Are conspiracy theorists kooks?

It’s a fair question. Seemingly rational people across the internet are quick to label those who may believe that Lee Harvey was a lone gunman, or that an alien craft crashed in 1947, or that Dick Cheney is a cyborg, as paranoid-delusional, tinfoil-hat-wearing lunatics. But are they justified in doing so?

The President’s warning on conspiracies

When President George W. Bush appeared before the United Nations General Assembly on Nov. 10, 2001, he made an impassioned speech denouncing terrorism and those who would harbor it. It was a strong statement laying out his administration’s stance on the newly formed “war on terror”. It also contained a forcefully worded warning to all those listening:

“We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th, malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.”

This seems like an odd thing to add to such an important speech so soon after the attacks. Especially since the official explanation of the events of that day centered around a pretty convoluted, wide-ranging conspiracy itself. While no one knows what the President considers an “outrageous” theory (although it could probably be assumed that anything that differs from the official theory would receive that label) it may be instructive to look at just what a conspiracy is and some historical examples.

Dictionary definition of “conspiracy”

From dictionary.com:

This is a fairly broad definition, basically two or more people working together to perform a bad act. Judged by these criteria, conspiracies undoubtedly occur every single day. Why is it then that those who would seek to expose conspiracies, the conspiracy theorists, often get labeled as kooks or paranoid crazies? Let’s examine some of the factors that may keep people in a state of willful ignorance.

The Big Lie

The truth is, no one has any trouble believing that a couple thugs would conspire to mug an old lady, or that a band of robbers would pull a jewelry heist. It’s the really big events that are the hardest to believe. No less a propaganda expert than Adolf Hitler famously outlined the big lie technique in his autobiography, Mein Kampf:“the great masses…more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one, since they themselves lie in little things, but would be ashamed of lies that were too big…a fact which all the great [liars] in the world know only too well”.

It is alleged by some historians that Hitler used this technique to its full advantage in the 1933 Reichstag fire, the event that propelled Hitler and the Nazi party into absolute power. When a mentally unstable arsonist started a fire that gutted the German parliament building, Hitler and the Nazis immediately blamed the rival Communist party and arrested thousands. The fire was used as a pretext to severely restrict civil liberties in Germany and allowed Hitler to assume the mantle of dictator. Almost no historian today believes that the Communists were behind the fire, while many believe the Nazis purposely set the fire themselves to reap the political gains.

The German people readily believed the authorities in this case, despite the apparent lack of evidence supporting the official story and the quite evident increase in power that those same authorities achieved.

They just would not DO that!

Another factor potential conspirators in positions of power have going for them is the belief of most people in the inherent goodness of their leaders. Citizens of a country simply do not want to believe that someone they put into power, someone of their own nationality, would purposely commit an evil act. Even when evidence mounts indicating that to be the most logical conclusion, people will still waver and doubt.

For example, the neo-conservative think-tank The Project For the New American Century (PNAC) published a paper in 2000 called Rebuilding America’s Defenses in which it laid out the foreign policy agenda this movement believed to be essential to America’s security. Many members of the Bush administration and its ideological allies were signatories of this paper. The remarkable thing about this paper was that PNAC stated that their goals were unrealistic unless the American people were galvanized by “some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.”

While this revelation by no means proves complicity by the members of PNAC in the attacks which so perfectly fit their criteria and gave to them the political power to carry out their agenda, you may think such a statement would draw intense scrutiny. On the contrary, it was greeted by a collective shrug by the American press and people. Although you can bet that if that document had been written by the leading ideologues of another country, say The Project For the New Iranian Century, the bombs would have flown before the ink was dry. This seems directly attributable to the mind set of “we would never do something like that - but they sure as heck would!”

Compartmentalization

A common fallacy when dealing with large scale conspiracies is the belief that in order to be successful too many people would have to know about the conspiracy and a group of that size could never collectively keep such a monumental secret. However, this ignores the basic structure of our large institutions, such as government or corporations. Such entities are compartmentalized - organized into hierarchies wherein each level knows only so much about the functioning of the organization to effectively perform its duties. Thus, in the widget factory the assembly folks have the knowledge necessary to keep production rolling, the accountants know enough to balance the books, and only the executives know the strategic goals of the company. Not only do the assembly not need that information to perform their jobs, it would be detrimental to the company to have its specific plans made public, thereby giving an advantage to its competitors.

This subject really deserves its own article but a quick and obvious example is Enron. A small cabal of executives maneuvered a huge and influential company into manipulating the energy market through fraud. It’s clear that the vast majority of Enron employees were innocent of fraud; however the actions of the criminals at the top would not have been possible without the unknowing participation of the entire company. Those in the company that became suspicious faced a difficult dilemma: risk their career in a potentially futile attempt at exposing the truth, or go with the flow, collect their paycheck, and continue to provide for their families. If the potential whistle blower is in a situation involving possibly murderous conspirators, obviously the choice to come forward is exponentially more difficult.

It is clear that through compartmentalization that only the most high-ranking in an organization will be or need to be “in the know” for the successful implementation of a conspiracy. Lower level operatives can pass information up the ladder, but once that ladder reaches a rung upon which sits a conspirator, the flow of information ceases and there is little the lower level person can do about it.

Be a Free Thinker

In closing, I would simply encourage the reader to consistently question assumptions, endeavor to apply logic to arguments presented to them, and to seek the truth, no matter how painful it may be. Trust in our leaders must not be absolute; most are genuine in their desire to lead for the benefit of their followers. Some are not. Only an informed and free thinking citizenry will be able to differentiate the two, without succumbing to paranoia.

And never be afraid to be called a kook.

Monday, November 12th, 2007 : Articles, Conspiracies : 3 Comments

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