As you may have noticed lately, I have been back to my old conspiratorial tricks lately. Which I suppose is ironic seeing as my conspiracy renaissance came hot on the heels of my announcement this summer that I was bored to death with conspiracy theory. But hey, we’re all allowed to change our minds. It’s part of what makes us flexible and human…
So anyway, yeah, I’ve gone back in a serious way to looking for (and finding) hidden agendas and players behind the scenes of pop culture and events in the modern world. But I’ve also become more self-conscious about just what it is that I’m really looking for. What I’m after, it seems, is order out of chaos (ordo ab chao). Or more simply, I am looking for meaning and for proof of design.
Conspiracy theory, I think, is very much a reaction against a creeping nihilism within our culture. Things used to mean something. People used to stand for something. Values used to be clear cut. Conspiracy theory, I think, is a rebellion against the slide of the world into moral ambiguity and meaninglessness.
Which makes the common marriage of conspiracy theory with Christian Fundamentalism make a lot of sense, since both groups are trying to buttress themselves against a world and culture that they seem to believe is crumbling around them. Nihilism says there is no meaning in the world and thus no right or wrong action. Conspiracy theory says that there is meaning in the world, and that certain groups and individuals are actively trying to violate that meaning. Christian fundamentalism offers the solution/defense of committing yourself to God.
The thing I find most appealing about conspiracy theory is precisely that it posits a sort of intelligent design to the way the world is today. The idea that somebody evil is trying to do something bad is a step beyond the idea that events in this world are more or less random, or that it is simply ambiguous social trends and forces propelling things and putting them into their current shape. It posits an old-fashioned sense of individual responsibility for the bad things going on in this world, and it isn’t afraid to name names of who is doing these bad things.
We might even be able to go so far as to say that it is a kind of modern day animism: it seeks and finds intent behind all things. Nothing is blind or dumb or accidental. They meant to do that. That’s just what they want you to think, etc. Though it’s rare of course that conspiracy theorists can necessarily agree on just who “they” are. The point seems to simply be that “they” are those who have both intent and the power to carry out their intent in the world, disregarding the intent of those less powerful than them.
The antithesis of conspiracy theory seems to be the idea that nobody is really in control, and that this is far more terrifying than any vision of a secret cabal controlling world affairs. I wonder if, at the end of the day, the question doesn’t simply boil down to: do you believe in a sensible, ordered universe or not? Even Einstein, after all, famously said that God doesn’t play dice. But if he doesn’t maybe we do, or maybe we need to…
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT @TMBCHR (Auto-Generated)
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24 Comments
The Lottery in Babylon by Jorge Luis Borges
http://www.hfac.uh.edu/mcl/faculty/arm...trong/cityofdreams/texts/babylon.html
Welcome back to the dark sunglasses, friend. I likewise found my way back to the conspiratorial map awhile back, with attendant despair to boot (though you seem to have kept above that)–the despair’s mostly dissipating now that I feel the despair was over the conclusion seeing the hands behind the curtains (or any hands behind the curtain) implies…that if THEY are responsible for things, then so are WE and ultimately, so am I and every other individual. It’s a challenge to DO SOMETHING ABOUT it. Whether it’s like the gnostics or ol’ Wilhelm Reich, Phil Dick and Gurdjieff (acknowledging the prison world or the “gravity of the situation” and that it’s imperative to find a way “out”) or in some other way.
The human race is far too primitive, stupid, and lazy to maintain any conspiracy beyond a select few years. I believe Mr. Conspiracy himself, Robert Anton Wilson, said something similar.
Sure it may APPEAR to be a conspiracy, “The Man,” and so forth, but that’s really just people inferring things onto power structures which exist simply because nothing better or different has been created yet.
It’s the law of least resistance. The “cosmic conspiracy”–namely, we are as we are because the Earth is as it is, and the Earth is at it is because the Universe is as it is–is the only one that determines anything.
So the chaos answer is I think much more close to the truth, but conspiracy/end-timers will do all kinds of mental and emotional gymnastics to create a sense of “meaning” in their and our existence.
There’s a danger of falling into simplistic, black-white thinking here. Randomness and someone-is-in-control are not the only possible explanations for events.
There is at least one other alternative, in the idea that events are unfolding according to some natural law or principle. A sensible, ordered universe needn’t imply that there is some entity (God) controlling it all, let alone some conscious conspiracy of humans.
Think of the way plants grow, like an unfolding fractal. Robert Prechter, the Elliott Wave guy, thinks human societies develop in similar fashion and that — taken en masse — we are simply following the fractal patterns of our reptilian brains. The behavior of crowds is patterned over time, he says, and is a function of natural processes.
So I think the question doesn’t really boil down to whether or not this is a sensible, ordered universe. I can see how it might be, but still be one in which there is no possibility of transcendence, no “other side” to escape to, no “true reality” to realize. It’s meaning might be nothing more than the fractal equations governing its unfolding.
I think the question is really whether or not we consider ourselves at home in this universe. Or whether we see ourselves as trapped in it.
Maybe, maybe… but there are in fact many institutions of all kinds that have been maintained across a much longer span of time then “a few years”. So organizing systems and beliefs and MO’s that cover long periods of time isn’t exactly outside the grasp of human beings. Cheap example, the US has been maintaining a country and military for over 200 yrs…maybe some planning was involved?
David: What makes you think it has to be humans behind the conspiracy?
With a nod toward Goplat, I make the following correction to my previous comment:
A sensible, ordered universe needn’t imply that there is some entity (God) controlling it all, let alone some conscious conspiracy of humans , extraterrestials, demons or other creatures.
Yes, the apotheosis of conspiracy theory: nothing has not been forseen, including the development of this and all other conspiracy theories. (see story above :))
The human conspiracy assumes that these humans have enough self-determination to make any decisions, that they are not themselves manipulated to the utmost degree.
Are Bush and Cheney on top of things? They are playing long-established roles, Bush could hardly more represent the archetypal Idiot Boy-King, and Cheney could hardly more represent the Evil Counseller.
If there’s an Illuminati circle at the top of the hierarchy, they themselves were born into it.
Nope. I tend toward the Douglas Adams/South Park view. If they’re up there in their dark-matter powered ships, they just watch us through their ultra high-powered telescopes and laugh out endless streams of cyanic gas through their gills. The real purpose of the Prime Directive is to provide non-interactive entertainment.
To plan a culture or government is one thing. To work intentionally behind-the-scenes as a subterfuge, secretively, to get masses of people to do what you want without them knowing? Can’t see it, at least not as a prolonged effort. Would give too much credit to those who don’t deserve it.
David said:
“To plan a culture or government is one thing. To work intentionally behind-the-scenes as a subterfuge, secretively, to get masses of people to do what you want without them knowing? Can’t see it, at least not as a prolonged effort. Would give too much credit to those who don’t deserve it.”
That attempts to manipulate public opinion have occurred is an indisputable fact. There are many well-documented techniques which have been used. Advertising. Propaganda. “False flag” operations. The “Delphi Technique”. Etc.
Does a conspiracy have to succeed in order to count as a conspiracy? Is anything that falls short of the perfect crime still a crime?
The question posed by conspiracy theories, no matter who is identified as the conspirators or what their goals are alleged to be, is “To what extent have they succeeded? What opportunities for resistance are still open to us?”
See: Hanlon’s Razor
also: “Never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” - paraphrase of “Hanlon’s Razor”, attributions vary
As a side note, Gore Vidal recently recanted his view that Bush & Co. were behind 9/11 - 5 years on, Vidal has decided (based on the available evidence) that the current admin isn’t smart or coordinated enough - they’re too incompetent
Thank you, Rev Max. I had used that very saying for years but never had any idea what its origination was. I’m much more a fan of Hanlon’s than Occam’s, though they both do have their uses.
And Gore Vidal is probably right. BushCo are opportunists, but they’re not masterminds–of anything.
Quoth wikipedia:
What is the name for the belief that God is stupid and/or blind? There should be a 25 cent word for that too.
Amblyotheism
I think I expressed my opinion is that yes, conspiracies can indeed exist, but no, I don’t think any of them have lasted generations or done what magical-thinking people would, in their romantic worldview, like to attribute to them.
Propaganda and advertising are simply tools used toward a specific, transient goal, whether political, capitalistic or a mix of the two. The most painful conspiracy-theory crap on the ol’ net seems to elevate the “conspirators” to a genius, Illuminati-type level inferring that if not FOR them, people wouldn’t be so easily manipulated/apathetic/evil.
They’ve got it backwards. It’s the PEOPLE (us) who suck, who hand down the aforementioned mass idiocy in an almost genetic/organic way, whether it’s following consumerism, or political or religious dogma. The vultures simply respond to that need. They change the game’s outward form as often as is necessary, but they have no grand vision, only an aim to profit from ignorance as quickly and effectively as possible. Anyone with sense can see it, anyone without will be bilked.
Conspiracy theories are cowardly in a way. I feel this intuitively because they allow certain individuals to abdicate their own responsibility for the particular fix they find themselves in.
A glaring example is the spike in anti-Jewish feeling in the last several years. Leaving as much of modern political specifics out as possible, the new anti-semites who lap up old conspiracy junk about the “International Zionist Cabal” are almost all unified as being those whose own cultures in one way or another are failing miserably, but won’t dare to challenge their own shortcomings in anything resembling an impartial manner.
The most difficult thing a person can do is to take responsibility for their own consciousness. People will do almost anything to avoid even thinking about it.
Technically, science tells us that a conspiracy to fake miracles (probably more than one, but I refer to those inside the Catholic Church) has succeeded for hundreds if not thousands of years. But most conspiracy theories require such drastic mind-alteration to explain how the conspiracy stays secret that Occam’s Razor says to keep the mind-alteration and ditch the conspiracy. Wilhelm Reich showed that we can just as easily imagine a sort of ‘mind control’ that perpetuates itself like a disease. The people who benefit or appear to benefit also suffer from the disease in a different way.
Of course, occultists might say that such a disease could take on a life of its own. The literal interpretation of this contains a built-in explanation for why we don’t always notice our magical ability. The way we use it (the way we evolved to use it, if we regard magick and gods the way science would if we could prove their existence) creates people who don’t always want us to notice.
Science, in this model, may serve as a control system by helping to hide our native magick power. But then where did Dr. Wilhelm Reich come from? In this model, science has changed the gods or egregores or self-perpetuating spells in some way. What if it infected the control systems themselves with a virus that aims to free us?
i always surmised that god is the dice. and secondly I think the reason there’s a surge in occultism is because science* has brought us back to it.. and provided models that explain why magic works sufficiently enough that people are more open to the possibility of generating subtle energy fields, or remote viewing, or building ritual spaces
*and not just quantum sorcery, either. the cognitive sciences and p-braned string theory are really blurring the lines between magick and science
I think the antithesis of CT is not that nobody really is in control; it would be that EVERYONE is in control, that every single person has the power and will to do what they want, for the right reasons, without negative consequences.
But that’s just me.
A perfect summation of the technocratic/scientific worldview if I’ve ever heard one! It’s more and more my belief that the only “conspiracy” that exists in that this worldview has been enthroned and has bled down through to almost every facet of life… It still seems to end in nihilism for me though. But maybe I’m thinking about it wrong.
Right, the human *race* but not individual humans or groups of humans. To apply that thinking would imply that humans are too primitive, stupid and lazy to do ANYTHING, let alone a conspiracy
Uh, DUH - it’s called gnosticism!
It still seems to end in nihilism for me though. But maybe I’m thinking about it wrong.
Gee, you think?