Why Conspiracy Theories?
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luka
Well-known member
OK. That's reasonable I suppose but it's not what I want to talk about cos it's not what I believe.
luka
Well-known member
There's an attempt by you and droid and eden to reduce conspiracy theory to its most overblown and pathological manifestations. I'm not going to go along with that.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Edit: reply to the discussion of human agency in world history from a couple of pages back -
I think some clarification is needed on what we mean by 'human agency'. For a start, obviously history is affected by things we have no control over (epidemics, climate change - before the industrial revolution, at least) and which, until recently, we had no understanding of, either. These are just 'the way things are'. There's also natural phenomena like eclipses, comets and supernovae which are liable to be taken as 'omens' by pre-modern people and have had big impacts on world events from time to time as a result of this.
Then there are cultures, civilizations, economies, religions and the like, which are comprised of human beings and their needs, desires, beliefs and prejudices. And while they're composed of individuals, they do not (contra game theory, classical liberal economic theory etc.) behave simply as a large collection of individuals, but as complex emergent phenomena - gestalt systems. It's often impossible even to define these things in a way that isn't to some extent arbitrary (e.g. what exactly is "the British economy", when you get down to it?), much less to accurately model and predict how they interact with each other and evolve over time.
Now cultures are not forces of nature, because they can be influenced by the decisions made by human beings. Firstly there's the way people act en masse, as voters, consumers, parents, migrants and so on, and then there's the way powerful individuals and small groups (governments, the senior managers of large companies, religious leaders and so on) can attempt to cause society to move in one direction or another, whether out of simple self-interest, ideological desires to do what is right, or a combination of the two. But of course their actions may produce effects that were not predicted, or were predicted only by people that no-one else listened to, and may end up causing a result totally contrary to the desired one. All of this can make it look like society is directed by forces we have no more control over than solar storms or the sudden appearance of a virulent new contagion*. Alternatively, some people may take a totally opposite view, and insist that a very small and very secret elite is controlling every aspect of politics, economy and culture just as a puppeteer controls a marionette - hence conspiracy theories of the very grand, overarching type. (And clearly, this secret government holds the visible government in its total power just as it does everyone else, because otherwise why would the national deficit continue to grow when the visible government says it's doing everything it can to reduce the deficit? How come drugs are still easy to get hold of, despite a War On Drugs involving countless thousands of law enforcement agents and costing many billions of dollars per year?)
*Note that politicians are often complicit in this, by giving the impression that their policies are inevitable. So Gordon Brown behaved as if neglecting to bail out the failing banks and mortgage lenders would have been as unthinkable as a subsistence farmer neglecting to till and sow his fields, while the coalition and Tory governments since then have insisted that endless austerity is the only way to avoid total economic holocaust, just as eating is the only way to avoid starvation - an immutable law of nature.
I think some clarification is needed on what we mean by 'human agency'. For a start, obviously history is affected by things we have no control over (epidemics, climate change - before the industrial revolution, at least) and which, until recently, we had no understanding of, either. These are just 'the way things are'. There's also natural phenomena like eclipses, comets and supernovae which are liable to be taken as 'omens' by pre-modern people and have had big impacts on world events from time to time as a result of this.
Then there are cultures, civilizations, economies, religions and the like, which are comprised of human beings and their needs, desires, beliefs and prejudices. And while they're composed of individuals, they do not (contra game theory, classical liberal economic theory etc.) behave simply as a large collection of individuals, but as complex emergent phenomena - gestalt systems. It's often impossible even to define these things in a way that isn't to some extent arbitrary (e.g. what exactly is "the British economy", when you get down to it?), much less to accurately model and predict how they interact with each other and evolve over time.
Now cultures are not forces of nature, because they can be influenced by the decisions made by human beings. Firstly there's the way people act en masse, as voters, consumers, parents, migrants and so on, and then there's the way powerful individuals and small groups (governments, the senior managers of large companies, religious leaders and so on) can attempt to cause society to move in one direction or another, whether out of simple self-interest, ideological desires to do what is right, or a combination of the two. But of course their actions may produce effects that were not predicted, or were predicted only by people that no-one else listened to, and may end up causing a result totally contrary to the desired one. All of this can make it look like society is directed by forces we have no more control over than solar storms or the sudden appearance of a virulent new contagion*. Alternatively, some people may take a totally opposite view, and insist that a very small and very secret elite is controlling every aspect of politics, economy and culture just as a puppeteer controls a marionette - hence conspiracy theories of the very grand, overarching type. (And clearly, this secret government holds the visible government in its total power just as it does everyone else, because otherwise why would the national deficit continue to grow when the visible government says it's doing everything it can to reduce the deficit? How come drugs are still easy to get hold of, despite a War On Drugs involving countless thousands of law enforcement agents and costing many billions of dollars per year?)
*Note that politicians are often complicit in this, by giving the impression that their policies are inevitable. So Gordon Brown behaved as if neglecting to bail out the failing banks and mortgage lenders would have been as unthinkable as a subsistence farmer neglecting to till and sow his fields, while the coalition and Tory governments since then have insisted that endless austerity is the only way to avoid total economic holocaust, just as eating is the only way to avoid starvation - an immutable law of nature.
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droid
Well-known member
The true conspiracist is a product of a malfunction of the pattern recognition process, not dissimilar to the way the hoarders suffer from a malfunction in their decision making process.
The danger as I see it is not the 'usefulness' of the pursuit (political or otherwise) but rather the effect the conspiracy mindset has on the true believer's ability to make objective judgements.
The danger as I see it is not the 'usefulness' of the pursuit (political or otherwise) but rather the effect the conspiracy mindset has on the true believer's ability to make objective judgements.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
"Societies are made of individuals, but they behave as complex systems and cannot be reduced to collections of individuals, so their behaviour can be seen either as random and totally intractable to analysis or as evidence of an elite, secret caste of omnipotent puppet-masters."
But come on, put some effort in! Surely I'm not saying anything totally new or particularly contentious here? I was mentally preparing a big post about how humans are not like gas molecules and sociology and economics are not like statistical mechanics, so be glad for small mercies.
sadmanbarty
Well-known member
Why those three groups in particular? Are they disproportionately more likely than non-scientists, reactionaries and non-christians to anthropomorphise history?
I had a room in college opposite John Gray's when he was visiting professor in misery or whatever. I remember when he still had a beard.
John Gray is a grumpy fucker. He was always asking the dean to ask me to turn my music down. In his dreams he's standing sobbing and naked on a wasteland of rain-lashed gravel. Pessimism is his recurring theme, and he is philosophical antimatter to all that is beautiful and good in the world. But his point on conspiracy theories being the anthropomorphisation (or more accurately demonisation) of history is pretty good.
John Gray is a grumpy fucker. He was always asking the dean to ask me to turn my music down. In his dreams he's standing sobbing and naked on a wasteland of rain-lashed gravel. Pessimism is his recurring theme, and he is philosophical antimatter to all that is beautiful and good in the world. But his point on conspiracy theories being the anthropomorphisation (or more accurately demonisation) of history is pretty good.
Luksplain. You're at your most effective when you use the third person against someone, that was good technique Luka used.