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Home Politics Power (Kratology) Conspiracy Theories: how to distinguish the solid ground of facts from the swamp of fiction
Conspiracy theories: how to distinguish the solid ground of facts from the swamp of fiction
Uncertainty and ambiguity make it possible for conspirationism to penetrate from the periphery to the center of public life.
Fortunately, we have the tools at our disposal to determine that we are facing a fiction or a conspiracy theory.
These tools include: common sense, knowledge of history and the ability to recognize stereotypes and cliches.
Author: Daniel Pipes, researcher at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, professor at Harvard University.
The material is published in an abridged and adapted translation from English.
Distinguishing between real and imaginary conspiracies or conspiracies and conspiracy theories is an absolutely necessary process.
It is impossible to put on the same level the warnings of Winston Churchill about the secret intentions of the Nazis that sounded in the 1930s and the delusional fabrications of his contemporary Hitler about a Jewish conspiracy.
It is necessary to clearly distinguish the solid ground of facts from the swamp of fiction, since it is this uncertainty that makes it possible for conspirationism to penetrate from the periphery to the center of public life.
Fortunately, we have the tools at our disposal to determine that we are facing a fiction or a conspiracy theory.
These tools include: common sense, knowledge of history and the ability to recognize stereotypes and cliches.
1. Common sense
Not everything that is acceptable from the point of view of logic is acceptable from the point of view of common sense.
Not all enemies seek power over the world; accidents happen by themselves; churches, underground tunnels and senatorial chairs are not murder weapons; it is not necessary to suspect Catholics, Jews or Democrats of using such methods.
As the logician noted, " when we put forward a hypothesis to explain something, we are not acting in a vacuum.
We have an extensive knowledge base consisting of beliefs, principles and theories supported by numerous proofs on our part."
Common sense accepts simple explanations.
Conspiracy theories, on the contrary, are complex and confusing.
They need a tangle of tricks and deceptions and such monstrous ingenuity of the mind that they eventually collapse on the root from their own improbability.
Take, for example, the case of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
It made no sense for a certain force to choose Lee Harvey Oswald, because too many participants would be involved in the conspiracy.
In order for Oswald to be in the building of the Texas book warehouse, from which he could make a well aimed shot at the Kennedy motorcade, it would take the coordinated actions of four people, and hundreds of people would be involved in the entire operation.
This contradicts the logical principle of simplicity: of two equally justified versions, the one that requires fewer new assumptions should be considered the more convincing.
Two conclusions follow from this.
First, conspiracies are carried out only under certain circumstances (murders that had grounds to occur in Moscow are meaningless in Washington).
Secondly, the more effort is required for the alleged conspiracy, the more doubtful its reality is.
The version about the preparation of a palace coup makes sense; the version about the preparation of the Great French Revolution is madness.
2. Knowledge of history and conspiracy theory
Knowledge of the past easily reveals the impracticability of most conspiracies.
Unforeseen accidents destroy the plans of the conspirators, comrades in arms betray, enemies recognize the threat in time.
As a rule, the more complex the plot, the less likely it is that it will work.
Niccolo Machiavelli, a witness of many intrigues, notes that a conspiracy "is always fraught with innumerable difficulties and dangers", and points to widespread failures: "Many conspiracies have taken place, but history shows that only a few have succeeded."
The philosopher Karl Popper continues this idea: "Firstly, they do not happen very often and do not change the main features of public life.
If we assume that the conspiracies will stop, the problems that we will face will not change radically.
Secondly, I claim that conspiracies are very rarely successful.
As a rule, the results achieved absolutely do not coincide with the intended goals (let's turn, for example,to the Nazi conspiracy)."
Large scale secret conspiracies in the Middle East, conducted by European, Israeli and American leaders, were unsuccessful; moreover, they hit the conspirators themselves with a ricochet.
The British and French governments secretly divided the Middle East under the Sykes - Picot agreement, but soon lost their dominance.
In the case of the Lavon affair, Israeli intelligence tried to hold Gamal Abdel Nasser responsible for violence against Americans in Egypt, but was exposed.
In the case of the Iran — Contra scandal, the American authorities secretly sold weapons to Iran and were exposed.
Similar cases occur all over the world.
3. Explicit stereotypes and cliches of conspiracy theories
Having identified the main features, it becomes obvious how much conspiracy theories have in common with each other in essence.
They are distinguished from the generally accepted thinking by two main features: the same evidence and versions.
Here are the obvious signs of conspiracy.
Mystery
Creating a deceptive appearance, conspirators easily devalue well known information and seek out bizarre and little known facts.
Due to the tendency of conspirators to mysticism, the data they have selected immediately catches the eye.
Conspiracy
Usually conspirators resort to impersonal constructions ("they were waiting for him"), but sometimes they use more open forms of communication, for example: "In order not to compromise the persons who may be involved in this case, I prefer not to disclose the sources of my information yet."
Use of forged documents
Falsifications are a strong proof of conspiracy.
The fear of the Templars increased as their history gradually became overgrown with fabricated facts.
The peak of the" posthumous glory "of the templars was the publication in 1877 of the "Latin Rule", compiled as if six centuries earlier.
The publication accused the Order of secret and obscene practices.
In a treatise published in 1614, the apostate Jesuit exposed the dark deeds and intentions of the"Society of Jesus".
Napoleon in 1811 issued a fake "Testament" ("Testament") Peter the Great, dated 1709 In it, the tsar outlined the plans of Russian hegemony in Europe and predicted with incredible accuracy the events that happened during the century after his death.
In the 90s of the XIX century.
The "American Protective Association" (American Protective Association) has released many fake documents.
The most important of them was the fake encyclical of Leo XIII, addressed to American Catholics, in which the Pope called on his overseas flock to exterminate all heretics (i.e., non Catholics).
However, the so — called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", fabricated in France and Russia on the basis of several earlier works, and some of the primary sources are primitive slander, have become a fake for all times.
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The inconsistencies of conspiracy theories
Conspirationists repeat the same basic statements with minor variations and protruding inconsistencies.
For half a century, American right wing reactionary groups, one after another, raised the alarm, warning of enemy troops concentrated on the border of Mexico with the United States.
During the Second World War, an extremist leader wrote: "200 thousand Communist Jews are ready to cross the Mexican border.
If they are allowed, they will subject all women and children left without protection to violence."
In 1962, the Minutemen group raised the alarm about Chinese Communist troops stationed on the Mexican border and preparing to launch an invasion.
A year later, the John Birch Society outlined the threat more specifically: thirty five thousand Chinese troops are ready to invade San Diego.
In the 80s, the movement against the government's tax policy Posse Comitatus turned the "Chinese threat" into thirty five thousand Vietcong hiding in south Texas.
Subsequently, Russian troops assembled in Mexico were already mentioned.
Jews, Chinese, Vietnamese, Russians it is unlikely that fears will allow you to identify the face of the enemy.
There is a "paranoid style".
Redundancy of factual material and excessively pedantic references
It seems that the creators of conspiracy theories are trying to overwhelm the reader with a pile of names, dates and facts.
Proving that the CIA was involved in the distribution of cocaine in Los Angeles, Gary Webb gives such dizzying details from the lives of a large number of people that the reader can hardly follow the thread of his evidence.
A pile of conspiracy theories
The failure of one conspiratorial version (for example, no "extra" bullets were actually found in Kennedy's body) it is immediately explained with the help of another (the bullets were secretly extracted by doctors).
Dismissing any contradictions in the evidence
Conspirators begin their work with a conclusion and look for justifications to reject all inappropriate facts.
An assistant to Jim Garrison, a leading "expert" on the Kennedy assassination, describes his boss's method as follows: "We usually select facts, and then deduce a theory from them.
Garrison first deduced the theory, and then selected the facts.
If the fact does not fit, Garrison will say that this is a CIA fraud."
Independence from the change of times
Centuries pass, generations change, but little changes in the world of conspiratorial fantasies.
The most striking example of this is the Templars, a Catholic military monastic order that appeared around 1119 and was destroyed by the French king in 1314.
Almost seven hundred years have passed since no one has seen a living Templar, but the mystical fleur of the oldest "secret society" continues to live.
The Bavarian Illuminati have been gone for more than two centuries, but they remain a powerful force in conspiratorial minds.
The fascist group "Mothers of the United States of America" (Mothers of the United States of America) accused the Sanhedrin — the council of rabbis, which ceased to exist in 66 AD — of provoking Hitler to attack Poland (in order to discredit the Fuhrer).
Chivalrous attitude to facts
Sometimes there are more than enough facts.
At first, the Rosicrucians "were so everywhere that their existence was questioned."
The very idea of this organization appeared in three books of fantastic content, published in 1614, 1615 and 1616.
Some readers (especially in Germany and England) took their existence on faith to such an extent that they began to look for opportunities to join the order and join the ancient mysteries.
In the following centuries, charlatans and imaginary conspirators, such as Filippo Buonarroti and Eliphas Levi, used the mysterious name "roses and crosses" for their own purposes.
In 1915, the "Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis "was founded in San Jose (California), which turned the ghost into a rigid organization with branches and protocols.
Cases with completely invented testimonies are also remarkable in their own way.
***
Finally, several basic considerations are constantly repeated in conspiracy theories.
Everyone is eager for power.
Other — decay
In the ideas of conspirationists, human interests are limited to the struggle for power: the more influential a force is, the less logic there is in its actions.
Mercy is a deception.
Masons pretend to profess Christianity, seeking only to "prepare for its overthrow".
According to the anti Semitic fake, " everyone aspires to power, everyone would become a dictator if he could, and there are few who would not be willing to sacrifice the general well being in order to protect their own."
Wealth and sexual satisfaction are usually in the first place among the benefits of the achieved power.
"They worship no god but Mammon."
Charity is a hidden form of profit
If someone does good, it means that he is secretly looking for benefits for himself.
It would seem that the great powers after the Second World War gave independence to their colonies in order to benefit their peoples.
In fact ,the "international economic circles" have only benefited from their immature independence and socialist fever.
The subsequent collapse of the economies in the newly independent states freed the former metropolises from competitors.
Thus, developed countries have provided themselves with cheap raw materials.
Foreign aid is a mechanism for deepening dependence, and loans provided to poor countries are a way of"domination and control".
There is also a catch behind other forms of generosity: Jews helped black Americans fight for civil rights because it was commercially profitable.
The prize is issued by the organizer
Whoever benefits from the event is the one who caused it.
If you know who won, it is clear who was scheming.
Ask " cui bono?" (which in Italian means "who wins", "who benefits from it"), and the answer will point to the conspirators.
The French Revolution gave Jews the right to vote, so the Jews were the cause of it.
Or was Napoleon a Jew?
Most of all, the business circles that needed new markets benefited from the imperialist policy — therefore, they were the invisible mover of the British Empire.
Among the defendants in the Kennedy assassination are representatives of almost thirty different social groups, and each time the justification for guilt is reduced to the benefits of the president's death.
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If Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait was financially beneficial to the Soviet Union, it means that Moscow inspired the Iraqi president to take this step.
Others see American benefits in these events — therefore, the United States was the instigator.
Boris Yeltsin won the most from the coup attempt in 1991, which means that he should have been the director of the conspiracy (he must have orchestrated it).
Conspiracies rule history
Other forces do not count.
Whether it's a lost crop or the First World War — someone invisible is responsible for all this.
The usual explanations of history are completely unsuitable.
Ideological confusion, economic difficulties, victory in the war — all these are symptoms, not causes.
The real power is the "magnificent organization and powerful financial resources" that the conspirators use.
From this point of view, historical giants such as Napoleon and Lenin, they become simple pawns, and people who actually did not have any power or did not exist at all are put forward in their place.
In this inverted world, the strongest are the weakest: "The Pope is almost in the position of a prisoner in the Vatican, just as the President of the United States is imprisoned in the White House, the Queen of England is in Buckingham, and Putin is in the Kremlin."
It seems to others that the whole course of history is guided by a Jewish conspiracy: there are many Jews, they are everywhere and well organized.
Others put all the blame on secret societies.
As one American journalist put it, "the history of conspiracy theories is the history of secret societies.
The history of secret societies is a history of conspiracies.
That's the whole history of civilization."
Important events take place exclusively behind closed doors, where only initiates are allowed.
The rest can think as much as they like that it is they who make decisions, but "the real force that elects presidents and prime ministers is invisible to the public — it is behind the stage."
Take, for example, the French Revolution.
In the conspiratorial versions, the plans of secret societies and meetings of various kinds of dark personalities are carefully traced.
Elections and public policy generally exist for a distraction.
According to the American racist, democracy is just " a hubbub that is raised only to replace the American system of governance with despotism."
The conspirationist vision of history is very different from academic science.
Science draws conclusions about the causes of changes only after analyzing numerous factors.
"The characteristic feature of the 'paranoid style'," writes Richard Hofstedter, "is not that interpreters everywhere in history see treason and secret collusion, but that they see a 'colossal' conspiracy as the main force behind historical events.
The story becomes a conspiracy."
There is nothing accidental or ridiculous
There is no place for chance in the conspirationist picture of the world.
As the philosopher Karl Popper explains, from this point of view, everything that would not happen in society, "is the result of a purposeful plan developed by some powerful individuals or groups."
William Guy Carr is more specific: "The better we learn the techniques by which the "Secret Powers" operate behind the facade of international politics, the more obvious it becomes that murders are passed off as accidents or suicides, sabotage is passed off as negligence, judicial errors and deadly stupidities are committed due to excusable circumstances."
Cause and effect are reversed: "If there is an effect, there must always be a reason."
There is no room for a person with his weaknesses, there are machines all around.
Conspirators are in awe of the incredible abilities of their enemies.
A member of the American right wing group E Pluribus Unum explains: "Nothing in the government happens by chance.
If something happens, know that this was intended."
Stalin's show trials and the "Great Terror" linked accidents in the Soviet national economy (and such really happened in large numbers, because little attention was paid to human life during forced industrialization) with someone's malicious intent: "there can be no question of accidents."
From this, Stalin drew a conclusion about the millions of saboteurs who work for hostile imperialism, and almost all of them were overtaken by his punishment.
AIDS also could not have appeared by itself, but was created in the laboratory by evil forces that seek to destroy millions or even billions of people.
Conspirators are looking for traces of the intervention of an "invisible hand" even in such natural phenomena as earthquakes and hurricanes.
Visibility is deceptive
Life is a scripted game.
To succeed, the plot must be disguised and presented as something opposite."
The apparent benefits are losses; losses, in fact, bring benefits.
The victims torture themselves, and the torturers are innocent.
"The obvious means that it is not real; and the present is necessarily bad."
A good family man, an honest entrepreneur, a patriot turns out to be a two faced traitor.
For a reasonable person, the absence of evidence against a conspiracy indicates the absence of a conspiracy, but for conspirators, "the best evidence is the absence of any evidence."
The serenity speaks of the secret actions of the enemy: Stalin believed that the "outwardly safe" situation indicates a "quiet war against the Soviet government".
The belief that appearances are deceptive entails four main mistakes: the search for enemies, the existence of conspiracies, dictate and freedom (where none of this exists).
The visible enemies should actually be friends
The Jews themselves created anti Semitism and successfully use it.
The" Elders of Zion "clearly said:"We need anti Semitism to rule our smaller brothers."
Anti Semites pour water on the mill of the Jewish conspiracy.
Similar suspicions concern secret societies.
The Jesuits and the Illuminati are not enemies, but secret allies.
Or: the core of the Masonic movement consists of members of the " Society of Jesus "(contrary to the papal condemnation of Freemasonry).
Many right wingers believe that Marx was not at all an outstanding fighter against capitalism, but its agent.
Nesta Webster, the most famous representative of British fascism, assured that Marx "was not sincere in denouncing the capitalist system."
The famous historian Oswald Spengler went even further, arguing that Western bankers created the communist movement and run it.
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"Any proletarian movement, even a Communist, he argued, acts (although his idealistic managers do not fully aware of this) in the interest of Money is moving in a direction that is desirable for Money; and so long as the Money."
Alfred Rosenberg (Alfred Rosenberg), a theorist of Nazism, he added this view to the ideology of the third Reich.
Spengler's statement is still repeated by the right.
Best friends should actually be enemies
This statement is less widespread than the previous one, but it also finds wide support.
The United States entered world wars not of its own free will, but as a result of the machinations of British agents, especially those from Wall Street.
Two pro Israeli writers do not put all the assistance provided to Israel by the Americans and Europeans into anything, and declare that " the secret prejudices that Western governments have against Jews have been and remain the only significant obstacle to peace in the Middle East."
Combined, these two illusions caused an almost surreal conversation that took place in November 1940 between Hitler and Stalin's People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov.
The German dictator claimed that the Americans were simply eager to seize the British colonies, and this at a time when America had already begun to help Great Britain.
Hitler wanted to convince the Soviets that " Roosevelt is having a hard time maintaining the appearance of order in his long bankrupt state."
But since the Anglo American alliance did not even think of falling apart, he himself chose to attack his recent ally.
Hitler's predictions that "England and America will soon begin to fight each other with the greatest fury imaginable" fully reflect the nature of the war that he himself waged against Russia.
Freedom is a compulsion
For almost two millennia (from 70 AD to 1948), the Jews did not have any centralized power.
However, proponents of conspiracy theories claim that the elders of Zion have ruled Jewry for centuries and led it to world domination.
The conspirationists ignore the Jewish disunity, which has become a proverb ("where there are two Jews, there are three synagogues").
In Jews, conspirationists see trained soldiers who unquestioningly follow the orders of the all powerful Jewish politburo.
Dissimilarities and contradictions are nothing more than a Jewish trick designed to fool narrow minded observers.
Atheist Jews and anti Semitic Jews are the same conspirators as the orthodox.
Such "non Jewish Jews" as Trotsky can deny their Jewishness in word and deed as much as they like, but by doing so they only confirm their loyalty to the Jewish authorities.
Capitalism is not a competitive system, but a hierarchy that is obedient to the top.
Entrepreneurs are given the opportunity only to follow the orders of politicians.
The UN, despite its apparent weakness, almost completely controls the representatives of the American government chosen by the people.
Then there is the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA; Federal Emergency Management Agency), a completely harmless government organization that gets involved in cases of natural disasters.
Under its guise, in their opinion, there is a structure that will become the executor of the laws of wartime in the future.
In each of these examples, conspirationists give dictatorial powers to civil institutions.
Coercion is freedom
When it comes to dictatorship, conspirationists, on the contrary, cannot see a monolithic system in such former totalitarian regimes as the Nazi, Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese or Iraqi.
In such cases, they, referring to the general line of the party, see conflicts ("moderate" and "extreme") where there is no struggle, and downplay the number of victims remaining on the conscience of these regimes, not noticing real attempts at conspiracies.
One author of the 50s went so far as to see in Stalin "only an agent of international financial circles appointed to rule Russia."
He also called Hitler a conductor of a "moderate fascist policy", who fell under the control of a group of "Nazi military caste".
The author of studies on the problems of mass culture commented on the Vietnam War: "If it were not for the prevalence of prejudices about conspiracies, we would never have been involved in a war that we were warned so much about and which is being waged in a region that is strategically of no interest to us."
It is curious that conspirationists downplay the power of governments, considering it incomparable with the influence of Jews or secret societies.
The right wingers were convinced that the Soviet Union was a manifestation of Jewish power.
Both the right and the left continue to believe that hidden forces rule in Washington.
Thus, the cliche "appearance is deceptive" is used again and again: secondary figures (Jewry) or even insignificant ones (Freemasonry) are attributed greater importance than such truly influential players as the American or Soviet governments.
The extreme conviction that" appearance is deceptive " in itself indicates a lack of prudence.
Conspirationism turns marginal groups (Jews, Freemasons) into the most powerful, and worthy governments turn out to be the embodiments of evil.
The fear of the harmless and well intentioned blinds the conspirators, hiding from them the real face of totalitarian regimes.
They see despotism in New York freethinking, and not in Stalinist Russia.
Conspiracy leads to a complete inability to make objective assessments.
Consistent systematic elimination of behavioral stereotypes is one of the results of training according to an individual program.
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