Conspiracy Theorists

As we all know Americans love conspiracy theories. Indeed, they are fascinating to everyone because they confront commonly accepted truths and ask us to consider if we can really be sure that things happened in precisely the way we think they happened. This is always an interesting and appealing project as we are asked to consider the possibility that a small group of people--of which we could be a part--is smarter than everybody else.

Perhaps we should consider first the differences between a healthy suspicion of what we are told by those in authority and conspiracy theories. I would say that I am not going to believe much by Bush and his cohorts concerning the details and interpretation of what happened on 9/11. Everything has clearly been doctored to clear the President and his close colleagues of any blame in the matter. Furthermore, the attack on Iraq was clearly unjustified and this administration twisted what happened on 9/11 to suit their long term strategic aims. In other words, there was a wholly unexpected event that took everybody by surprise and then different groups began to use what had happened for their own purposes. However, the event did take place--just as man did land on the moon and the Japanese did attack Pearl Harbor (two other well known events that have been reinterpreted by conspiracy theorists). Conspiracy theorists would have us believe that the central event itself in a discourse (using "discourse" in its widest sense to mean an interrelated set of happenings) never happened or happened in a way that is completely different to the way we perceive it having happened. The problem is that in the hours and days after the occurrence of a global catastrophe, everybody has the chance to look at and study what has happened: to talk with the survivors and sift through the evidence (in the case of 9/11). The world is in shock and thousands of views are expressed about the central event. Films are made, photographs taken, experts consulted, emergency services mobilized, articles and books written as the wounded and the empowered try to come to an understanding of what has happened. It is certainly interesting that conspiracy theories usually emerge only later, after the initial shock has worn off, so to speak. An event like 9/11 is as near to a completely naked event as can be realized in the modern world. It happened with thousands of people watching. Friends died together, preferring to jump from the building than face the flames inside: firemen lost their lives battling to save the people trapped in the building. Moreover, everything was watched minutely by millions of people on TV. The idea of such an event being planned by people within the administration really beggars belief. What a can of worms would have been opened! These people would know that the whole world would be watching their own rescue teams die trying to save the people inside the building. Furthermore, the event would be destabilizing in all sorts of political and financial ways. Certainly before the event, one might have thought that such an occurrence would cause a greater financial crisis on the stock exchange. Less traumatic events have led to world wars (think of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 that led to the outbreak of WW1). Politicians are mostly conservative in their actions unless they openly support confrontationist policies (like Hitler): the grey suits don't take chances on big events that may have unknown consequences.

If the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 are unlikely (and I haven't actually gone into the individual theories, as when one wishes to believe something, the mind is wired to make connections) why do they abound so abundantly? Some critics say that conspiracism has been common throughout history after a traumatic event when mythologisation inevitably takes place. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested conspiracists "use the 'reverse scientific method". They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific American, said: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (as well as Holocaust denial and the various crank theories of physics). All the "evidence" for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry." "We tend to associate major events — a President or princess dying — with major causes," says Patrick Leman, a lecturer in psychology at Royal Holloway University of London, who has conducted studies on conspiracy belief. "If we think big events like a President being assassinated can happen at the hands of a minor individual, that points to the unpredictability and randomness of life and unsettles us. In that sense, the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting."