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Conspiracy Eats Itself
Dan just left a really good comment on conspiracy and skepticism:
Speaking of picking things apart, I realized today that conspiracy theory is a method of skepticism that eventually self-destructs.
I’ve always been skeptical of the official 9/11 story, of the JFK narrative, and everything in between. Conspiracy theory was a pathway for me to disbelieve the propaganda and find alternative stories to explain events. But now I find it hard to believe in conspiracy theories either. I was instantly skeptical of the “photoshopped bomber” image because I’m skeptical of everything. Of course I don’t dismiss out of hand either.
So as self training in de-programming, I’d say conspiracy theory worked pretty well for me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling that. (PS. Dan’s referring to this image above). Anyway, I’ve been feeling more and more this way in regards to conspiracy theory lately. It’s made me so skeptical of everything that I’m even skeptical of it. And a lot of conspiracy theorizing is just starting to seem like a waste of time to me. Or at least a game distracting people from what’s really important. But at the same time, it’s been a really useful way of thinking for me to get from there to here. Moral of the story is, I’m torn about where to go from here with it. (Also check out my piece on philosophical skepticism to flesh this out a little)
- Notes: Parent Patent
- A Definition of Conspiracy Theory
- Origin of the New World Order Conspiracy?
- The Cowardice of Conspiracy
- More Conspiracy Polls
- Prev: NLP Presuppositions
- Next: London Bomber Photoshop Scandal
July 26th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Hello, I hopped on over from Ang’s Weird Ideas. You have a very interesting blog.
In studing international relations, Politcs and terrorism I have come to this conclusion, Trust no one.
July 26th, 2005 at 2:59 pm
“Conspiracy theory” has become a derogatory term that’s more often used to discredit researchers. IMHO, it should be abandoned. There are cover-ups and obfuscations. There are cabals and collusions. Somewhere underneath lie facts that lead to the truth. This is what journalism is supposed to do but now anyone revealing the “wrong” facts is branded a conscpiracy theorist (or worse: unpatriotic, a traitor).
July 26th, 2005 at 3:07 pm
ive come to the (somewhat of a) conclusion that THE biggest secret, the secret of all secrets, conspiracy of all conspiracies, is that nobody is in control. at all. the illusion of control, aka ab ordo chao, IS the conspiracy, and its fragile…. yet way more interesting to study than television………. lol. one of my favorite rappers, Aceyalone says.. “Once my life magnifies, the disease dies” i gotta get you this album….
one
human?
July 26th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
human: Sounds awesome, I’ll check it out.
LVX: I actually kind of like that conspiracy theory is such a pejorative word. I think there’s some kind of hidden advantage to that, but I’m not quite sure how to articulate it yet.
I do agree with you it’s the same as journalism in one regard, but in another I think there’s a weird spiritual dimension to it that not enough of us are really probing. It fits into the rest of the puzzle somehow
July 26th, 2005 at 4:20 pm
i read about this concept in zen last night called ‘turning words.’ they’re words/phrases used by zen teachers that are contradictory, vulgar, violent, misleading, derogatory, etc. in order to get students to ‘turn’ from their preconceived notions about what reality consists of. i think that’s why i like phrases like ‘conspiracy theorist’ and all the cursing that goes on around here (fuck! shit! goddam!).
July 26th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
Don’t let bad Photoshop jobs deter you from an interest in CT. The whole CT franchise was spawned, in fact, by a bad Photoshop job: the infamous photo of Lee Harvey Oswald, complete with newspaper, rifle, and telltale shadows around his neck and chin… without that dubious piece of spook art, Jim Marrs and Oliver Stone would not have any basis for their theories, and there wouldn’t be a market for such things.
Watch “Interview With The Assassin”, an indie “mockumentary” by Neil Burger about a man claiming to be the second gunman on the grassy knoll. I rented it on DVD recently and felt it was a great film that captures the CT paranoia that eats itself like a snake catching its own tail. What’s great about the movie is its open-endedness, and it nails on the head the appeal of CT for the disenfranchised. A much better movie than, say, Mel Gibosn’s CT movie w/ Julia Roberts a while back.
I think what you are referring to, in terms of picking apart CT until it self-destructs, has been covered artfully by Thomas Pynchon in “The Crying of Lot 49″ and it has to do with the ties between pop-cultural narcissism and CT paranoia. In short, we want to believe that what affronts our egos daily is actually a part of something bigger that we must fight against, in order to preserve our ideas about ourselves. Pynchon’s novel is a huge mindfuck for the protagonist, almost Phillip K. Dickian in its labrythine suspiciousness. I recommend you read it, as it is Pynchon’s most accessible book.
July 26th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
Thanks James. good suggestions as always. It’s not that I’m turning from conspiracy theory - just trying to figure out how to revitalize it for myself.
July 26th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
In college, one of my International Affairs professors often accused me of conspiratorial thinking, mainly because I didn’t see the War on Terror from the same perspective as him. My prof saw the War on Terror through the eyes of his old specialty- he was a Cold War Sovietologist, and saw the War on Terror as an ideological conflict between a fantasy ideology and democracy, one to be fought and won through systematic invasions and deposing the governments that support the Islamicist ideology. I disagreed. From my perspective, the War on Terror is a war on the process of globalization; the terrorists aren’t fighting to hold territory or conquer the west, but are trying to lock up international trade in order to preserve their culture and reconstruct the Caliphate. The techniques being deployed by bin Laden aren’t fundamentally millitary, but psychological. When I argued that bin Laden’s speech immediately before the election was calculated to throw the victory to Bush, my prof (obviously) disagreed, and I insisted that Bush’s policies are playing right into his hands. By disrupting international trade and forcing us to run up debts funding millitary operations, bin Laden is trying to bankrupt America and force us to withdraw from involvement in the middle east, both millitarily and culturo-economically (not to mention render us incapable of defending Israel). The deployment of propaganda, videos, calculated bombings, etc. is a very cheap way of waging war against a superpower- and just about the only way to crack it. But by supposing that bin Laden and associates are waging a sophisticated psychological war, rather than randomly throwing bombs out of dedication to a “fantasy ideology”, I’m supposedly a “conspiratorial thinker”.
In other words, if it can’t be boiled down to economic factors (left) or plain old evil (right), it’s conspiracy.
July 26th, 2005 at 5:50 pm
That reminds me, Nicq - you said something a few posts ago about how you were into conspiracy but not in the way we’d expect… is this what you meant, or were you referring to something else?
July 26th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
Actually, it’s not. Though I’ll explain that to you offsite.
July 26th, 2005 at 6:55 pm
aw c’mon nicq, don’t be a tease, share! i was wondering about that comment too.
July 26th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
The phrase “conspiracy theory” needs to be taken out to the grassy knoll and shot.
If we approach the term from a linguistic angle, “conspiracy theory” is a term that frames ideas as outlandish, absurd, and paranoid. Ditto “tin foil hat,” another phrase that needs to be exterminated with extreme prejudice.
The enforcers of the mainstream reality matrix have won this battle of language. And as McKenna asserted, everything is made of language. They’ve won. It’s over. “Conspiracy theory” is as dated as X-Files reruns and day-glo alien head keychains. The Repuglican Plutarchy won the hearts of Red Staters with language tricks like “compassionate conservatism,” “tax relief,” and “family values.” And the reality-is-what-we-say-it-is cops have won by branding heretical thought as delusional and the province of the deranged. The man behind the curtain remains hidden while the people stare at the images on the screen, mesmerized and nodding in assent as their pockets are picked and their souls slowly crushed.
Where do we go from here? That’s what keep asking myself. Some verbal/semantic ju-jitsu is required — a good start is the “coincidence theorist” riposte. Turn it around on them.
Beyond that, I’m struggling to find the answer. And the more I frequent my favorite boards, the more saddened I am to see the lack of discernment among those seeking answers. John Judge and Mae Brussels are not equal to Alex Jones and Sherman Skolnick, yet they’re all thrown into the same stew.
How do you help people to utilize proper discernment when we’re all swimming in a murky, shark-infested sea?
July 26th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Well its really a question of being able to falsify something or not. Many conspiracy theorists either implicitly or explicitly start with the assumption that there is no such thing as reality, thereby relieving them from the onset of any responsiblity or proof of their assertions.
I like Tim’s approach to discussing things with some humor and distance and allowing for many types of information to enter the discussion– contrast this with the deadly chicken little seriousness of many conspiracy theorists. At least with tims apporach we can enjoy the discussion and dance around the madness, not to dive headlong into the abyss, or as Niestche (sp.?) said, to stare into the abyss so long that it stares into you.
That being said, maybe the conspiracy theory is just the natural reaction to a system that claims on its surface to be true, a great deal, an endless benefit with no cost or price. By asserting exactly the opposite, that the system is totally false and offers all cost with no benifits, a type of equilibrium is achieved in society. As an observer it must be a false dichotomy– the system is all great or totally evil. I think clinging to one of these extremes is to relieve oneself of reponsibility to get in there and say exaclty where things are going good and where they are going wrong. Cause if you get specific like that, you might feel compelled to do something about it, which might involve a risk. But oh no, they always protest, ‘they’ wouldnt tolerate it, ‘they’ wont allow it, it wouldnt do any good anyhow cause its all corrupt. So at its worst is conspiracy theory just a big excuse factory, and at its best is it a way to try to get beyond our limited conventional thinking?
hmmmm
dont really know..just thinking out loutd.
July 26th, 2005 at 11:52 pm
That’s what I love about this blog. We basically all check our egos at the door and then commence thinking out loud to one another and god knows who else.
As far as CT goes, I look at it like this. For lack of a better term, I think what I do is imaginatively and somewhat spastically, orbit all ideas I find interesting and look for a way to peer in. No, not go in! Not yet. I don’t even know what it is I’m looking at yet. But peer in to the slats in the windows of this complex existence. Props to human? for bringing up the possibility that in reality no one and nothing is in control. Doubtlessly, some portions are controlled by other more seductive portions, but in the grand scheme of things nothing and no one are ever indeed in control.
On a recent flight back to Seattle we basically chased the twilight in a losing race to catch back up with the Sun. Of course, since I always request a window seat and am always imaginitvely on-edge, I needless to say began to focus on my position (and everyone else’s in this epoch of Human history) along the duration of the gorgeous, summertime flight. And you wanna know what I felt?
I felt sorry for George Bush, Dick Cheney and having seen Enron the day before, Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling etc etc. If only the controllers and authorities of this world understood how small and probably wrong — just like me! — they probably are. It’s when you feel something bigger that you are very, very right. I felt bad. I realized they were no bigger or all that more powerful than I — if you take into account everything else there is to know.
The conspiracies are just feedback from the volume being artificially turned up on a system in deep psychic decline. We are a species in search of a new and more powerful sense.
July 13th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
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