A Facebook friend of mine is a conspiracy nut. She was tagged in a post by a friend of hers, so up in my ‘news’ feed comes a post offering incontrovertible evidence that persistent contrails are in fact chemical spraying of the populace or the planet for nefarious purposes. I was dimly aware of this notion but was taken aback when encountering such people in the (virtual) flesh.
People who don’t buy it are portrayed as ‘ignorant’ or ‘duped’, and are urged to open their eyes and their minds to the Obvious Truth. Just Look Up! A rash of ‘proof’ videos gets posted in comments. If the statements were subsequently retracted, they’ve been ‘got at’. If they admit hoax, they’ve been got at or it was all part of the plot. The world is sharply divided into Believers and Non-Believers; the latter are either ‘sheeple’ or part of the Disinformation Plot. There is no conceivable evidence that can convince a Believer that they err, that the trails have a simple physical explanation, or that there is not a massive international Them out to get us. Non-believers could be convinced, but their evidential standards are clearly different. Yet both sides wrangle on, certain that if they can just find the right form of words, the other will see sense.
This all has a familiar ring.
To me, conspiracy theories don’t even get out of the starting gate because of basic human nature. The implausibility of a sustainable conspiracy involving even a handful of people with no blabbing, pricked conscience or deathbed confession, is enough to dismiss the entire lot. In the case of chemtrails we have airlines, airports, security allowing tankers airside, mechanics, ATC, airplane breakers yards, chemical factories, transportation, governments of every conceivable political hue, including those whose relations extend only to grudgingly allowing each others’ planes to land … tens of thousands of people having supposed knowledge of and complicity in the spraying of toxins on family, friends, neighbours or foreign nationals (and, incidentally, on Them), in a co-ordinated manner coming in from all points of the compass. Yet none of these people carries a smartphone? This elaborate hogwash is preferred over the physical explanation, that under certain atmospheric conditions contrails (like clouds) persist. It’s an approach to evidence I cannot even begin to comprehend. It beggars belief that people should subscribe to such tosh, but subscribe they do, in droves. One sees some amusing exchanges – such as here, where a surprising number of people takes it seriously, and is subjected in return to some hilariously deadpan responses (“Who needs mass vaccination anyway?” “You do”). Of course such sites, to the committed, are part of the disinformation plot, to make chemtrailers look ridiculous (!). It stops being funny when one sees people so incensed by the ‘poisoning’ to which they believe they are subjected that they advocate violence to pilots and planes. I suspect it is only a matter of time before someone takes action.
I know that some here have supported one conspiracy or another, so I thought an OP may generate some interest.
I think “conspiracies” are mostly unconscious–if that makes any sense.
Makes perfectly good sense!
I highly recommend this latest book by Ehrman which rehashes much of Crossan and Pagels but in easier sound bites
http://www.bartdehrman.com/jesus-before-the-gospels/
sociologists have demonstrated how a group’s collective memory and current perception of reality are both “constructs” strongly shaped by the issues and concerns of the remembering community just as much by the events themselves
A case in point would be, how a majority of Americans currently remember President Abraham Lincoln is grandiloquently delusional in extremis; especially so after the 60s
Ditto the Jesus confabulations of Paul (one contender in a field of many) which eventually gained ascendency in Constantine’s new order, for less than noble imperial ulterior motives.
Chemtrails are real. Their purpose is the distribution of psychotomimetics that induce susceptibility to paranoid belief in ridiculous conspiracy theories that can’t possibly be true. The evidence is right before your eyes: witness widespread belief in chemtrails. Proof positive: chemtails are real.
walto,
Not sure what you mean tbh. I might agree that, where conspiracies do occur, they don’t involve everyone getting round a table and consciously agreeing to something, and to keep it hush-hush.
But still, to believe that so many people are quietly involved in something harmful – up to and including genocide – requires a particularly warped view of what people who are not in the ‘in-group’ are capable of .. notwithstanding that people have, historically, been complicit in genocide, and its covering-up. In this instance, though, the ‘victims’ include the families of the supposed perpetrators.
I know if someone asked me to do something like that as part of my job, I would probably mention it to someone, and take some piccies!
Yes, but have you really considered why the chemtrails keep appearing? It can’t be for any good reason, can it?
No, I’m not serious. I suppose I’m really more impressed with how widespread the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories were–and even are. Of course the beauty of that one is that collectively you could blame your favorite bad guys just by picking and choosing–it could be the CIA, FBI, Cuba, the Soviets, LBJ, the Mafia, etc.
And it was probably a bit more plausible than chemtrails and moon landing theories, although the problem of no one coming forward was considerable there, too. Probably it didn’t need to be as widespread a conspiracy of silence as many did, but it still had to be too big to keep quiet for long.
Considering that a majority of Americans believed in that conspiracy until recently, it’s clear that people are quite susceptible. Most probably weren’t too much into it, at least, just knowing that one set or other of bad guys would almost certainly be up to carrying the conspiracy through. Yet a whole lot of people who thought they were above that sort of thing nonetheless bought into it.
Glen Davidson
Allan, consider the “groupspeak” or team play one finds in politics (or even right here). Isn’t it tantamount to a kind of conspiracy theorizing?
Back in the good old days, people only had to worry about tigers, leopards, bears (and other critters), about smallpox and the plague, about famine.
These days, it is so much worse when we have to worry about chemtrails, vaccines and fluoridated water.
</sarcasm>
It is my view (completely unsubstantiated) that people who believe in conspiracy theories suffer some paranoid-narcissistic pathology. Without an unreasonable belief that something or someone is out to get you, there is no way that the belief in a conspiracy theory can take root. The evidence against them is too overwhelming for people without paranoid-narcissistic tendencies to accept them.
All you have to do is look at KairosFocus’ latest rants over at UD. Indiana Effigy pushed his buttons by bringing up same sex marriage. KF has elevated this to a leftist-materialist-evolutionist coordinated agenda that will lead us all over a cliff to a broken back. Getting IE banned in the process. KF obviously believes in a worldwide conspiracy to destroy Christianity and Christian values (whatever those are). And his obvious paranoia and narcicism are there for everybody to see.
But, when people are out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking.
Anyhow, I blame the Illuminati for sparking conspiracy theories.
Who else would benefit so much from spreading disinformation, and shifting the blame that properly belongs to them?
Glen Davidson
Paging WJM, Paging WJM.
Allan Miller,
I remember in college (UC Berkeley) believing that the Kennedy assignation was a grand conspiracy. The reason was a lecture on campus by a forensic pathologist who argued with evidence that it was impossible to fire the shots in the time allowed by a film that was taken of the events. Also a bullet was recovered that was in pristine condition. Years later I realized that I had not listened to the counter argument and so my conviction was based on one side of the argument.
walto,
There’s pattern behaviour certainly, but I would consider these things distinct. Conspiracy-theorising does tend to have a ‘in-group outgroup’ approach, with extra layers of mutual contempt as with many a tribal alignment (people from the wrong part of town, people supporting the wrong team etc). But conspiracy theories as I understand them are distinguished by the extra flavour that Things Are Not As They Seem, and not merely tribalism.
colewd,
I always think ‘why?’. Why would so many people want the world to believe a version of events other than that which transpired? Sometimes the question has a good answer – revisionism is a thing – but I don’t encounter such an answer in the Kennedy case, nor the rest of the Top 50. ISTM that once one has bought into one, the rest follow more easily. Or if not, by what criteria does one distinguish a good one from a wacky one?
Conspiracy theories are like the gods of ancient myth — they are by-products of a deeply ingrained hominid disposition to over-attribute mental states. Conspiracy theories, like myths, help us make sense of the world by anthropomorphizing it. We would rather live in a world that make sense at all than believe that the terrible things that happen are genuinely without reason. (Cf. Nietzsche — “man would rather will nothing than not will.) At work here too is a difficulty in distinguishing between causes and reasons, so that behind causal explanations one sees the effects of intentional agency.
I think you need to distinguish between secret and open conspiracies.
Both progressives and regressives have political agendas and organizations, some of which are loud, and some of which are quiet money. Rich people buy influence, openly and secretly. At the moments, many governments have agreed to a trade treaty which can’t be published.
You would have to be a bit blind not to be suspicious of people in power. Leaded water, anyone? What about the families and friends of the people who let that one in?
Just add “…To Them” or “…To The Uninitiated” to your “Things Are Not As They Seem” and the two ideas melt into one.
Allan Miller,
I think that it comes with lack of trust for who is establishing the theory and so a filter in the brain processes one side of the story. In the Kennedy case I today do not know which side is true. Sometimes the conspiracy theory is true and then general mis trust occurs. There was a conspiracy theory that high-level government leadership was behind a break in of the democratic national headquarters in the 1960s. The theory tuned out to be true and this has created a lack of trust in the government and vulnerability to untrue conspiracy theories involving the government. I think your momentum hypothesis is probably right. I also think that conspiracy theories create entertainment and can sell as evidence of their proliferation in Hollywood. What do you mean by revisionism?
walto, to Allan:
Nah, they’re still distinct. You can have “Us vs Them” without “they are secretly conspiring”. Think of pencil neck geeks.
Even Prince was a chemtrailer.
His sudden death was just retribution from the chemtrail cabal for spilling the beans on their plans.
I agree with that, but can you have “they are secretly conspiring” without the U v. T thing going on? If they’re not the same, they’re at least hand-in-hand.
Conspiracy’s have been and are real and going on. its just a matter of what is true and isn’
t.Christianity teaches there is a conspiracy by Satan to influence mankind for evil and resistance to the Christ salvation for us. this is true but is hidden in so many ways.
there is a conspiracy of Christ and his church against Satan and all that. Hidden or not.
Politics is full of conspiracy’s. people trying to get their way or lead things there way without the majority understanding.
Hitler had conspiracy’s. Things hidden until found out. like the holocaust.
Commies were always in conspiracy.
Its the belief people can be decieved and must be to get things along.
Every pickpocket is in conspiracy. They brush up against you like nothing unnormal and poof your wallet/watch/ shoes are gone.
i’m not certain but i lean that there is a evolutionist conspiracy in presenting that evidence for evolution is rock solid but in fact they know its very soggy. Not that they are not convinced themselves of evolution but quietly hide the poverty of evidence. especially because it touches on Christianity and Christiandom.
are there any high ranking around willing to say yes or no!!??
I recall a conspiracy theorist at a website 15 years ago who went on and on about the government having software written to scan everyone’s email.
I think what separates paranoids from the rest of us is the inability to weigh evidence and probabilities. It certainly isn’t the absence of actual misbehaving officials.
The U v. T thing might be involved with at least most conspiracy theories, but is it always the dominant factor? Clearly many people believe in conspiracies because they make sense of the world for them, as KN pointed out.
I mean, look at Byers’ comment, no doubt the UvT bit is playing its role (it’s really a rather common human impulse), but it’s also how he makes sense of the world. Creationism is right, so how do you explain evolutionists? Well, they’re claiming great evidence when they know better. Dobzhansky’s more correct, of course, that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution (Massimo Piglucci disagreed, as if Dobzhansky’s comment was meant to be taken literally rather than as an aphorism–sheesh), but it doesn’t make sense of Robert’s world.
A conspiracy to prop up anti-Christian ideology does make sense in his world. The Kennedy assassination conspiracies made sense of the world (of course the favorite villains were fingered, but if they weren’t there many would probably go for the next best thing) to people, too. Can’t just be some weird guy ending Camelot with a rifle, it has to be due to a plan by the baddies.
Conspiracies make use of the huge amount of us vs. them thinking of humans, but only some of them seem to exist more because of UvT thinking, while in other cases people make sense of the world via a conspiracy theory, and simply ascribe evil to the usual suspects.
Glen Davidson
petrushka,
I mistrust everyone in power. But I also doubt their competence.
colewd,
Sure, that one comes up a lot. But it failed, which is my point. All conspiracies involving more than a handful of people will fail (IMO). Those involving tens of thousands – gimme a break!
this
keiths,
And (some) people reckon he was killed because of this!
eta – Ninja’d by Acartia!
Robert Byers,
I’m very high ranking, and I say no.
The ‘us vs them’ thing, I think, surfaces more in Believers vs non-Believers among the general populace, than The Power vs The People.
It was notable in my brief Facebook exchange how much people try to spice their ‘evidence’ with a prod – “if you approach the evidence with an open mind” – “if you use your senses and don’t just believe what you’re told”. It’s ironic, because of course I don’t perceive them as having an open mind, and I perceive them as believing anything they’re told, from particular quarters. We’re sheeple, they’re paranoid fantasists.
I was discussing this with mutual friends – I don’t personally know the guy who made the original post – and I was trying to determine if he was Poe-ing or not. I was 60/40 for Yes. But my mates reckoned that 5 years ago he’d have done this just to provoke a reaction, now he’s swallowed it whole.
It’s both funny and sad watching the exchanges on Poe pages such as International Chemtrail Association or Captain Carl The Chemtrail Pilot. Like prank calls, I can laugh for a while, then feel slight unease, and want to spare the embarrassment of the dupe and pull back the curtain.
I think I’m losing the sense of being exactly sure what a conspiracy is, or at least whether that term has a single meaning.
Allan, as you use ‘conspiracy’ do the conspirers have to have some sort of cover for what they do? A plausible theory to fool the rubes? Or is it just doing something that others don’t know about? E.g., can a plan to rob a bank or win a state primary be a conspiracy if it is successfully kept secret?
When is (for example) a government program that few people have the interest to pay attention to a conspiracy? Must there be a denial that that’s what they’re really doing to turn a program into a conspiracy? And, as you understand the term, MUST it be a government program–or something that “people in power” concoct in secret– to be a conspiracy, or could any large group get up to one?
walto,
‘Conspiracy theory’ as I am using the term is related to the explanation of some phenomenon in human affairs as being due to something other than the obvious or simple explanation. eg the moon landings were fake. Enormous and complicated hoax involving a big rocket, or they really went there in that big rocket. Hard to pull off, but probably not as hard as the hoax.
There are obviously such things as conspiracies. But conspiracy theorists tend to concoct some story and then point to conspiracy as the reason why their story must prevail. So the conspiracy itself is part of the theory – usually a vital part, because there is no other way of dispensing with certain counterfactuals. They generally have no evidence of the conspiracy – which proves how effective it was … !
such as …
I think Allan is on to something with his intriguing OP
Is Christian Orthodoxy by definition a “conspiracy theory”?
Definition of “conspiracy theory”:
A conspiracy theory is an explanatory or speculative hypothesis suggesting that higher-ups have engaged in some kind of cover up.
The prevalence of conspiracy theories coincide with a prediction to a particular psychology. From Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory#Psychology
Sound familiar? Basically the Pagels work on the origins of Christianity, in particular her great book
The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics
…fit Barkun’s rubric very nicely
ITMT – many of the illucid posts by would-be champions of some untenable versions of modern Christian Orthodoxy on this very forum, seem to epitomize those three rubrics handily.
Seems like that definition makes relativity theory and quantum mechanics conspiracies.
That’s sort of how I understand the term, though I’m not sure that ‘higher ups’ always have to be part of the story. Seems like they just need to be capable of ‘putting one over.’
I don’t understand why there isn’t more skepticism here about the moon landing. We have what, one person alive on earth who claims to be a eyewitness? And we all know how unreliable eyewitness testimony is.
To my way of thinking, “conspiracy theories” somehow reject conventional wisdom as validated by authority. Again, I defer to the authority of Barkun cited above. 😉
That means some rejection of authority becomes the sine qua non of “conspiracy theory”
In the case of the early Christians, rejected authority would represent the authority of the Sadducee Sanhedrin and later the Pharisaical tradition of the rabbinical tradition that survived the destruction of the Temple (in no small part ironic given Jesus subscribed to Pharisee tradition).
In any case, a cover-up is an attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal evidence of wrongdoing, error, incompetence or other embarrassing information…
… in the case of early Christianity, the failure of Jesus’ Apocalyptic prophesy to come true and the embarrassment of his humiliating execution at the hands of Roman oppressors.
As I mentioned on an earlier occasion, this book is really worth a read:
Today, we witness various illucid versions of Christianity rejecting scientific authority. Maybe that would explain why so many Creationists also reject Global Warming, as just one for instance…
Depends what you mean by “eyewitness” I think. Plus there’s a lot of other solid evidence besides eyewitnesses, available, no? Not just that people have come to believe it.
I have no particular objection to that definition, I just point out that it’s restrictive. For example, no government could claim there was a conspiracy of revolutionaries hanging around. Or if it did, belief in such a conspiracy, no matter how far fetched, couldn’t be an example of a conspiracy theory (so defined).
Again, it wouldn’t be a conspiracy theory if I believed that all the people on my block were conspiring against me by putting LSD in my water supply.
Did they fake the moon rocks?
Unless the scientists are lying about the moon rocks (again,the numbers problem then hits), we’re really talking about very complex phenomena being faked. Plus, they can be, and are, compared with meteorites that are very similar–apparently rocks knocked off of the moon by meteorite strikes.
The Soviets and the US exchanged lunar rocks as well. To be sure, the Soviets got them without putting humans on the moon, but again we have a kind of control, rocks from an unmanned mission being compared with hundreds of pounds of rocks picked up by humans (apparently) during US missions (pictures and all). Were there somehow a bunch of unmanned US missions picking up those rocks that the Soviets didn’t notice and call “fraud” on?
A satellite also took pictures of moon landing sites, complete with astronaut tracks. To be sure, that can always be fobbed off as part of the conspiracy, but if those pictures hadn’t been revealed after a satellite had gotten near enough to the moon to take such photos, I’m sure that would be considered a strike against. Again, though, how much complex fakery do people think that the US can pull off without any serious mistakes (the alleged mistakes tend to fall apart)?
It’s really too much, especially the numbers of people who had to be in on the fraud, if there was one, without any coming forward decades later to brag about it.
Glen Davidson
Ah, but we have videotape, and we have thousands of amateur radio operators. The delay in reception from the moon cannot be hidden or fakes when you have thousands of independent receivers all over the world.
Which gets me to my take on conspiracy theories.
It’s not so much what is being conspired, but the weighing of evidence and probabilities.
If your theory is a government has covered up incompetence, I’d say you are dealing with a common phenomenon. No paranoia required.
If your theory is that a government has staged a massive hoax that required the collusion of thousands of technically competent individuals, I’d refer you back to the likelihood of incompetence.
In any case, I’d argue that the topics of conspiracy theories are mostly not outlandish. What makes a theory outlandish is lack of consilient evidence, and lack of plausible means.
See, conspiracy.
That’s the beauty of conspiracy theories, either you agree that, say, evolution’s a conspiracy, or you’re either a part of the conspiracy or one of the dupes. Heads I win, tails you lose.
Glen Davidson
There are also the retroreflectors left by the Apollo program. Anyone can point a laser and demonstrate those exist for themselves.
Plus there is the fact that at the time of the Apollo program the technology existed to put people on the moon but not to spoof the video footage.
With a true conspiracy theory any fact to the contrary is evidence for an even larger conspiracy.
THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.
Still stings, eh?
Reciprocating Bill,
What about all those animals that saw Aslan getting shaved?
Careful, I hear he’s on the move.
walto,
I don’t see why. I was careful to say ‘in human affairs’.
Mung,
I don’t understand why there isn’t less.
walto,
I don’t see why not.
Sorry, I’m getting very negative in my responses. Yes, yes, everyone is correct.