Even the most rabid of Conspiracy Theorists (CT's) ....
.... don't usually wear tin-foil hats, but outside of them, there is still a tendency amongst many of us to think conspiracies are more prevalent than they could really be.
I know two people for example who you would consider rational. One believes in JFK cover ups, and the other that the moonshots were faked. No amount of arguments or facts will convince them otherwise. According to a new study they're not alone in this predilection, but in fact are merely displaying a predictable product of how our brains work.
But of course CT's are not a new phenomena, and in fact ever since man first organised and had politics, there has been a predilection to promote and listen to even implausible, unproven and unprovable conspiracy theories. Ancient Athenians performed plays espousing plots about local politics with a spin, and later, the way that the mysterious death of Rome's first King Romulus, who disappeared in a whirlwind during a sudden and violent storm, was spun at the time, is a good example of early CT management or promotion.
The options espoused about the Romulus disappearance were:
Livy said that theory number 3 of the legendary king's death was promoted, as it allowed Romans to believe that the gods were on their side, and a reason for them to continue their expansion under Romulus's name.
In more recent times Shakespeare twisted historical facts to show some royals motives e.g. Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s queen, is not really the ‘She-wolf of France'. Richard III, whilst he had a twisted back, was most probably not the evil monster portrayed in the plays as the hunchbacked spider character. Most carefully he only wrote about historical characters before the triumph of his own Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII in 1485. In fact the plays are steeped in the early Tudor propaganda justifying the regime, that had become the official histories by Shakespeare's day. Ironically of course Shakespeare himself has become a CT by those who think he was someone else.
So in fact there really is nothing new under the sun, and we are not living in the new age of conspiracies .... a fact that was highlighted by an analysis by researchers who combed through more than 100,000 letters to the editor, published in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune between 1890 and 2010. This was a sample of 100,000 letters, which showed that the baseline of CT's mentioned was consistently low (lower than one per cent), throughout the period of 1890 to 2010 - the exceptions were two brief spikes, which occurred in 1890 itself and 1950 (not the periods conspiracy theorists might have expected!).
However just because the tendency to believe in CT's is a function of how human brains are wired, doesn't always mean believing in them is necessarily always wrong, sometimes conspiracies are real. Another study by psychologist Mike Wood, found that people who dismissed all the usual conspiracy theories, tended also to dismiss real conspiracies hidden amongst the theories they were asked to consider ... I may well be guilty myself of this last charge.
Its just like the old adage about paranoia "sometimes they really are after you."
 |
| Tin Foil Hats Not Worn By All Conspiracy Theorists ... |
.... don't usually wear tin-foil hats, but outside of them, there is still a tendency amongst many of us to think conspiracies are more prevalent than they could really be.
I know two people for example who you would consider rational. One believes in JFK cover ups, and the other that the moonshots were faked. No amount of arguments or facts will convince them otherwise. According to a new study they're not alone in this predilection, but in fact are merely displaying a predictable product of how our brains work.
But of course CT's are not a new phenomena, and in fact ever since man first organised and had politics, there has been a predilection to promote and listen to even implausible, unproven and unprovable conspiracy theories. Ancient Athenians performed plays espousing plots about local politics with a spin, and later, the way that the mysterious death of Rome's first King Romulus, who disappeared in a whirlwind during a sudden and violent storm, was spun at the time, is a good example of early CT management or promotion.
The options espoused about the Romulus disappearance were:
- That Romulus was either murdered by the Senators.
- That he was torn limb from limb out of jealousy, or
- He had been ascended to heaven by the god of war Mars.
Livy said that theory number 3 of the legendary king's death was promoted, as it allowed Romans to believe that the gods were on their side, and a reason for them to continue their expansion under Romulus's name.
 |
| Shakespeare Conspiracy Theories |
In more recent times Shakespeare twisted historical facts to show some royals motives e.g. Margaret of Anjou, Henry VI’s queen, is not really the ‘She-wolf of France'. Richard III, whilst he had a twisted back, was most probably not the evil monster portrayed in the plays as the hunchbacked spider character. Most carefully he only wrote about historical characters before the triumph of his own Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII in 1485. In fact the plays are steeped in the early Tudor propaganda justifying the regime, that had become the official histories by Shakespeare's day. Ironically of course Shakespeare himself has become a CT by those who think he was someone else.
So in fact there really is nothing new under the sun, and we are not living in the new age of conspiracies .... a fact that was highlighted by an analysis by researchers who combed through more than 100,000 letters to the editor, published in The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune between 1890 and 2010. This was a sample of 100,000 letters, which showed that the baseline of CT's mentioned was consistently low (lower than one per cent), throughout the period of 1890 to 2010 - the exceptions were two brief spikes, which occurred in 1890 itself and 1950 (not the periods conspiracy theorists might have expected!).
However just because the tendency to believe in CT's is a function of how human brains are wired, doesn't always mean believing in them is necessarily always wrong, sometimes conspiracies are real. Another study by psychologist Mike Wood, found that people who dismissed all the usual conspiracy theories, tended also to dismiss real conspiracies hidden amongst the theories they were asked to consider ... I may well be guilty myself of this last charge.
Its just like the old adage about paranoia "sometimes they really are after you."
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