I appreciate what Greening is trying to do, but he's going to learn very quickly--if he hasn't already--that he's not arguing with rational people. They're much more akin to cultists, and no amount of convincing science or persuasive argument is ever going to shake their fanatical belief in the one true revealed wisdom: BUSH DID IT!
Posted at 2006-09-14 14:24:08 [PermaLink]David Fischler
You should look sometime at the deabte between the Loose Change people and the Popular Mechanics People. You could tell the Loose Change people were much more used to being on t.v. But by the end, every segment turned out like this.
1. Show clip from Loose Change
2. PM Folks explain that they looked into the alligation and found that people were otherwise misquoted, that physical evidence contradicted the Loose Change allegation
3. Loose Change people start going on about Chenney (completely irrelevant to the question)
4. PM people answer the question
5. Loose Change people call PM people liars.
My favorite was a discussion about the damage to the side of the Pentagon. The Loose Change people raise an issue about the damage pattern. The PM people note that the side hit had been blast hardened in the 1990s as part of the Pentagon renovations. The Loose Change people shout ot "Well, isn't that convinent!"
I have a few theories as to why conspiracy theories are so popular (and not just 9/11).
1. Life seems so random and lawless. So the idea that events are guided by an invisible hand, even by a malevolent hand, gives some people some comfort.
2. Related to number one is the idea that "big" events must have had something big behind them. The JFK conspiracy is a case in point. On the one hand, you have JFK, president of the US, leader of the Western alliance and on the other; you have Lee Oswald, this small, seemingly inconsequential man. I guess the fact that the leader of the West could be killed by a single troubled man is a scary thought -- after all, what could happen to folks like us.
Forget the fact that a very troubled man with politics not far from Oswald's assassinated President McKinley in 1901 or that mentally unbalanced men with little training killed one President in 1881 and came close to killing another 100 years later. (Though to be fair, there is a small cottage industry claiming a conspiracy against Reagan and while historians say there was a conspiracy behind the Lincoln assassination, conspiracists claim there was a much wider conspiracy).
3. Transference -- people fear Islamic terrorists. But Islamic terrorists are a somewhat illusive target. And further, they might cut your head off. Far safer to say the real enemies are George Bush, the oil companies, Halliburton, the Jews, etc. George Bush is probably not going to behead you. But some radical Moslem might if you annoy him enough:
4. Conspiracies and paranoia have always been part of Western Politics. The two party system in the US grew out of paranoia about supposed Masonic conspiracies (and a very real murder that may have had Masonic, though not political, overtones). There was a widespread belief in Europe that the French Revolution was some sort of Illuminati conspiracy. And let's not forget the Protocols.
5. I also think there is a bit racism involved. The Pearl Harbor and 9/11 conspiracy theories involve some disbelief that the US could get knocked hard by yellow or brown people.
So whatever became of this sites resident "conspiracy theorist", better known as Jacobin the troll?...aliens? the mummy people? the black helicopter? the black lagoon?, I'm sensing a conspiracy here, what did you people do with Jac...
Posted at 2006-09-14 16:37:27 [PermaLink]Shhh! You mean the squirrel.
I believe he left this planet and returned to his people. [External Link]
Room 237: I second John Davis' "excellent." Terrific analysis.
Posted at 2006-09-14 18:20:21 [PermaLink]Conspiracy theorists should be building giant models from matchsticks and using naptha as an accelerant in order to accurately approximate what happened... at least they should be encouraged to use these things..
Posted at 2006-09-14 19:51:27 [PermaLink]The "9/11 Truth" movement is also about something even more elemental; by concentrating so intently on some conspiracy that developed before the towers fell, they're rewinding to 9/10, in a desperate effort to avert their eyes to what happened afterwards, which is so clearly terrifying and unpredictable. Conspiracy theories provide an illusion of structure.
Posted at 2006-09-14 20:25:20 [PermaLink]I wondered the same thing about Jacobin. There have been several discussions about 911 conspiracy theories, but Jacobin has not swooped in to inform us that four out of five dentists surveyed, 99 percent of New Yorkers, and like a bunch of guys he knows all agree with ... whatever it is exactly that he believes.
What does that say to me? Yep, poor Jacobin's been captured and dragged off to Karl Rove's secret underground prison in North Dakota.
Frank Greening should have stayed retired. He's a twit. I don't want to hear from him ever again. Ignore him. L. Ron Hubbard did it.
Posted at 2006-09-14 23:35:01 [PermaLink]