Conspiracy theories simply ignore history

Daily Maverick

14 hours ago

Conspiracy theorists and conspiracies are thriving on social media. Sometimes these conspiracy theories are clearly bunk, and stem from intellectual laziness.
Sometimes they are reproduced by people who feel aggrieved and believe that the world is against them. At other times, they stem from rich, fertile and quite creative minds, but most of the time, when it's not dangerous, conspiracy theorising is laughable.
Among the things about conspiracy theories which is especially noxious is the misrepresentation and manipulation, the torturing or wilfully ignoring of facts.
This noxiousness and self-dramatising apostasy are distinct markers of Donald Trump's corte milione. Trump is the cynosure of il millione, the braggart who knows more about anything and everything than anyone alive, and his retinue, unabashedly obeisant, provide the vacuous encomia.
We probably should not dismiss out of hand the likelihood that conspiracy theories can be titillating – we should also not ignore the pleasure and self-satisfaction gained from reproducing conspiracies.
Very many statements by our politicians evidence the appeal (among their followers) of conspiracy theories, often couched in polite terms or language which help shore up their self-senses of importance, legitimacy and, of course, eternal innocence. But let's move on from the public politics and discuss the fun stuff.
As a starting point, I should state at the outset two things. The first (something which I have worked on for decades) is that there is no capitalist conspiracy in the sense that a group of people sit down every day and work out how to intentionally destroy the lives of people.
Capitalism is, itself, a beast that destroys people, families, communities and society through alienation, excessive individualism, the belief that individual utility maximisation (and the dictum made famous by that auntie who headed the British government that there is no such thing as society), and 'market forces' or 'the invisible hand' necessarily being the ultimate arbiter of human life and agency. Don't give me that 'well capitalist technological innovation'…
Soviet innovation (those darn communists!) was at the forefront of the technology that gave us the first human space flight and early satellite technologies.
From personal inquiry a generation ago (and things have improved significantly), the infant mortality rate in Cuba (those pesky communists) was/is lower than in the US.
The Chinese (communists) have led the world in infrastructure development, scientific innovation and development of social safety nets…
And don't dump Pol Pot or Stalin's horrors on my plate. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler were famous for being virulently anti-communist (in the case of Hitler) and between them were responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of Germans, Poles, Hungarians, Dutch, French and Russians, among others, between 1914 and 1945.
The second thing is that the 'theory' part of a conspiracy theory should be taken seriously – until the evidence proves it to be wrong. Careful now, or you'll spill your beer!
What I am suggesting is that, yes, there may be a sighting of a UFO (unidentified flying object), until the flying object has been identified. Imagine how many sightings there have been of UFOs (or stories of ghosts, for that matter), but we have yet to see evidence, and have it corroborated.
So, this same thing may be said about any conspiracy theory. Sure, state your theory, but, and I paraphrase Richard Feynman, it does not matter how thrilling or exciting or beautiful or seductive your theory is, if the evidence does not support it, either abandon the theory or start all over again…
Mushrooming conspiracies of our times
The first conspiracy theory I heard of was about the Bermuda Triangle. It was the 1960s, and I was a prepubescent lad who spent a lot of time listening to the BBC World Service (I have progressively been avoiding the BBC since it began to resemble CNN) and reading whatever texts I came across.
It was at about the same time, or maybe a little later, when I first learnt about Marco Polo, about which I have written elsewhere. The Bermuda Triangle was fascinating. As young children, teenagers, we spoke about it with much authority. It was all real. True.
For the uninitiated, the Bermuda Triangle is an area in the North Atlantic where ships and aeroplanes mysteriously 'disappeared'. It was all based on supernatural and paranormal beliefs – and nonsense.
Today, in the third decade of the 21st century, new life has been given to the assassination of former US president JF Kennedy, Malcolm X, former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba, former Secretary-General of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld or the former president of Mozambique, Samora Machel.
The conspiracies of 9/11 have been growing exponentially, and the real doozy is the moon landings. In terms of the latter, I follow the scientists, and with the former, I have always avoided walks during blizzards of half-truths and titillating tales.
In these senses, I stick to the official version of stories – until there is actually evidence to prove otherwise.
There are very many creative minds out there, some of which can be quite darkly creative. Others are pernicious and tend to be shaped by biases and prejudices.
One theory is about a particular group of people who 'rule the world' and who have won a disproportionate share of Nobel Prizes. I will not give these theories oxygen.
What I will say is this, going back to wearing my other hat, Europeans dominated the world in arts and science, and in propagating their successes (and the supremacy of the European Enlightenment) most aggressively since what they refer to as the 'Glorious Revolution' in 1688. (Conveniently occluding things like slavery, witch burnings, the cruel injustices of empires, etc).
It stands to reason, then, that the most celebrated composers and music theorists like Peter Tchaikovsky, or Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev (my favourite composer) or Arnold Schönberg were European.
Not dissimilarly, the liberal capitalist economics fundamentalism that Adam Smith is associated with was picked up by (European) economists from Alfred Marshall to Paul Samuelson, and more latterly by European settler colonists in North America, people like Paul Krugman or Joseph Stiglitz.
It's hard to believe, then, that there is some genetic disposition towards genius or greatness among people who 'rule the world' – other than the (more readily acceptable) fact that the Europeans have dominated the world for most of the past 500 years.
For what it's worth, classical music has historically been dominated by white people and jazz by black people.
The conspiracy that one particular people rule the world is just nonsense. It's probably safer to say that capitalism has dominated the world, that it sprang from a corner of England in the 18th century, and on the backs of empires, was spread around the world.
On this point, I will leave the last word to that other European, Karl Marx (a statement about capitalism which is empirically verifiable): 'The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.'
As for conspiracy theories. Well, they are part of what makes us ugly and dangerous. Everyone does, actually, have one or two favourite conspiracy theories.
Among mine are that Marco Polo never did get to China, and that Donald Trump has not read a whole book in his adult life (a book that is not about himself, that is), and that his adviser, Stephen Miller, is one of the most awful, cruel and objectionably racist white supremacists.
For the rest of it, I follow the official conclusions of the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington, and the official conclusions on the assassination of John F Kennedy.
I believe that there are things like UFOs, until they are identified, which is almost immediate – that is, besides the fact there is no actual, verifiable, evidence of their existence.
There is no such thing as a ghost, because there is no evidence. I also believe that the moon landing is (for now) humanity's greatest scientific achievement. 'For now' refers to a time in the future when (hopefully) we find a cure for cancer, or eradicate things like infant blindness in Africa. DM