In the days of my misspent youth, I was fascinated with
conspiracy theories. My first, and favorite, was of course, Area 51 and the
Roswell UFO crash. After all, I was a child of the seventies and space was
on every kid’s brain. UFOs and governmental cover-ups found their way into all
of the popular television shows of the day. Where do you think Mork and Mindy came from?
I was too young to hear about the faked moon
landing conspiracy theory that eventually found its way into that great
O.J. Simpson vehicle, Capricorn One.
It’s probably just as well. Whatever marginal entertainment value the idea of a
faked space program contained, there was just too much facts, evidence, and
truth to give it much credence. I think
that’s part of what makes a good conspiracy theory. There has to be a lot of
interesting coincidences, or incidents that can’t be explained, or questions
that have no answers, in order to be really compelling.
I mean, I think I know what happened, and I’m sure you do,
too. We’ve all got our ideas, but we really don’t know. We can talk about it
for days, and never get anywhere. There are people walking around convinced
that Oswald acted alone. I find that incredible, but hey, it’s no more out
there than “the mob did it,” or “rogue elements in the CIA,” or “the Russkies,”
or the “Area 51 aliens.” As conspiracy theories go, The JFK assassination can
hold a lot of stuff without breaking.
As I got older and became more interested in history and
writing, other great conspiracy theories caught my attention and held my
imagination. The insane notion that Elvis faked his own death
drove me to create a number of stories with a handful of other writers called
“Tales of the Elvis Clones.” Just for fun, I threw a bunch of other conspiracy
theory tropes in there, as well.
One of the most interesting conspiracy theories involves the
alleged existence of H.P. Lovecraft’s fictitious book, The Necronomicon. Despite
letters written in Lovecraft’s own hand that state the book, the mythology
around it, and all of his cosmic monsters are made up, or based on other
fiction authors’ works as an homage, there are people walking the Earth, trying
to find a copy of the book. That’s the beauty of that particular bit of book
hoax lore: it can’t be disproven. That’s right, when you show those people
Lovecraft’s letters, they reply, “Well, he HAD to write that, now, didn’t he?
He didn’t want other people to know the truth.”
When you start applying that kind of logic to questions,
then anything is possible, now, isn’t it?
Nothing has to make sense, because it can all be explained away. “Well,
that’s part of the cover-up.” “No, see, they WANT to make it confusing.”
I find it very interesting that when it comes to these kinds
of conspiracies, believers won’t listen to anyone close to the material.
They’ve been corrupted, see. They can’t be trusted. For example, “There’s no
WAY Lisa Marie Presley is going to tell you the truth about her father’s faked
death. The reason? She’s in on it, man.” You see how that works? For answers,
they always turn to complete and total strangers, outsiders, all possessing
secret knowledge that only a few people are privy to.
I still run across new conspiracy theories from time to
time. The most recent one, a retread of the old faked moon landings story,
alleges that the
landings were faked by none other than the famous director Stanley Kubrick.
It’s one of the most imaginative theories I’ve ever seen, and provided you turn
your brain completely off, it’s seems really plausible. I don’t buy it, of
course, but studying it as a plot unto itself, it’s genius-level machinations.
It was while I was researching conspiracy theories recently that I came across
this article this
article from Psychology Today, talking about the thinking behind conspiracy
theories. While it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, it nevertheless
struck a real chord with what’s going on politically right now.
One of the main reasons why some people gravitate towards
conspiracy theories is that they feel, consciously or unconsciously, as if they
have no control in their life, over larger events, etc. Buying into a conspiracy theory gives that
person control in the form of secret knowledge that other people don’t have. It
makes them feel like an insider, someone in the know. And it further separates
people into “us,” or those of us who know what’s really going on, and “them,”
or the clueless masses, the people who just don’t “get it,” or the folks who
are perpetrating the deception.
This kind of person can be a lot of fun at parties,
especially if you wind them up and let them spin around in a corner, telling
you all about the Lizard Men
who are secretly controlling us with their infernal magic. It can be really
entertaining, because ultimately, what’s the harm? If someone thinks that Paul McCartney died and was
replaced to avoid the mass suicide of all of his fans, well, that doesn’t
invalidate “Hey, Jude” as one of the great rock songs of the 20th century.
Nor does it alienate anyone with that kind of thinking, except maybe Paul
McCartney himself.
I’m no stranger to conspiracy theories. I can recognize them
on sight. I can also tell from the way a person talks that they are in the land
of “I know something you don’t know.” And that’s what really worries me about a
large number of people connected to the Republican party. This kind of thinking is terribly divisive
and potentially dangerous, and it stifles actual conversations about real
things that actually matter.
This may come as a shock to many of you, but it’s possible
to have a political discussion without invoking God, Jesus, or secret
conspiracies designed to keep people in the dark. I have them all the time, and
with people I don’t necessarily agree with. Polite, informed discussions
actually help me a great deal, because I get to sort of “test out” my thinking
on people and make adjustments based on the feedback I get. This used to be
something that everyone did, instinctively, when talking about larger, more
complicated issues. That doesn’t happen so much anymore.
What troubles me most about the way in which political
thought is framed these days is that it’s reactionary, emotional, and depending
on who is in the White House, charged with moral outrage. And when you drop a
conspiracy or two into the mix, like the idea that President Obama is not
really an American citizen (although these same people would have loved,
excused, and even championed Arnold Schwarzenegger if he made a bid for the
Presidency), then you move the language of the discussion into fundamentalist
rhetoric.
One of my favorite quotes goes like this: “It is impossible
to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.” That means,
there are no facts that can be presented, no new information to discuss, and no
way to change a person’s mind, if they’ve already made it up—and especially in
a day and age when changing your mind, admitting a mistake, or simply saying, “I
was wrong,” is considered some sort of weakness. Think about it: when is the last time someone
in the media spotlight willingly admitted a mistake or apologized when it wasn’t
mandated by the court? Hugh Grant’s public apology on television for his
dalliance with a prostitute is the only thing that comes to mind. I can’t think
of a single politician or political figure that has had to apologize for
anything in the past decade. Can you? I’m willing to be wrong about this (see
what I did, right there?)?
More and more I find myself unable to engage a number of Tea
Party activists and Romney supporters in conversation because they don’t want
to talk about things like economic policy or balancing the budget. All they can
talk about is “taking the country back,” as if it had been kidnapped, or worse,
voting for Romney lest we be plunged into “a thousand years of darkness.”
Et tu, Chuck Norris?
This week, when the unemployment numbers came out, the fact
that they were lower than last month caused rampant speculation among the
Republican talking heads that the democrats “cooked the books” and manipulated
the numbers in their favor. Then Joe Biden went on the offensive in the
vice-presidential debates and rather theatrically gave an answer for every
charge that Paul Ryan leveled at the administration. The republican reaction? Biden was rude. He
lied. He cut off Ryan and never let him talk.
These two new talking points have been folded into the
ongoing Republican narrative, and especially the former talking point has been
added to the idea that there is a secret cabal running a shadow cabinet to
insert a secret Muslim into the White House and drive our society down into a
socialist ruin that will trigger the zombie apocalypse and the End of Days,
bringing Jesus Christ back to Earth to do battle with Satan on the steps of the
Lincoln Memorial while the unwashed sinners and heathens who believed all of
those other religions fight amongst themselves in a blasted dystopia from which
there is no escape.
Really? All this because President Obama’s birth certificate
doesn’t look like yours? His driver’s license doesn’t look like mine, either.
You want to work that into the narrative?
Now, what just happened is this: most of the people who were
planning on voting for Romney this November have clicked off. There’s nothing
more to learn, here. I’m the enemy. Tainted. Corrupted. I don’t want to do my
own research. I’m a tool of the liberal media machine. I’m what’s wrong with
this country.
I’m sorry Joe Biden’s answers weren’t answers the republicans wanted to
hear. I’m sorry he accused Paul Ryan of stretching the truth, if not outright
lying. But those answers, those talking points, are just as valid as anything
that comes out of Romney or Ryan’s mouths. To suggest that there’s a vast
conspiracy behind it all is simply laughable. It’s laughable in that it presumes that the Democrats
are willing to break laws and do things that the Republican party would never,
ever do in order to win an election *cough*WATERGATE*cough*.
It’s terribly disingenuous to suggest that
some people in politics are paragons of virtue and the party opposite them is
lined with criminals and ne’er-do-wells. If you want to say that both parties
are capable of malfeasance, then I’ll take that point all day. But this
black-hat, white-hat, we’re the good guys and they are lying heathens is just
ludicrous.
“But Mark, you’re ignoring the facts!” What facts? Whose facts? There are no discernable facts to
be found in either political party’s narrative. It's just empty storytelling with some buzzwords thrown in. One group says that the
president is pulling over seven hundred billion dollars out of Medicare and the
other group says “Nuh uh, we are not.” Who’s right? How do you know? Has ANYONE
read the documents that specify these budget line items? I know I haven’t. Have
you? Has anyone you know?
I guess it’s actually easier to just go along with whatever
narrative works best for you, because it’s already been laid out in nice, neat
chunks that are easy to digest. Buet even with all of that in place, common
sense has to kick in at some point, right? Even if you’re just trying to
rationalize the facts. Sure, some of the backwards masking on the Beatles
albums sounds like, well, something. But isn’t it just as likely that John
Lennon was putting those weird messages in to screw with Paul? They had a
contentious relationship, after all. Couldn’t that explain why Paul’s always
doing something different than the others on the album covers—because he wanted
to? Right? Isn’t that much simpler answer equally, if not more plausible?
I wish I knew if this was an outgrowth of a more serious
condition in this country, or part of the Republican party’s presentational
plan all along. If it’s part of a more worrisome condition—the fact that so
many of us feel powerless, like we’ve lost our control on things—then I would
agree with that premise completely. I think the answer to that lies in actively
taking the reins on our politicians and having them serve again at our bidding,
rather than their own. That’s a valid goal, a worthwhile talking point, and I’ll
have that discussion with someone all day long.
But if this conspiracy theory nonsense is actually part of
the Republican party’s campaign strategy (or the co-opted Tea Party’s
strategy), then I would urge the real republicans who are out there, silent and
conflicted about all of this, to step up and re-take control of the party and
get rid of the fringe fundamentalists who are currently in control. I never
thought I’d say this, but I really miss Richard Nixon. I’d vote for him in a
second if he were around today. There are members of the Republican party I
would love to see in a higher office. Buddy
Roemer is a republican and even a banker, and yet, I’d vote for him in a
presidential election in a heartbeat. Of course, when you read his platform,
and what he wants to do in Washington,
you’ll realize he’ll never be on the National ticket. It’s just like how Ron
Paul was laughingly dismissed, when in fact, every time he talked, more people
were willing to listen to him instead of Romney. Where is he now?
Reasoned arguments, clearly stated, based on facts and
figures, with a logical conclusion, do not need to be dressed up and sold as
something else to the American public. I sincerely hope that this conspiracy
theory nonsense is more of an organic, if not coincidental, reaction to our
collective loss of control and not a deliberate set of tactics. If you’re
feeling disenfranchised, like your voice has been stifled, that you don’t have
a say in your community development, or anything else along those lines, then
here’s my prescription for you: turn off your television and figure out a way
to get involved on a local level. Fix what you perceive to be broken in your
own back yard first. Find a church that feeds your soul and step back away from
hatred and absolutes. It’s still American outside. And you can and do still
matter. But, like most good things that
are worthwhile, you have to do it for yourself.
The biggest conspiracy has always been the fact that there
is no conspiracy. Nobody's out to get you. Nobody gives a shit whether you live
or die. There, you feel better now?
–Dennis Miller
