquiry, not cynicism towards the hardwon findings of rigorous scholarship. It could be said
of the Atlantologists and their readership that they
are too cynical and not sceptical enough. I believe
it is the baseless and useless nature of so much 'alternative archaeology' in
all its forms that really irritates professional scholars and explains their
frequent aversion to ever having anything to do with it at all, let alone
combat it. Beyond that, it dismays them to see it propagated among a readership
very largely unequipped to judge its worth. It is not as though the
professionals were trying to keep their own researches to themselves: there are
numerous books and television programmes around that
try to put the discoveries of real archaeology before the public, often written
by the best scholars in the field. We remarked that it seems as though the
findings, the whole outlook, of modern science are neither religious enough nor
romantic enough for many people - I aver that there is enchantment in these
findings and in this outlook worth more than all the fantasies about the world
ever promulgated. (Even if there wasn't, I would still prefer the science to
the fantasy.)
But it may be
worse than that: for some people, science isn't easy enough either. It takes
effort to appreciate its findings and more still to understand its fundamental
outlook. Anyone, for example, can see that biological evolution has taken place
on this earth, but understanding the workings of mutation, genetic inheritance
and natural selection is much more difficult. It is the same with archaeology:
the discovery of a flashy tomb like Tutankhamun's is relatively easy to absorb;
understanding the religious, cultural and political processes of the Amarna
period of Egyptian New Kingdom history to which Tutankhamun belonged requires
serious study for which there is no easy substitute. Egyptology is just one specialized
discipline within ancient history and archaeology; archaeology embraces both
the five thousand years or so of history and the unannalled
millennia of prehistory, reaching back millions of years. There is a lot to
archaeology, and it's not easily learned and understood. Fantasies about the
past, on the other hand, are always essentially simple and easy to assimilate,
even when they are decked with astronomical and numerological
complexities.
Fantasies may
be beguiling, but then so is the real story of the human past - and much more
intellectually stimulating to try to understand. The underlying attitudes of Atlantology are really too simplistic and crude to offer
any intellectual challenge. Trying, on the other hand, to reach any sort of
understanding of the processes of primate evolution that could give birth to
human consciousness and language, or of the social processes by which
civilization could arise in farming-based communities - such effort really is
rewarding and fit work for clever and original minds. It promises, moreover, to
help humanity towards a better understanding of our place in the giant scheme
of biological and cosmic evolution. There's charm enough, and real profundity,
in that. Alongside such endeavour, speculation about
supermen from outer space or secret brotherhoods of astronomer-priests or lost
cities under the ice looks like just what I fear it is: woefully
unsophisticated and worse than irrelevant to the real interest of the study of
the human past.
See also:
For updates click homepage here