I used to play the boardgame “Clue” with my family growing up all the time. It was one of my absolute favorites. The whole idea of sitting there, asking questions, trying to solve a mystery - it’s great. It’s obviously influenced me very much on some subliminal level in my own “whodunnit” quests.
James made some really interesting comments about the effect of AIDS in the comments to a previous post. To summarize, he basically said something like: “It doesn’t matter if AIDS was created in a lab, because it’s had a real effect regardless.”
The other day, John said something really similar to me, using the game “Clue” as a cultural reference point. I think he was talking about the conspiracy theories around 9/11, but it could be applied just as easily to any of them, I guess. He said something to the effect of: “We’re all so interested in figuring out if it was Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Candlestick that we’re ignoring the one most important fact: somebody’s dead.”
In other words, does it matter if we find out who killed JFK and why? Does it matter if the World Trade Center was exploded internally? Does it matter if the London bombings happened at the same time as an emergency services bombing drill? It does, of course. The truth always matters. But what is it we want to do with the truth? Do we want to try to bring perpetrators to justice? If it’s the very people who represent justice who commited these acts, how would that ever be remotely possible?
The sad fact is that all these things happened. We can study and probe and analyze and interpret as much as we want, but nothing’s changed by it. Our “awareness” might be raised by it, but even that doesn’t turn back the clock. I guess this all goes back to that quote from Ron Suskind’s article about the White House from last year:
The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” … “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
That comment didn’t make any sense to me until just now. We can sit here at our keyboards and throw theories at the wind all day and all night. And that’s just what they want because it removes us from the sphere of action. It reinforces their role as the actors and ours as the audience. So what if we chatter amongst ourselves about the script and the character motivations and the costuming? Fact is we already paid the ticket price. We’re still sitting in the theatre waiting to see what Act II is gonna look like. Even if we manage to put together all the clues and all the dramatic foreshadowing, what are we gonna do when we find out we were right all along? Sit back and wallow in self-satisfaction? “See! I told you somebody was gonna get killed in the Conservatory!”
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10 Comments
Reminds me of a lyric rom “I Am The Owl” by Dead Kennedys: “In ten years or so we’ll leak the truth/ but by then it’s only so much paper”.
Ultimately, that’s what’s going to happen with something like, say, the JFK assassination: when all the players are dead and gone, only then will any truth emerge.
However, in light of the revealing of Deep throat’s identity, there is still a little hope that certain truths will come to light at crucial moments. Until then, the most we can do is speculate and put our own twist on things. “Libra” by Don DeLillo is a good example of this– the novel is a re-imagining of the JFK/Oswald connection, stripped of most of the periphery details and filtered through one man’s (DeLillo, in this case) vision.
Let’s hope that, when these truths finally do come to light (hopefully in our lifetimes) people will realize that the maxim is true, that those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Speaking of which, what with Live 8 and a Bush in office, it seems that right now, we ARE repeating history. Let’s hope that Bush goes down like Nixon, as I have hoped ever since I first heard about the Plame affair.
I respectfully disagree. It does matter, to a limited extent anyway. Because the more cracks show up in the dominant (but probably false) narrative, the less deserving of hegemony that narrative becomes.
I didn’t start to doubt the foundations of our civilization until I started paying attention to conspiracy theories. I didn’t start paying attention to conspiracy theories until I reached a certain level of cognitive dissonance, recognizing the disconnect between what was being reported in the mainstream media and my personal experience and recollections.
I agree that the details may be unimportant once you’ve reached a certain level. But it is important that plausible alternative narratives be told and supported with evidence. Otherwise, we all just fall asleep.
Right now, I’m trying to bridge the gap between what I now know and what I plan to do about it. I’m not at all sure what kind of action is necessary or possible. But, even to have gotten to this point (contemplating action) required a certain level of exposure to the light of Truth (however dim and fleeting it may be).
Well, I don’t think we disagree at all. I think we very much agree. I guess what I’m looking for is not a way out, but a sense of what to do next. Does studying and theorizing endlessly really impact anything once you’ve freed yourself from the dominant narrative and learned how to weave the threads together on your own? Are there certain levels, certain plateaus which require new attitudes and techniques? That’s what I’m looking for.
OK. I guess we agree then after all. My reading comprehension was destroyed by too much higher education.
I’ve been rather anxious today about this very issue: my inability to figure out what to do next….
I don’t think you misinterpreted me. I just tend to say things that are kind of contradictory in an effort to get past my mental blocks I guess. Certainty about any of this is just an artifact of language.
Why anxious about this just today? It definitely comes and goes for me. But it seems to have been building a lot over the past few weeks - a realization that a shift in my thinking is necessary.
Well, I’m on vacation this week and thinking about my life. One of my nagging thoughts is an awareness that I don’t have any skills that would be useful in a post-petroleum economy, aside from a passing (and not altogether successful) interest in vegetable gardening. Whenever something goes wrong in my house, I immediately pick up the phone and call the plumber/electrician/carpenter/whatever.
While I don’t think a practical skill is sufficient for survival, it seems at least necessary. And I’d like to do more than survive, I’d actually like to contribute.
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll figure it out eventually. Or not. The world will continue either way. T’anks for listening…
Here’s a quote by Teddy Roosevelt:
“To sit home, read one’s favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men’s doing”
The way I see it, conspiracy theories are absolutely necessary. God(s) forbid that people ever stop questioning the established modes of thinking! Questioning authority is absolutely vital, as I’m sure you all would agree. The sheer popularity of conspiracy theories nowadays says something to me, that A. more and more of us are dissatisfied with the ruling parties of all sorts and we’re feeling lied to, and B. that conspiracy theories are looked at more and more as a pleasant diversion from reality and a source of entertainment. I hate to bring it up, but look at the raving success of things like the Da Vinci Code, a bit of conspiracy theory with a Catholic focus. Is it everywhere? Yes. Did anyone take it seriously? No. Not anyone outside of the regular conspiracy circles anyway, and hell, they’d probably known about all that for years already. I know it wasn’t news to me. No matter how much press a subject gets, unless people organize to try and do something constructive with the information then nothing is going to get done. It’s all a flash in the pan.
I’ve been wondering what to do about it all for years, and that’s pretty depressing when you get right down to it. My answer is, quite simply, revolution *shrug* The common denominator between all these conspiracies is that the people in power are no longer trustworthy, and unless all us conspiracy theorists get out of our chairs and DO something about it, that’s the way it’s always going to be.
I would actually argue that the Da Vinci Code hooked a whole new audience into conspiracy theory. I know people who wouldn’t dream of touching most conspiracy theory but lapped up the DVC like it was milk out of a bowl and they were kittens.
I also have wondered a lot about the rise of “conspiracy theory as entertainment” that I see happening. Actually, come to think of it, I’m sure I’m helping it happen. And it is, I must admit, really really entertaining. Is this a bad thing? I don’t think so, because it means that people are motivated to find or build a competing narrative to the mainstream.
Love that Roosevelt quote.
Of course it’s entertaining, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and it might help to “spread the word” so to speak. But it seems to me that the more something becomes entertainment the less chance there is of it being taken seriously. Not that conspiracy theorists were ever remotely close to being taken seriously! But even if more people become aware of the fact that our leaders may not be on the up and up, the entertainment value of it all might hurt the cause in the end. We just need to come up with a way to make more people interested in alternative viewpoints without weakening their ability to be taken seriously. Yeah, I suppose that’s what I’m trying to say.
And then we have do something constructive *nod*
This is a great line of thought. Action is indeed necessary.
However, I think Tim has already taken action. Thought/action is not a sharp dichotomy, it’s a continuum. We need websites like this to expose people who may be more action-oriented to ideas and lines of inquiry they would not have pursued otherwise. These people then expose others who are even more action-oriented and so on until ideas start manifesting themselves in reality. It’s virtual communal magickal working, in essence. The problem is we can rarely tell ahead of time which website, journal, book, etc. will be most successful in sparking noticeable action. That’s why it is vitally important for you and other bloggers to keep doing what you are doing.
Also, keep in mind that the stuff we are talking about it just now coming to the surface thanks to the internet. Before the internet the “Conspiracy” community was limited to a few loners dispersed throughout the world. Now it is starting to come together.
I think the next step is imagining alternatives to the status quo - this is what interests me the most.
My two cents, is that in order for political change to happen spiritual change has to occur first. I think the broad theology of a new spirituality has already been laid out. It needs to be organized and herein lies the problem. Many of those who are most inclined to be revolutionaries are least inclined to be organizers because of their intense dislike for hierarchy and power structures.
Thus the time is right for a mass acceptance of alternative spiritual paths and religions, but there is no organizing structure, which means there is no institutional presence in the public’s mind, which means that the conventional religions continue to dominate the public’s perception of spirituality. Just think of last year’s election in which it was implied that all people who valued religion must vote for Bush.