Amazing ghost fuss

re: "TV show probed for distorting history" (BP, July 10, 2020)

Dear editor,

Seriously? Could the good citizens of Korat be quite as portrayed by the reports of their reaction to a TV show called "Real Ghosts"? The amazing fuss and even more amazing official reaction from the National Office of Buddhism (but of course) raises far more disturbing questions than it answers.

What exactly is the alleged distortion? What is the alleged "historical reality" that has been distorted? And how strong is the evidence that the alleged history is in fact the reality supposed to have been distorted in unspecified ways?

Deeper questions worth asking: Why do people think that any TV show shows reality, let alone one calling itself "Real Ghosts"? Are artistic entertainments allowed licence where the evidence is less than 100% compelling, as historical evidence must, without exception, always be? Every claim posing as a piece of history is surely subject to revision in the light of new evidence or simple critical thinking. But even if the facts are well-attested and generally accepted, must it be illegitimate to explore alternative imagined possibilities? Must it be illegal were, for example, a TV show to imagine Isaaac Newton discovering Einstein's theory of gravity instead of the one he actually did?

Finally, is merely causing offence a sufficient reason to ban anything? If, for example, I'm offended by some weird religious teaching, must that teaching therefore be banned? Or does it take a majority offence to criminalize the expression of an idea, however popular?

 Felix Qui

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on July 11, 2020, under the title "Amazing ghost fuss" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/1949544/a-britons-apology