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Conspiracy theories provide such a unique insight into dysfunctional logic and cognitive dissonance. It always amazes me how much CTists cling to their theories in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. To be sure, there are always those who flirt the edge, being briefly sucked into the vortex of the CT before they snap out of it. There are even those rare few with the courage to stand up and admit, however embarrassing it may be, that they were taken in and fooled by the CT. Most CTist only seem to cling to their pet theories for as long as it gives them that feeling of being “someone special,” someone who is above the crowd, unique and iconoclastic. Over time, however, CTists become increasingly marginalized until just a few die hard, true believers are left. For these people, the CT is not about facts or reality, it is about faith. At this point, the CT has devolved into little more than a fringe cult.
Thanks to the Internet, we have seen three major CT phenomena arise, spread, then devolve over the past 10 years. Actually there are more, but these are the three that everyone is most familiar with. Also, while the internet is responsible for the large exposure of these theories to the general population, it is also responsible for the rapid life cycle of emergence, growth, marginalization, and death of a popular CT.
The first CT to go through this accelerated life cycle was the chemtrails fad that lasted from roughly 1998 to 2003. In retrospect, it is hard to see how the belief that aircraft condensation trails are actually a sophisticated spraying program designed to spread poisons could have been so widely accepted and advocated by so many otherwise reasonably intelligent people, but accepted and proselytized it was.
The one of the main distinguishing characteristics of the “Chemies” was the ignorance of basic atmospheric physics and chemistry. For most of the die hard cultists this ignorance was deliberate and intentional. No matter how much you explained the physics behind contrail formation and persistence, no matter how many scientists and peer reviewed studies that you pointed them to that refuted their ideas, they willfully hung on to their beliefs. Often, they formed their own set of self referencing pseudo-scientific web related sources for their theories. These websites offered a bewildering array of “Proof” that actually consisted of a tangled web of circular citations that ultimately were based on fantasy, not hard facts. Those chemies whose ignorance of the science involved was not deliberate, but rather based on a simple lack of education in the relevant fields were usually the first to abandon the theory.
The other major component of the chemtrail theory was the belief in the power of a few people to secretly manipulate vast numbers of people who would unknowingly carry out their evil bidding. This aspect of the theory is so totally divorced from the realities of organizational structure and logistical operations and basic common sense that I find it almost incomprehensibly ignorant. I can only surmise the rather sad conclusion that this is based in large part to the isolated and socially unconnected lives led by the adherents to this belief. Consider the vast number op people who have to service, maintain, and crew even a small airline company. Imagine the existence of a clandestine group the size of United Airlines whose sole purpose is to surreptitiously spray poison chemicals upon an unsuspecting populace (including their own families). One common explanation given was that the pilots “were afraid to speak out” or that they “were kept in the dark.” Thus, the CTist was able to establish, in his own mind, a level of moral courage and intellect above that of a “common” pilot.
Fortunately, this once common internet CT has faded away to general obscurity.
The next major CT to hit the internet was the “9/11 truth” movement. The “truther” CT began in earnest when a couple of college drop outs produced an internet movie called “loose change” that combined several diverse CTs regarding the 9/11 attacks into one package. Unfortunately, this “movie” was so riddled with errors and omissions and demonstratively false claims that they producers had to re-edit it and re-release it, not just once, but four separate times.
A close examination of the truthers reveals striking similarities to the chemtrail theories that preceded it. (Indeed, many of the hardcore chemies were also enamored of the truther cult as well).
Like the chemies before them, the truthers relied on deliberate and/ or unintentional ignorance of physics and structural engineering to support their case. Indeed, they even went one step further in the promotion of the pseudo-science to support their cause that they even tried to establish their own “peer” journal with which to publish and disseminate the facts and truth as they saw it. However, since most of their claims were not based on facts or science but dogma, the so-called “Journal of Nine Eleven Studies quickly fell apart and various sects with competing theories and beliefs split the movement.
Furthermore, the truthers also clung to the belief that a small set of powerful people were able to control and direct the actions of many people without those people realizing what was going on. A classic example was the oft repeated claim that the rank and file New York Firefighters believe that their were bombs planted in the buildings but that they were such abject cowards that they are afraid to come out and say so because they might lose their pensions. Hopefully, I don’t have to explain the absurdity of this clam.
In addition, like the chemies before them, there was a strong “Us v. Them” current among the proponents of this theory. The adherents believed themselves to be more intelligent and morally superior to the thousands of physicist and engineers the disputed or just plain ignored their claims.
Finally we have the latest internet conspiracy theory. This is the theory that Barack Obama is not qualified to be president because he is not a “natural born” citizen.
A close look at the progress of this theory reveals that it shares many traits with the previous two that I have mentioned.
First, there is the issue of willful ignorance. This time, however, instead of professing an alternate, pseudo-science the “Birthers” instead, cling to a “Pseudo-law.” This pseudo-law ignores the fact that every legitimate legal opinion refutes their claims, that there is long standing case law contrary to their position, and that the statutes that they cite do not actually say what they claim they say.
The concept of the powerful few who are able to manipulate thousands of underlings is well represented in this theory. Dupes, or co-conspirators include the conservative judges on the U.S. supreme court, (in fact they include every judge who has presided over any case remotely related to this CT), the Hawaiian governor (a republican) and her administrative staff including the head of the Hawaiian department of Health as well as the Official State Registrar, the Main stream media, Congress, the Senate, and secretaries of every state in the union. Like the other CTists before them, one gets the distinct impression that the adherents to this CT are so socially disconnected and insecure about their place in life around them that they have to present themselves as champions of the Constitution, mentally and morally above all those who don’t accept their ideas
Just as the last two CTs faded away, it is only a matter of time before the “birther” movement will also take it’s place in the scrap heap of internet folly. But until then, I am enjoying watching the birthers make complete fools of themselves.