Are you a Conspiracist?
- Sculptor1
- Posts: 7148
- Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am
Are you a Conspiracist?
1) A cabal of people gathered together in secret to conspire and a plot specific things, or to surpress certain things.
2) A tacit conspiracy in which large numbers of people unconsciously conspire to promote certian ways of thinking, to advantage certain ways of life, and to ignore viewpoints that fly against their own interests and points of view.
Most conspiracy theorists recognise the consequences of (2), but thing that they are the result of (1).
I'll give you an example.
People who play the stock market pretend to beleive that they are doing the economy some good when the truth is that there is no more damaging effect that people take money out of the economy for doing no work. People who play the stock market, although they know they are gambling to screw money out of the system by doing no work, also castigate the poor for drawing social security. They also castigate the poor for gambling.
This is clearly a type 2 conspiracy where the conspirators fool themselves that their course of action is good. They conspire to vote for people who peddle the same falsehoods.
The conspiracy nut will tend to focus on groups such as the "Jews" or the "Illuminati" for conspiring to impoverish the people to their own advantage.
Such conspiracies are easy to refute, and criticise on the grounds of racism, classism or lack of evidence.
People conspiring in this type 2 conspiracy will deflect criticism of their actions by accusing its critics of a type 1 conspiracy, calling them antisemitic, or stupid.
The real danger in society is the huge range of type 2 conspiracies that we call contribute to.
- LuckyR
- Moderator
- Posts: 7984
- Joined: January 18th, 2015, 1:16 am
Re: Are you a Conspiracist?
I agree with your observations, but ascribe a different cause to explain them. Namely that as the middle class disintegrates and folks fall down the economic ladder (compared to previous generations) they need to blame the loss on something. The mentally lazy prefer to believe simplistic stories that portray themselves as innocent victims of sinister forces (that's where the jews and illuminati come in). The elite who engineered the shift in wealth from the (now dead) middle class upwards to themselves, benefit from the distraction, since too many Bernie followers might upset the gravy train.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑September 1st, 2021, 5:56 am There are two types of conspiracy
1) A cabal of people gathered together in secret to conspire and a plot specific things, or to surpress certain things.
2) A tacit conspiracy in which large numbers of people unconsciously conspire to promote certian ways of thinking, to advantage certain ways of life, and to ignore viewpoints that fly against their own interests and points of view.
Most conspiracy theorists recognise the consequences of (2), but thing that they are the result of (1).
I'll give you an example.
People who play the stock market pretend to beleive that they are doing the economy some good when the truth is that there is no more damaging effect that people take money out of the economy for doing no work. People who play the stock market, although they know they are gambling to screw money out of the system by doing no work, also castigate the poor for drawing social security. They also castigate the poor for gambling.
This is clearly a type 2 conspiracy where the conspirators fool themselves that their course of action is good. They conspire to vote for people who peddle the same falsehoods.
The conspiracy nut will tend to focus on groups such as the "Jews" or the "Illuminati" for conspiring to impoverish the people to their own advantage.
Such conspiracies are easy to refute, and criticise on the grounds of racism, classism or lack of evidence.
People conspiring in this type 2 conspiracy will deflect criticism of their actions by accusing its critics of a type 1 conspiracy, calling them antisemitic, or stupid.
The real danger in society is the huge range of type 2 conspiracies that we call contribute to.
- Sculptor1
- Posts: 7148
- Joined: May 16th, 2019, 5:35 am
Re: Are you a Conspiracist?
I'd not disagree with this. IN the Uk many people preferred to join the "antisemitism" bandwagon against Jeremy Corbyn than emply the mental effort necessary to look at the deeper economic problems.LuckyR wrote: ↑September 4th, 2021, 2:19 amI agree with your observations, but ascribe a different cause to explain them. Namely that as the middle class disintegrates and folks fall down the economic ladder (compared to previous generations) they need to blame the loss on something. The mentally lazy prefer to believe simplistic stories that portray themselves as innocent victims of sinister forces (that's where the jews and illuminati come in). The elite who engineered the shift in wealth from the (now dead) middle class upwards to themselves, benefit from the distraction, since too many Bernie followers might upset the gravy train.Sculptor1 wrote: ↑September 1st, 2021, 5:56 am There are two types of conspiracy
1) A cabal of people gathered together in secret to conspire and a plot specific things, or to surpress certain things.
2) A tacit conspiracy in which large numbers of people unconsciously conspire to promote certian ways of thinking, to advantage certain ways of life, and to ignore viewpoints that fly against their own interests and points of view.
Most conspiracy theorists recognise the consequences of (2), but thing that they are the result of (1).
I'll give you an example.
People who play the stock market pretend to beleive that they are doing the economy some good when the truth is that there is no more damaging effect that people take money out of the economy for doing no work. People who play the stock market, although they know they are gambling to screw money out of the system by doing no work, also castigate the poor for drawing social security. They also castigate the poor for gambling.
This is clearly a type 2 conspiracy where the conspirators fool themselves that their course of action is good. They conspire to vote for people who peddle the same falsehoods.
The conspiracy nut will tend to focus on groups such as the "Jews" or the "Illuminati" for conspiring to impoverish the people to their own advantage.
Such conspiracies are easy to refute, and criticise on the grounds of racism, classism or lack of evidence.
People conspiring in this type 2 conspiracy will deflect criticism of their actions by accusing its critics of a type 1 conspiracy, calling them antisemitic, or stupid.
The real danger in society is the huge range of type 2 conspiracies that we call contribute to.
I would not be surrpised if even Bernie could be acceused of something absurd such as excessive zionist fundementalism.
I have no doubt that many of these character assassinations make the step from type 1 to type 2, in that an establishment think-tank designs the slurs and spins, for a willing public to gulp down thinking their mortgage is going to be ptotected.
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