So-called conspiracy theorising is merely joining the dots, and inferring a unifying meaning behind the surface of apparent randomness. It is necessary to do this to be a functional person, and society.
The failure to join the dots for oneself simply means accepting someone else's version of reality, and rationalising that choice to oneself as necessary, or expedient, or whatever...
Or else it means trying to function in a universe where nothing has meaning or purpose, including oneself; and necessarily failing. (To the extent people truly do this they are neutralised by despair.)
The biggest modern conspiracy theorists are those on the secular Left Mainstream who interpret everything that has ever happened or could happen as evidence to support what they already believe; and ignoring/ attacking as not-evidence anything which seems too difficult to include; and manufacturing (then forgetting you have manufactured) evidence which one knows to be true but is (currently) not obvious or visible.
The ones (like us) who get accused of being conspiracy theorists are those who insist on joining the dots on the basis of a different set of metaphysical assumptions and who therefore infer a conspiracy theory different from the official one.
At root, the differences are metaphysical. We ought to join the dots, and in a sense have-to - and that can only be done on the basis of fundamental assumptions (i.e. metaphysics) - and it is these assumptions which need to be analysed and compared.
Lacking which; quibbling over how specific units of 'evidence' being brought into discussion 'ought' to be interpreted and acted-upon is just futile. Because it is the underlying metaphysics which defines what counts as evidence - and what (if anything) to 'do about it'.
The secular left are always more than happy to believe that the world is largely run by corrupt vested interests so long as the trail leads back to the usual suspects. For example, claiming that tobacco companies suppressed evidence of harm from smoking for a long time will not get one ridiculed as a 'conspiracy theorist'. Or claiming that climate skeptics are all secretly on the payroll of big polluters or fossil fuel companies. Or claiming that large corporations fix markets to keep out small competitors. Or that the press barons influence elections against the left. None of these claims will get one ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist.
ReplyDeleteThe left have no problem following the money and believing that the world is largely rigged by corrupt vested interests - so long as the trail leads back to the usual suspects, i.e. corporations whose sole raison d'etre is to make money.
It is only when one starts arguing that other vested interests may be implicated in anything (such as education systems, academia, professional associations, official 'science', NGOs, the medical profession) - or argue that other interests or agendas may be at stake rather than solely financial interests (such as religion, social control, Satanism etc.), that one gets ridiculed as a whacko 'conspiracy theorist'.
In effect, the purpose of the pejorative labeling of conspiracy theorists by the progressive zeitgeist is to maintain a narrow, facile worldview where some entities are assumed to be entirely self-interested while others are deemed to have no vested interests and are merely looking out for the greater good.