Anthony North

Conspiracy theory theory

June 19, 2007 |  11 comments
Image Credit: stockxpert Even the title is ridiculous. Bad grammar. But this is the nature of conspiracy theory – none of it makes sense. So to theorise upon a theory cannot be correctly said in language. Sounds like a conspiracy to me. I'm skeptical of conspiracy theory. Don't get me wrong, conspiracies exist, but we know about them. We know about them because large organizations, which are usually behind them, leak like a sieve.

A sensational idea
But that isn't conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory is about a perceived conspiracy – a totally different thing. But then again, a conspiracy is when two or more people get together to conspire against others. You could say all government does that. Yet central to the full blown conspiracy theory – such as Diana was murdered, or MK-Ultra assassins existed – is the idea of sensationalism. After all, a conspiracy theory wouldn't get attention without it. I'm skeptical of conspiracy theory. I've talked it over with people – secretly – and we've conspired to agree. So I guess I'm part of a conspiracy against conspiracy theorists.

Reality is relative
Yet the world would be a boring place without them – conspiracy theories, I mean. Indeed, I'm fascinated by them. Why do they occur? Why do people believe? Why do people propose them in the first place? I think it is all to do with the nature of reality. To much of eastern philosophy, the reality we live is a delusion. This theme appears throughout the history of intellect, right up to quantum physics, where reality is probabilistic, and the world we live in is the one we observe. Reality, it seems, is relative. So an event becomes an event plus the cultural interpretation placed on it following the event. But does this mean a sensational explanation of an event is as relevant as the event itself?

What we believe is
When enough people believe something is real, their actions and beliefs go a long way to making it real. Consider a belief in God. If enough people believe it is true, and do action as if it was true, would society be as if it WAS true? This idea extends throughout history. We know of history from books, yet those books were written by people with their own prejudices and ideas of how an event occurred. Over time, people who were not alive at the time read the book as true. Has the past come to the present to conspire? So if enough people believe the conspiracies, then maybe they take on a life of their own. Maybe they become a reality. Maybe reality is a thing that conspires all by itself. And if reality conspires, then maybe the people experiencing that reality conspire too.It's a crazy world
It's a crazy world we live in. And it's made worse by postmodernism. High and low culture mix in a cauldron of images. Barriers are broken down and we all exist in a world of cultural fuzz. Meaning goes out of the window, which may be a door, and the only thing that makes sense is the surreal. And our minds play a part in the production of reality, complete with our nightmares. And the only thing that has meaning is the symbol. In this crazy world, fact fuses with fiction, and we no longer know what is truth and what is make believe. So whether conspiracy theory is true or false is irrelevant. All we need is the idea of its truth to be true – in a symbolic kind of way.

We've always been the same
We've always had a hint of the truth of this untruth. For most of history, we have lived with belief. We've believed God is an omnipotent Being who cares for us; that witches can cast spells that can hurt us. We've always lived in a world of suspicion; of trust in what cannot be proved to exist. There have always been forces above us, controlling us, praying on our minds. And we've always adjusted our meanings in life to reflect it. We used to call it superstition. We used to believe that forces were 'out there' to get us. Well let's get it clear. Superstition never went away. It is alive and well, and we call it conspiracy theory.

I'll be back
I'll be back at some time in the future with more on conspiracy theory. This is just a taster of the world it creates. If you're confused, then I've done my job well. But have I conspired with others to do so?

That may be your theory, good readers, but in deciding between yourselves, are you conspiring against me?

Click http://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/2007/02...s-under-control for my crazy world of Conspiracy Theory.

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