Myths[i], Apologetics[ii], Ghost Writers[iii], and Ideological and Religious Spin Doctors[iv]
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
August 16, 2010

Myth creators; myth perpetuators; ghostwriters for groups promoting economic, political, or religious ideologies; ghostwriters who adapt mythic and religious texts for ideological purposes; and apologists who write apologetic books explaining and defending their religion, albeit often with spurious logic and facticality, all have been prevalent for all millennia since writing began and they all flourish today.  There is a huge cottage industry dedicated to writing in these fields and for these purposes.  What is little known is that there are a vast number of ‘hybrid’ ghostwriters. 

In fact today, with the rise of infotainment and the competition between TV Channels, radio, and print media for ratings (numbers of viewers), there virtually is no discernible distinction between objective, factual investigative reporting and the artistically crafted works of ghostwriters, nor even between the latter and the reporting of confirmed scientific research. 

Moreover, for the unwitting, unquestioning viewer/listener/reader, that is to say for the majority of the population, what makes a presentation or text reality is not the grounding of its substance but the personage of and the manner of deliverance. 

Words around the world today have minimal relation to confirmation by observation or to confirmable tests of the causes of effects. 

Globally, emotional impact is the gauge for believability.  In other words, in general, the human state of being is schizophrenic (of course I use the term more metaphorically than clinically). 

Unfortunately, it is not just the poorly educated or those in the bottom ten percent in intelligence who are in this state of being.  I would venture to estimate that, with respect to some or even many domains of ‘knowledge-information’, our intelligentsia have, likewise, fallen victim to this global malady.

You will seldom meet anyone, regardless of level of education or intelligence, who does not hold to some, usually many, untested or untestable, beliefs simply because family or local, respected authority told them it was so, especially if this happened when they were young and gullible. 

Those who can take advantage of the modern-mind-molding-media can hold extraordinary sway over the (brains) minds of, not just the populace of the US, the entire globe.  I do not exclude myself from vulnerability to this classification of malady.  I am learning to maintain continuous vigilance against mere emotional appeal and to inquire into the reality that may be disguised and distorted by the promulgated belief-emotion-based-information. 

Become a professional ghost-buster.  I recommend this approach to my readers.