Because, time and time again, yesterday's conspiracy theory becomes today's well known (but mostly historical) fact. I remember perfectly well how people were ridiculed when they suggested that mass surveillance carried out by secret services was a thing. How about government tactics like GCHQ's JTRIG? Crazy tinfoil hat material for gullible people. Well, it was until 2014. Then it was proven true. What do you think, what would people arguing the existence of Operation mockingbird or Mkultra or the true nature of the gulf of Tonkin incident be called if those were current issues & events. Or look up the Tuskegee syphillis experiment. That abomination went on for 40 years. And hey, guess what the people who expressed serious doubts about WDMs in Iraq were called for a while. The term conspiracy theory has been robbed of all meaning. It equals legitimate sceptics who point out reasonable flaws of official narratives with lunatics. People conspire all the time! You can't throw a surprise birthday party without conspiring. Sometimes people conspire for less benign reasons. But suggest as much about the same institutions who have been repeatedly proven guilty - and suddenly you are the perfect subject matter for patronizing articles. "Conspiracy theorist!" is the battlecry of the aggressive conformist. As for that article? One of the most unsubstantiated, opinionated and generally insulting pieces I've ever had the misfortune to read from anyone apparently associated with an actual university. Wouldn't read again - and may Olivers everywhere have mercy on the author's soul.
Great comment. Although, I would need a minute to make sense of all your examples. You definitely know where you are standing in this "discussion".
The problem I have with this article is that, even if I were to agree (which I might, I am not convinced either way) that it makes more sense to explain patterns of irrationality as overall character flaws instead of explaining each idea in terms of the individual situation that led to it... why does it matter? Obviously people believing crazy things matters, but at the end of the day the way to address it is mostly the same. You educate people and address the points they make, regardless of whether or not it was their points that originally persuaded them or simply the people and ideas they were surrounded by. Just calling it a "character flaw" doesn't really seem to help anybody. If anything, is a somewhat defeatist attitude.
It suits our general pattern of thinking, I would assume. Categories are are what we utilize to make sense of the world. This probably boils down to a general discussion about semantics, but what use in clinical psychology, for example, is categories. We open drawers labeled with one or more certain terms, put in a file card with a name on it and close it. Until we need it again and sort it differently, the name will stay in that drawer.
With regard to the writers piece and your comment, it seems that the message is intended do discard a certain kind of people. If not discarded as being as a whole, their thinking certainly is.
Hypothetically, the writer felt the urge to make sense of his/her own world. Meaning, he/she gains a sense of security by "convincingly" refuse the probability that a certain amount of Olivers are/may be right.
I do not know who the writer feels associated with. I would simply go with the belief that he/she met too many batshit crazy people with the name of Oliver.
Just my thoughts. Thanks for the comment.
Anyone who thinks they are not easily influenced by the opinions of friends is more delusional than the hypothetical Oliver. I believe strongly in global warming -- but why? I don't have a significant background in earth science beyond my limited high school science education. I have no truly well-understood argument in favor of my position. It's entirely based on my trust of scientific authority, but there are many authorities that others trust which I don't. For example, I'm very skeptical of many famous, well-regarded economists. Some of them have won Nobel prizes. This skepticism is heavily influenced by arguments I've heard from friends and from other authorities whom I've chosen to trust more. The point is, nothing in that paragraph is remotely convincing in refuting the idea that people believe in conspiracies because of the peers they associate with. Whether you befriend conspiracy theorists may say something of your intellectual character, but there's no real evidence or compelling argument in this article in favor of the direct causal effect it's advocating for.Suppose it turns out that Oliver lives in a region where conspiracy theories are rife or that he is under the influence of friends who are committed conspiracy theorists. Wouldn’t these be perfectly viable situational, non-character explanations of his beliefs about 9/11? Only up to a point. The fact that Oliver is easily influenced by his friends itself tells us something about his intellectual character.
I was iffy about 9/11, until Obama became president and announced that it was a terrorist attack. Everything about the Saudi royal family leaving the country the day after, from Michael Moore's film is still true. I do ascribe to the notion that Israel, uses the holocaust to justify mistreatment of Palestinians. That the US churches encourage conflict there, to trigger the Apocalypse. From the books Holocaust Industry by Norman Finklestien and Have a Nice Doomsday by Nicolas Guyatt. I read a really long book about AIDS, that said Western Dr.'s used chimpanzee tissue to make unpasteurized oral vaccines. Most of the internet says, Russia started that theory, to make the third world angry with the US. The book is the The River by Edward Hooper. I believe John Perkins story Confessions of an Economic Hitman. Is that a conspiracy theory too? I do think that exploring ideas on the fringe, is important for discovery. Believing the same crazy theory everyone else does is a total waste of time. I'm in school, so I don't get to read like I used to.
Thanks for the literature. I will get me one or the other. What would be your favorite to advise someone to read? Have a Nice Doomsday and The River sound really compelling.
The main points of The River are in this documentary.