Ran Prieur has an excellent addition to the great debates on the worth of conspiracy theory.
A lot of people are into the “theory” aspect — they love making connections and building belief systems about what’s really going on. I’m not interested in that at all. Maybe that’s why the Bohemian Grove and Bilderbergers and Illuminati seem totally boring to me. I’m interested in anomalies: a London bombing victim reported the bomb seemed to be under the bus. The World Trade Center collapsed exactly like a controlled demolition. Early eyewitness accounts, and seismographs, indicate two blasts in Oklahoma city. And so on. And where I want to go with these anomalies, is to completely demolish the dominant belief system and the political and economic system that goes with it. At the same time, I want to build new belief systems and social systems, but these should be based on what we are doing, not what our enemies are doing.
Whether or not you advocate the collapse of political and economic systems, Ran’s points deserve wide consideration. I’ve asked the question before without getting many solid answers: what do we want out of conspiracy theory? Justice? Entertainment? Truth? It can be all of those things (or none), but none of those are predictable or quantifiable. How do we know when we’ve achieved Justice, for example? When Bush is out of office? We simply can’t track our successes with any of those criteria. But we can and should track our success according to how many people sit down and question, how many people slow down, step to the sidelines and say: “Whoaaaaa… what the fuck?” And it seems like there are more and more of us doing that every day.
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5 Comments
People should pursue personal transformation through CT.
Example: Watching “Annie Hall”, the bit where Woody goes on about JFK’s assassination while in bed with a girl… that moment, for me, was not only funny, but opened up my eyes to other possibilities.
A throwaway joke from an Academy Award-winning comedy intrigued me enough to follow up on it. Scoff if you must (I know I would) but that was the beginning of my fascination with CT.
My view of life changed, and many events that happened to me later on in my life were viewed through this lens. It all “made sense”… to me and only me.
Because I acknowledge the absurd source of my interest in CT, I take it less seriously… which alos happens to be in line with my approach to life.
People want to change their insides: with CT, drugs, religion, sex, politics, New Age jargon, self-help books, art, music, whatever… People don’t like their insides, so they try to change what is outside in order to get that effect.
What do we want from CT? Personal transformation, which extends into external transformation. That’s my answer, and it works for me.
I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think there are as many who see it that way though. For most people, it seems more like they cling to that which gave them freedom, rather than freedom itself. It just becomes one ideology/religion transposed with another. If it’s more positive, then that may not matter. In some ways though, it actually seems less positive. People get paranoid, feel like they have less control, etc.
i like the anomaly idea even more than following the connections, because it allows you to filter out the connections that are the least novel (not that these are not valid, but they are the least interesting) and get to the good stuff.
so now i’m thinking: a mythical, decentralised, open source story system that uses anomaly research as the driving force of personal transformation. anomalies are identified by archetype, digested, repackaged and manifest as symbolic entities that trick dominant systems (which by their nature attempt to supress the anomalies that are the source of your enlightenment) into destroying themselves.
can that be said in five words or less?
right on, then we become history’s actors.
Fuck, I know it can somehow. Try applying this to the essential human brand….
people don`t like thier insides. no fucking shit. that`s what causes the anger and frustration. all the running and hiding and winning pyrric arguements does nothing when you put your head down on the pillow and there you are not liking your insides. how did we get this way? we did it to ourselves. the program may have been set externally but we keep running it…………….all the blaming george bush isn`t going to take the pain away. all the gnostic parameterising isn`t going to ease the load. turning and facing the fight is the start. not with the system but with the self.
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