(This article is the second version of a
blog post I wrote a few months ago. The
first version was somehow lost. No, I
don’t suspect that it was destroyed by reptilian shape shifters that didn’t
want you to read it. My schedule has
relaxed enough now that I’m able to write a second version of this article. I hope it’s as informative as the first (missing) version.)
In a previous
article, “Why Some People are Attracted to Conspiracy Theories,” I broke all
the rules and presented my politically incorrect findings. Yes, I admit it; I’m a thought criminal.
It's highly curious that a
belief in conspiracies is considered aberrant enough to warrant
socio-psychological analysis; but no one seems to question why some other
people are addicted to official narratives and have a phobia of conspiracy
theories. It’s as if the official
narratives are the default explanation of events (like the reasonableness of
wearing a hat as protection from the blinding rays of the sun), and that skepticism
of official narratives is considered an oddball alternative (like wearing a
lampshade over your head).
(Actually,
it’s the conspiratophobe who likes to imagine “truthers” as the sort of people
who wear lampshades—probably so that people around the “truthers” will not be
blinded by the dazzling light of truth.
Doesn’t it seem odd to “accuse” a political opponent of wanting to know
the truth? For what it’s worth, the
opposite of truther is liar.)
In the
article, “Why Some People are Attracted to Conspiracy Theories,” I gave three
commonly given explanations and showed the absurdity of all three. To give equal time to conspiratophobes, I
give three explanations for why certain other people have a phobia of
anything—question, fact, or theory—that calls an official narrative into
question. Here are the three
explanations:
1. They
are vain; to them, social responsibility is less important than a sense of
personal reward or the approval of others.
2. They’re
either lazy or they’re moral cowards.
3. They
miss the comfort and security of their mothers’ wombs.
They are vain; to them, social
responsibility is less important than a sense of personal reward or the
approval of others. This motivation is rather tricky to examine because
certain virtues, such as social responsibility, are often compartmentalized. I’ve known conspiratophobes who gave very
much of themselves through organizations dedicated to helping others—deeds that
brought them considerable honor and praise. Belief in a conspiracy theory, however, calls for a similar level of
commitment to the needs of others, but very few people will praise you for
it. More often, it results in disrepute
and even social ostracism.
Let’s say the
year is 2006. You tell someone that the
NSA has been conducting widespread warrantless wiretaps. Year after year, for he automatically rejects
any and all evidence you try to show him, declaring that it’s too evil to
contemplate. After all, we live in a
“democracy.” In a democracy “our”
government would never do something that evil and authoritarian. Fast forward to last year—Edward Snowden. To the conspiratophobe, this is a recent
revelation; (“Who could have known?” he says.)—notwithstanding that the
evidence had been around since 2006.
Just as suddenly, the evil, authoritarian practice of widespread,
warrantless wiretapping has become a good thing that is necessary to protect us
from Al Qaeda or some other boogey man of the day. All that is needed now is an
extra-constitutional Presidential Directive defining the limits of a practice
that has already overstepped constitutional limits.
They’re lazy or are moral cowards. When a citizen has a healthy skepticism of
those in power, he assumes a burden that he had not had before the skepticism
arose. He’s required to use critical
thinking skills instead of simply responding to spin doctor-generated
stimuli—the same sort of stimuli that advertisers use to convince gullible
people to pay twice as much for a pair of shoes as it’s really worth, all
because it has a corporate symbol on it, or because the corporation has paid
millions of dollars for a famous athlete to wear it in a television commercial.
It’s not that
they can’t get excited about something and generate energy as a result of that
excitement. They can get very excited
about the Super Bowl, a rock star, the latest fad, or some other pointless
diversion. Those things don’t require
taking a stand that someone else may oppose.
Those who find it fashionable to get excited about meaningless things
are the very people who give the fisheye to people who display even a little
passion about things that matter—such as the genocide of Palestinians (a sure
ticket to being labeled anti-Semitic), the Bill of Rights (easily dismissed as the
work of home-grown terrorists”), GMO (luddites), or the Bible (intolerance). There’s always a convenient label to
marginalize anyone who upsets the status quo, and to shut down a conversation
so you can go back to your mindless game of moving dots around on your
so-called “smart” phone.
They miss the comfort and security of their mothers’ wombs. An addiction to official narratives is key to
their paradigm for “understanding” the world around them. In their world, there are no stakeholders but
themselves, and the world revolves around their desire for security and happiness.
In their
world, the news media have to tell them the whole truth at all times because
the news media have only one stakeholder: the newspaper buyer or the news
program viewer. Like the babe in the
womb, they fail to see the owners, investors, sources, creditors, advertisers,
and others who also have a stake in the news media. As often as not, the other stakeholders have
interests that are completely against the interests of the newspaper buyer or
television watcher. (See here)
In the world of conspiracy denial, politicians have only one stakeholder: the voter. The conspiratophobe’s one measly vote (if he
votes at all) is more than a match for campaign donors, high-powered lobbyists,
intelligence agencies, foreign diplomats, international bankers, and many
others—if they enter his thinking at all.
At the same time, politicians (most of whom have never created value in
their entire lives) have the magical abilities to do things that everyone knows
can’t be done—such as creating millions of jobs just by signing a name to a
sheet of paper. (See here.)
The world as
imagined by your typical conspiratophobe is a world that hasn’t existed since
he was in his mother’s womb, or in story books his mother read to him as a
small child. It’s a world populated by
magical beings that exist only to perform miracles especially for the
conspiratophobe. In short, a typical
conspiratophobe is someone who has an irrational aversion to reality because
reality calls for responsibility and is sometimes uncomfortable.
A conspiracy
theorist, by contrast, is the following:
1. Someone
who believes that human events are caused by humans.
2. Someone
who believes that politicians sometimes have ulterior motives.
3. Someone
who believes that the assassination of Julius Caesar wasn't a spontaneous
event.
4. Someone
who believes that Richard Nixon “knew something” about Watergate before he read
it in the Washington Post.
5. Someone
who, when a politician says, “Read my lips,” also takes care to watch his
hands.
6. Someone
who believes, as Lord Acton did, that “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power
corrupts absolutely.”
7. Someone
who believes that politics, by its very nature, is conspiratorial.
8. Someone
who, when a politician pats him on the back, is smart enough to know whether
the politician is just feeling for a place to put the knife. When a politician pats a conspiratophobe on
the back, he’s attaching a sign that says, “I’m gullible. Trick me.”
Here are a couple of videos that the
average liar (the opposite of truther) dares not watch:
