Ever since I got back from vacation, I’ve had a mild distaste for conspiracy theory. Really, it was building before I left too. But at least then, I was looking at it from the perspective of a sort of nouveau secular religion. Now I feel like so much of it is just simply… whining. It’s an “I’m gonna tell on you and you’ll be sorry then” aesthetic.
That is of course not to say that all conspiracy theory is always like this; I’m knowingly making a broad generalization for the sake of highlighting a trend. Anyway, it just seems to me like there is way too big of a victimization complex at work here. And by that I mean, if you decide at the beginning of the game that some other player has more power than you and did you wrong, then you’re going to act like that for the rest of the game, even when you may not really need to.
Conspiracy theory to me right now (among other things) seems like its simply politics for people who got burned by normal politics, but still want to play that game. Hence the neologism, parapolitics. But why even play that game at all? I’d rather just focus on the “para-” and let the politics fade away. Or, if we are going to look at the politics, maybe we ought to look at it objectively as a complex system, rather than trying to figure out who’s the most “evil” of all the bad guys. Cause we can tell on the bullies to our teacher all we want, but that’s just going to make him beat on us even worse after class.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
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17 Comments
At the bottom of it, all “conspiracy theory” in politics means is that people whom you can’t immediately identify are doing things you don’t see at the moment. Is that really such a non-credible concept? The Rove thing right now is a perfect example: Republicans label it conspiracy theory, and the prosecutor, judge, and grand jury seem to have a different view.
In fact your own definition in the “similar articles” box is much the same as what I’m saying, so I’m having a really hard time here seeing what your new issue is.
can’t say i agree, but i hear ya.
it’s definitely complex, i’ll grant you that. and often draining.
Tim, I totally agree. What you said reminds me of something Robert Anton Wilson talks about in his Maybe Logic DVD…First of all, that “countless conspiracies contend in the night” and there is no one all-enveloping master Conspiracy, though small c conspiracies occur all the time, but more importantly that you’ve got to define the conspiracy as yourself and your friends or you’re following a loser script and handing your enemies all the power. I’m too lazy to find the exact quote, but it’s a lot like this interview snippet I found on Google:
“if you decide at the beginning of the game that some other player has more power than you and did you wrong, then you’re going to act like that for the rest of the game, even when you may not really need to”
1. Seeing it as a game is the first flaw. Most conspiracy theorists who take it seriously don’t see it as a game. I go one further and say it’s a hobby, but believe me when I say I get a lot of flak for that POV.
2. What about people like David Horowitz, who were aligned with the Left for years, experienced a Paul-like conversion, then went to the other side? Evidently he saw that the other side had more power and he wanted to be on the winning side. Now he claims there’s a conspiracy amongst liberals to teach leftist ideology on college campuses, and he’s gaining ground with this. Is he a victim? No, he’s a predator, and his victims are real people.
3. Yes, there are CTs who play the victim, but more often than not they play the role of the outraged patriot. The ones who play victim get no sympathy, but the ones who are self-styled “crusaders” for truth get a lot of respect because they are seen to be working for a cause. Is Noam Chomsky a victim? No, but his lectures fuel CT debate based on heavily footnoted research. Jello Biafra a victim? No, he’s a poltiicaly active punk singer. They bring awareness, which is easy to recognize when placed alongside the culture of victimhood and its accompanying jargon.
1. Seeing it as a game is the first flaw.
*blink*
Game theory is pretty well established at this point as a valuable analytical tool. Are you actually denying that?
I agree that using games as one’s only reality-tunnel would be narrow minded, but come on. Tim Boucher’s a pretty complex guy. Do you really think that he’s using the conceptual framework of a game as his sole method of looking at the issue? I doubt it; I read that sentence as simply one more way of perceiving conspiracy theory, and an astute one at that.
Sometimes by reducing things to a game (and looking at who has power in that game) is a useful vantage point. Sometimes things can be very clear through the filter of a game. Things that get hidden behind layers of abstractions, in ordinary thinking.
3. Yes, there are CTs who play the victim, but more often than not they play the role of the outraged patriot. The ones who play victim get no sympathy, but the ones who are self-styled “crusaders†for truth get a lot of respect because they are seen to be working for a cause. Is Noam Chomsky a victim? No, but his lectures fuel CT debate based on heavily footnoted research.
Yes, but Chomsky himself is quite clear that he is not a conspiracy theorist. Just this past March he wrote:
“Semantics,” you might say, but that’s what this is about: framing. The way you phrase things affects the way you perceive them, something Chomsky knows well as a linguist.
By describing the world in the language of the stereotypical conspiracy theorist, you inevitably give up power to your enemies. Knowing the connections of people in power and the network of interests which feed our leaders is valuable, but you lose something when you describe it as an all-encompassing conspiracy of evil men. Positive viewpoints look at such things and see the last vestiges of the old guard, or the drying, dying, decaying scales of a snake about to shed its skin.
Obsessing about people in power isn’t doing something about the people in power, though it certainly reduces your faith in the goodness of humanity and freezes you with fright. Inactivity is spawned by terror when you tear off the mask of The Man and see all the little maggots crawling ’round inside. When you share that vision with others, all you do is stop them, too. There’s no need for the government to arrest people who are arrested by fear. That’s why, IMO at least, it’s important to mix things up a bit and inspire as you inform.
I guess I just wasted a bunch of time long-windedly explaining what you summed up in one sentence later in your comment, James: “The ones who play victim get no sympathy, but the ones who are self-styled ‘crusaders’ for truth get a lot of respect.”
talk about laugh! tim, you totally nailed it, i can just picture a little kid whining “george bush stole my lunch money.”
teacher says “nobody likes a tattle-tale, honey.”
my old man would say “here’s how you make a fist, now you go and get it back… ok, stop crying… alright, shut up… ok, so this george fella’s a big bastard, eh? well, when he’s in line at the cafeteria with your lunch money, you go and steal his bike.”
you’e crazy, you’re whining, you’re paranoid, you’re obsessed, you just hate bush, you’re looking for excuses, you’re looking for someone to blame, you displaced your religious thinking, yadda yadda yadda… all the good comments from ‘doubting ufos’ apply to conspiracy theory.
believe or don’t believe, but don’t condescend, cuz you don’t know either.
Albion, we’re criticizing aspects of conspiracy thinking. We’re not criticizing you.
thanks but that’s not quite what i meant. i agree, all those aspects are worthy of criticism. i was just struck by the contrast between the searching spirit of some other recent comments, and the glib “ho-ho-ho we’ve got this one pegged” attitude here. y’all sound like talk radio. it struck me as an early symptom of creeping groupthink, but maybe you’re right and i am taking it personally - anyway, i guess all seekers after truth need to take comfort in the arms of ignorance from time to time, and as they say, sometimes what else can you do but laugh - and move on.
Well, the fact that you disagree with it vocally assures me that it’s not groupthink, so there. Anyway, it really doesn’t make any difference to me if people agree or disagree, so long as the ideas move forward. Sometimes agreeing helps them move forward better. Sometimes disagreeing is a better fuel. All this post is saying is that I’m stuck on certain things and want to move forward, but that many of the avenues I once looked to for further expansion now seem closed to me.
And PS. your comparison between us and talk radio is utter horseshit.
selah, its your site. and you’re right, that was horseshit.
i think that naom chomsky is a careerist first with his mouth on the breast of the sophomoric paranoia of our colleges and universities. that goes for the publishers of all of the CT speculation. it is, at best, entertainment and at it`s worst, fuel for the dispair of the depressed and paranoid. watching the grim scenes of 9/11 or the zabruder film over and over will do something to the psyche that is difficult to undo. much like other forms of pornography, it needs to be taken in small doses and balanced with other forms of entertainment otherwise it leads to obsessive and compulsive ideation and actions.
someone above suggested that there may be a conspiracy to push socialist agendas in the universities. no shit. not a conspiracy so much as an emerging product of the intellectual environment. not secret meetings of bearded types in berets pushing marxist ideas so much as commenting on the fact that life is so good from thier vantage point that sharing and non-agression must be compulsory for everyone now that we all earn a hundred grand a year for two lecture series and have just bought our first picasso litho and a condo in vale.
when i was in school, i learned a saying: if you publish evidence linking an agent of a multinational corporation to specific crimes, you might find yourself “suicided.” but if you write something describing in general terms how globalization is harmful, you might find yourself the recipient of a grant from that same multinational.
‘course i went to a state university where there wasn’t exactly a lot of dollars sloshing around.
Uh dubya was reading a book about goats as WTC2 went down from some type of explosion not related to the jet plane that hit it.
-tc
albion, thomas conlon, i think what we’re after here is not a refutation of conspiracy theory, hell no, no way. the problem is that CTists are hobbled by an inability to act on that information. we’ve all been herded into a safe little pen where we can shout all we want.
and the conspiracy continues unabated.
when i said “george bush stole my lunch money” it was a little joke, based on my own continual whining about the evil i’ve uncovered in the world.
but what have i actually done to stop it? nothing.
so it’s also a call to arms. but until i’m prepared to risk my balls for the cause, i’m going to continue my conpiracy research less vociferously. our actions do the talking.
cindy sheehan has hurt “them” more than alex jones ever could. whining is disempowering, that’s why you’re encouraged to do it.
(not trying to be condescending at all, actually really sympathetic, we’re all in the same boat
)
Cheers Carlos. Well put!
thanks carlos, but i still say crank up the volume. i watched 20 minutes of cnn the other day (about all i can stand in 1 sitting) and it’s pretty obvious that cindy sheehan is being condescendingly put in the pen as a whiner by the smarmy media whores. imho, that’s one reason she’s a hero - for reclaiming one small corner of the infosphere by not shutting up and going away. if that’s whining, then whine on cindy!
i guess my point is, talk and action need to go hand in hand, if they’re going to go anywhere at all.