Conspiracy theory

How to laugh at conspiracy

The absolute majority of people, having heard the phrase "conspiracy theory", begins to condescendingly smile, or twist a finger at the temple. The minority acts differently - it starts to get hot, to pour in “conspiracy terms”, and thus make others laugh even more.

This is an interesting fact: although conspiracy theories are usually considered paranoid delusions, the topic itself does not leave the agenda. One way or another, the discussion of such theories, albeit in the form of ridicule, has been going on for many years.

The “conspiracy theory factor” is widely used at the highest level, even if in the form of noise cover, even if in the form of excuse.
')
It would seem that if the principles on which various conspiracy theories are built are so ridiculous that they invariably cause a mocking smile, then why are conspiracy theories infinitely discussed? Why is it that significant amounts of money are spent on embellishing and caricaturing such theories, bringing them to complete and obvious absurdity? Why do the media spare no effort to discredit the people who put forward such theories? Right word, something is wrong here.

By the way, when something is either not spoken about at all or, on the contrary, they talk too much and overreact - that is unclean. After all, to shut up everyone's throats, you must have, firstly, a serious power, and secondly, a serious motive. And the same thing is required to expand any large-scale long-term discussion. In this case, we are dealing with the second.

In itself, the attitude of society to conspiracy theories is very significant. When you begin to analyze this phenomenon, you immediately come to the most characteristic signs of manipulation of consciousness. “Conspiracy theory,” say? Ha-ha-ha. ”And to the question of what made you laugh so little, few people will ever come to answer. Just think what nonsense.

That is, the dialogue does not add up, the attitude to the problem is hammered into the head so strongly that it does not even require proof. However, if you still manage to talk your opponent, in most cases the arguments will not be provided. There is a suggestion, that is, the adoption of the idea without its critical thinking and understanding of its essence. But this is the core of manipulative techniques.

See, if conspiracy theory is so ridiculous, then why did it have to be manipulated to fight it? Tell everything as it is, show why this theory is wrong and absurd, in short, drive the last nail into the coffin and forget about it.

But no. In life, everything goes wrong, instead of an explanation - manipulation, trickling and caricature, that is, in fact, there is no refutation. Remember this important point, we still need it. Well, and if there is essentially nothing in the official media about conspiracy theories, then we will have to figure it out ourselves.

Let's first deal with what is generally referred to. Another feature characteristic of manipulative technologies is the vagueness of definitions. The lack of clarity in the question allows manipulators to stick labels on a range of dissimilar phenomena.

George Entin Professor Emeritus of the University of Pennsylvania offers the following interpretation of the essence of conspiracy theories:

“A conspiracy is illegal actions of a small, secret group of people who intend to make a turn in the development of historical events, for example, to overthrow the government. Conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain an event, or a series of events, as the result of a conspiracy. Conspiracy as a mentality considers all significant events from the standpoint of conspiracy theories. ”[J. Entin. “Conspiracy theories and a conspiratorial mentality.”]

The Wikipedia online encyclopedia gives a very similar in essence, but already caricatured definition of "conspiracy theory": (!)

“Conspiracy theory is a division of conspiracy, the most widely reflected in works of art and in the media. The essence of the phenomenon is the belief that there are one or more carefully hidden plots of the “powerful people”: presidents, senior intelligence officials, rich people, heads of international organizations, religious hierarchs, members of secret societies, and so on. Usually, the purpose of this conspiracy is to fool and enslave humanity (or, at least, the desire of the participants in the conspiracy for unlimited power). Not to be confused with the phenomenon of palace plots. There are so-called small conspiracy theories; they provide a different interpretation of only certain historical episodes that differs from the official one, calling various secret forces as the main active forces.

Conspiracy (from English conspiracy - secrecy, conspiracy) - the system of views, flow in history and political science, explaining certain events as a result of conspiracies of secret forces (for example, secret societies, special services, aliens, occult phenomena, etc.). The initial axiom of conspiracy is the idea of ​​the existence of a secret society, whose members seek to subjugate the whole world and create an entirely new order in which they will occupy key positions and reign supreme.

At the same time, it is important that the proposed order itself will be not indifferent to how, but directly opposite to the one that exists now or that was yesterday, that is, natural. The secret society itself consists not only of bad people, but ordinary people, but of special “geniuses of Evil”, which at the same time have a certain fundamental type anomaly in comparison with normal, “natural” humanity. ”

Let's first clear the definition of clearly manipulative nonsense, such as “Geniuses of Evil”, “aliens”, “occult forces”, etc. After that, let us ask ourselves, should the actions of the conspirators necessarily be illegal, on what does Insin insist? I think this restriction is completely unnecessary and narrows the object of our research.

As a result, we obtain that from the point of view of conspiracy theory, the historical subject is a group of influential persons who have set a definite goal for themselves and are pursuing it.

Tell me, what is so ridiculous and so ridiculous in this interpretation that it almost completely blocks any discussion of consistency of conspiracy theories? No one is surprised by the fact of the existence of lobbying activities of certain influential organizations. The term “lobbyism” itself does not cause incredulous giggles, and yet this term clearly corresponds to the essence of conspiracy theory. No one questions the possibility of the existence of financial-industrial and even criminal groups that are brought to power by politicians who are later forced to serve their interests. No one would be surprised to hear that there are influential people in Russia, for example, big businessmen who pursue their group and personal, usually political and economic interests. The same is true in the West. The concept of "your senator" when it comes to a person put in power by some large business structure is so common in the political American vocabulary that it does not cause any acute reaction.

And how many such influential people? Of course, no, precisely because it is a question of persons who have the ability to push through laws and decisions at the highest level that are advantageous to them. That is, there is another important element of conspiracy theories - the presence of a narrow group of influential people. Go ahead. Is anyone even surprised to learn that almost the entire economy of our country is controlled by a very narrow group of people? Yes, it is such a commonplace that it has not been discussed for a long time. The same applies to the rest of the world, whose resources and economy are owned and / or controlled by literally a handful of people belonging to a few financial and industrial clans, many of which have a long history.

And is it really so wild the assumption that representatives of the clans mentioned are able to coordinate among themselves their activities, come to an agreement, pursue a coordinated policy. What is absurd in this assumption?

The famous American journalist Richard Koniff has long been engaged in studying the lifestyle of the richest families in the world. He described his observations in the book Natural History of the Rich, which has become a bestseller. In it, the author simply talks about what the representatives of the world elite eat, what they wear, how they rest, what kind of relationships prevail in their circle, and so on. Koniff does not write a word about conspiracy theories, but here’s a curious thing: from his book it is clear that almost all the representatives of the world business elite know each other by sight. Their children go to the same schools, and later go to the same universities. They dress from the same fashion designers, buy the same exclusive cars from the same sellers. In the quality of entertainment, they visit the same closed clubs, relax on the same resorts, that is, they cook in their own juice from young nails. And although the world elite consists of representatives of different nations, they have a common system of values, their own system of identification marks, their own range of topics for discussion. In fact, we are dealing with a special quasi-root. Koniff himself jokingly calls them a separate human species.

Jokes are jokes, and there is some truth in them, that's how much different the elite richest "get-together" is from other people. Do I need to explain that where the economy is, there is politics. Need I say that the leaders of the largest media empires are part of the elite? That is, political, economic and informational issues are resolved by a narrow group of influential persons whose interests are closely intertwined.

Putting together the pieces of the picture, we get the conspiracy theory in its purest form:

1. There is a group of influential people in the country and wider in the world.
2. These individuals have the opportunity to conduct successful lobbying activities on pushing through decisions that are beneficial to them at the highest level (Parliament, Government, President).
3. Influential persons are able to negotiate among themselves, and therefore pursue a coordinated policy.

Each item is natural, and not at all comical, but together we get a "conspiracy theory" that cannot be discussed in a decent society. We get a theory, the use of which is considered the lot of paranoids and psychopaths who believe that oil prices are raised by "green men".

And let's try to go further in our reasoning. Let's think, is it profitable for the world elite to advertise their activities? The world elite leads exclusively closed lifestyle. All sorts of paparazzi, of course, regularly supply the rest of the population with photos of "stars", but, all this is only superficial foam, journalists are not allowed to go where serious decisions are made. We must be able to distinguish the places where serious issues are discussed from all sorts of showholes "summits and meetings." All this is a kind of talk show for the masses. Let them watch on TV vigorous speeches of politicians and listen to their endless verbiage about partnership, friendship and cooperation, the search for compromises and other nonsense. Do not confuse the talking head, put in the power of corporations, with the leadership of corporations. They are different people and they prefer not to blow on all corners about their meetings and negotiations.

Koniff gives a typical example of such "modesty": the head of the publishing and information group Thompson, Lord Kenneth Thompson - one of the richest and most influential people in the world is almost unknown in his hometown. Few people know his face there. It is also appropriate to quote Parsheva:

“... you can go on an excursion to the US Congress and listen to the debate there, but during the IMF management meeting, journalists are not allowed even close to the building.”

For completely natural reasons, it is not profitable for the ruling elite to advertise their activities. They don’t need to publicly take responsibility for what is happening in the country and in the world; there are talking heads for this. Governments change like gloves, presidents are elected every 4 years, and financial-industrial clans and their interests exist for dozens and even hundreds of years. Oh, that says something about something! ..

But simply hushing up information about yourself is not an effective way to remain gray cardinals. It is much more reliable to make sure that the activity of the ruling elite itself, true rather than public, does not become the subject of discussion. And for this there is nothing better than to caricature and ridicule any attempts of an ordinary person to see in historical events not a blind combination of accidents, not the effect of objective laws that do not depend on a person, but the will of certain influential personalities and narrow elite groups.

That is why the conspiracy theory is presented to the media in such a crazy way, with all these ridiculous "masons", operetta "geniuses of evil", "omnipotent special services agents" and other folklore characters. And the term "conspiracy theory" itself is quite caricatured. So cinema and literary images of “conspirators” are emerging, gathering somewhere in gloomy dungeons, having previously hidden their faces with clown half masks, and having agreed to use idiotic passwords. Of course, those who believe in such nonsense are rightly suspected of mental illness.

Now imagine another picture. Respectable people gather in a private club to discuss their affairs. Since business, politics and public relations are closely related things, in this club one can meet businessmen and politicians and media leaders. Ridiculous? Absolutely not. And the ancient Romans, who laid down the principle of “look for who benefits”, were not fools. In our time, this principle has not lost its relevance.

You can be touched by all these “environmentalist movements”, but it’s better to pay attention to the fact that you can’t get them away from military targets by their ears. You can believe all these family planning organizations, but it is better to pay attention to the fact that they are promoting their birth control in a country that is already dying out at a rather rapid pace. It is possible to laugh with laughter around the “Problem 2000” when a man in the street was frightened by a software failure fraught with terrible catastrophes, but it’s better to remember how commercial organizations that received orders for a preventive fight against this imaginary threat, as shown by further events, made a great deal of hysterical noise.

So decide for yourself what you are laughing at, at miserable paranoids or at yourself.

Zykin D.

PS The text is not mine, just well written.

Update: the author of the article is someone Frater Abir , first published in the journal “Live Time”, the original in the network apparently no longer exists.

Update: the user valergrad indicates that the author’s name is Valery Zykin, and the text from his book “The Man on the Ropes”. A user dug gives a link (presumably) to the author's LiveJournal .

Update: contacted the author, his name is Dmitry Zykin, the book is called “Power. Elite, the people. Subconscious and Controlled Democracy ”, the first time an article is published here .