Conspiracy Theory and Lunacy

Something that has been occupying my thoughts of late is the endless lunacy of those special people who believe that there is a vast, all-encompassing and all powerful conspiracy of shadowy figures that run the world. I've talked about them before and termed them "conspiracy theorists". Last time out I was rather scathing about that broadly defined group. But a few conversations that I've had recently (that, and the excellent program "the conspiracy files") have got me thinking about conspiracy theorists again. Specifically, do any of them actually have a point? And was I wrong to dismiss them en masse?

I'll explain; someone asked me what conspiracies I actually believed in. And I found myself stating that I didn't believe in the official government line about the current Iraq occupation (which, as near as I can make out, is a mish-mash of "it's part of the War on Terror", "It was to stop Saddam getting weapons of Mass Destruction", and "we're improving the life of the people of Iraq"; depending on what day it is, you'll hear a different answer vomiting from the lips of an uncomfortable looking government spokesman) as evidence that I don't unquestioningly believe whatever the official version of events happens to be. I was a little surprised to be told that this shouldn't count as a conspiracy theory because "everyone knows that the Government version is a lie".

Up until then, I'd defined a conspiracy theory as something that differed from an official governmental version of events, and went on to provide it's own explanation of what "really" happened. So if we take the Iraqi land grab as an example, the most commonly accepted conspiracy theory surrounding that one is that the US used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq in order to secure their oil reserves. However, apparently this is not a conspiracy theory and the only reason given for that is because, apparently, everyone knows it. Does that mean then that a conspiracy theory has to be something known only to a select few? Does it have to be something that is rejected by the mainstream in order to qualify? And if that is the case, doesn't that mean I'm entirely correct in dismissing conspiracy theorists as a bunch of burnt out failures who conjure up elaborate fantasies about the way the world works in order to re-assure themselves that they actually have an important part in it?

It took a conversation with a fully fledged conspiracy theorist to demonstrate to me that, in fact, I'd been going about this all wrong. What defines a conspiracy theorist isn't so much their theory, but the way they feel about it. For example, I know of people who believe that JFK was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald (and I count myself among those people). We all have our different theories about how he was killed and who killed him, and we all have differing degrees of evidence to back up our theories. What we don't have is conclusive proof and (most importantly) we acknowledge this. Oh, we can present a case in a convincing manner but the simple fact is that our belief that Oswald didn't kill JFK is just that; a belief. An article of faith. We’ll ask questions of the official version, but we don't try to tell someone that our belief is 100% incontrovertible fact, and it's there that the main difference lies.

In this same conversation, the conspiracy theorist put forward his belief that the world was being run by a group of Occultists who simultaneously had their roots in both the Nazi movement and ancient history. One of the starting points of his rather bizarre belief was that "the Nazis wanted to rule the world and set up a world government". Now this statement rang alarm bells with me (as opposed to his initial belief, which really should have triggered my "this man is a foaming idiot" bell), because being a bit of a History buff, I was under the impression that the Nazis actually opposed any sort of World Government as it was a "Jewish" concept. Basically, a forged document called the Elder Protocols of Zion together with a long-lived conspiracy theory about a mythical group called "The Illuminati" led many anti-Semites to take the view that any world government would be an organisation secretly run by the Jews.

Not only that, but Hitler himself had gone on record as saying that the Reich he wanted to create would be an organisation much like the British Empire. In other words, it would be the dominant influence on global politics, but not the sole influence. Yes, he wanted to dominate Europe, but he and the rest of the Nazi movement saw that European Empire as something to rival the British Empire. So I asked him to provide some evidence for his assertion that the Nazis wanted a world government.

(At this point I should mention that, having read the last 2 paragraphs back to myself, it sounds like I was conversing with someone who is more than a few bricks short of a load. And I would absolutely agree with that assessment.)

He could provide none. And that's fair enough; as I've mentioned, I can't provide huge swathes of evidence for my belief about JFK being killed by someone other than Oswald. So I asked him to confirm that his assertion about Nazis and world government was an article of faith. And he refused. Not in a "I can't do that, and here is some evidence as to why not" way, but in a "I'm going to stamp my feet and hold my breath until I turn blue unless you believe me lalalalalalalalalalaI’mnotlisteninglalalalalalala!" sort of manner.

Obviously, that is just one example from a wide range of conspiracy theorists, and I hope you see the point I'm trying to make. If not, I'll make it explicit; the gentlemen I was talking to was trying to pass off a belief of his as a stone cold, copper-bottomed fact. The only evidence he was able to produce was "because I say so". And it's this feature of conspiracy theory that caused me to view the whole damned lot of them with suspicion.

They claim to be tellers of truth and guardians of the sacred flame of honesty. They claim that they oppose "them", the ones who are lying to you and trying to make you believe lies, and who condemn any who do not swallow their bullshit. Yet when one presses them for evidence, or even simply asks them a question about their pet theory, they will be evasive and dishonest. They will lie to you, try to make you believe their lie, and condemn you if you don't accept it. Worryingly, they don’t seem to see the irony in this.

This is in stark contrast to the type of conspiracy theorist who is actually interested in debate, and who is as honest about the flaws in their theory as they are its strengths. So I've started to differentiate between the two. Those people who will lie to you to try and convince you of their belief, I now term "Conspiraloons". It's a handy term, an accurate one, and it stops me from unfairly lumping in conspiracy theorists with them.

Of course, I say "condemn you". 9 times out of 10, their condemnation takes the form of the kind of insults one heard at school before one actually learned how to debate; "you're so naïve" is a popular retort by the conspiraloon on the back foot. As is "You're one of THEM!", and (for those conspiraloons who are also Bill Hicks fans) "Go back to bed [insert name here]. You just don't know what's really going on". Hardly the scathing wit and rapier-like intellect of someone who has somehow managed to find out the deepest secrets of a pervasive and omnipresent evil conspiracy and share that truth with the world at a risk to his own life and liberty. More the petulance of someone angry that his or her belief isn’t being unquestioningly accepted. And, I would suspect, the bitterness of one who has seen their life turn out rather worse than they were expecting, and wants to blame someone else for it (preferably a worldwide organisation so that they can also feel important) rather than take responsibility for their own poor decisions in life.

I think one of the reasons that I despise these conspiraloons so much is the same one that I abhor organised religion; they claim to be something they're not, and as such they are liars and hypocrites. Actually, conspiraloons share a lot of traits with evangelical Christians; both want everyone to believe what they do, both view their beliefs and faith as something self-evidently factual, both will go to any lengths to avoid honest debate, and both throw monstrous hissy fits whenever one points out a flaw in their statements.

However, the main reason that I have such a problem with them is their effect on honest debate. It's incredibly easy for any government to dismiss any questioning of their official versions, because that questioning is quickly co-opted by conspiraloons and used as part of the basis for their self-important flights of fancy masquerading as fact. Therefore most people, who may have quite reasonable reservations about just how honest their government is, will not take those doubts any further because it will seem to them that the alternative is a belief that the government are actually an secret cult of Sun Worshippers who want to rule in the name of the Elder Gods (a quick side note; every conspiraloon I have ever talked to, without exception, has a belief structure that reads like an HP Lovecraft or Grant Morrison story. Might I suggest these people look up the definitions of "fact" and "fiction"). And who in their right mind wants to believe that?

I think what I'm trying to say (in amongst all the faintly rationalised bile) is that I made a mistake in dismissing any and all people who could be termed "conspiracy theorists", and I would exhort you all to not make that same mistake. Don't dismiss a conspiracy theory out of hand just because of what it is, but treat with disdain those burnouts and failures who want you to accept their beliefs as fact purely to provide some sort of validation for their empty and wasted lives.