I always took it to mean “I wish I could believe that this is real, it ignites my hope and dreams, but reality is still ruling it out so I have to accept what facts tell me.”
Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the message that most people took from it, which if you were to boil down to just its essence in America at least, it says “Believing is just as good as anything else. Go ahead if you want it.” and I think it made way, way too many young, impressionable people who never picked up on the irony of the show to go on to accept conspiratorial thinking and self-delusion about utter nonsense.
Because
I don’t get that statement. “I want to believe” kind of implies you don’t believe, but you wanna. You wanna, but you fail, or something.
I always took it to mean “I wish I could believe that this is real, it ignites my hope and dreams, but reality is still ruling it out so I have to accept what facts tell me.”
Unfortunately, that does not appear to be the message that most people took from it, which if you were to boil down to just its essence in America at least, it says “Believing is just as good as anything else. Go ahead if you want it.” and I think it made way, way too many young, impressionable people who never picked up on the irony of the show to go on to accept conspiratorial thinking and self-delusion about utter nonsense.
I think at its roots its like, you have to be willing to consider things first. You have to start with a willingness to believe.
Or at least thats Mulders MO in the show.
Scully is the scientist, the hard nosed skeptic.
If you haven’t watched the show, it actually has aged decently, if its a bit campy.