Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Top Ten Conspiracy Theories


Plewggs
 Share

Recommended Posts

11 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

Can some of you daft cunts sign up to this?

 

Is the Earth flat? Were NASA lying about the moon landings? Was Paul McCartney replaced with a lookalike in the 60s?

 

Join @DrDanielJolley as he hosts a webinar masterclass to explain the science behind fake news and conspiracy theories. Register now: bit.ly/2GbSqxA

DON'T sign up to this, the NSA will hack you.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Lizzie Birdsworths Wrinkled Chopper said:

Imagine ever being taken in by that fucking hunk of shit phoney.

It fucking amazes me. 

 

But it people do, “Conspiracy theories are complete bollocks.  But everyone knows climate change is bollocks/the earth is flat/we didn’t land on the moon/9/11 was an inside job/Maddie’s parents did it/vaccines cause autism”. It genuinely baffles me. Normally intelligent people have a pet theory that they think is different to the others. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
On 12/04/2019 at 18:57, Rico1304 said:

Can some of you daft cunts sign up to this?

 

Is the Earth flat? Were NASA lying about the moon landings? Was Paul McCartney replaced with a lookalike in the 60s?

 

Join @DrDanielJolley as he hosts a webinar masterclass to explain the science behind fake news and conspiracy theories. Register now: bit.ly/2GbSqxA

 

Maybe some "daft cunts" on here and from that webinar could gain from reading some of this. It's from Occult Features of Anarchism - With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples, by Erica Lagalisse. Just read the book faster than I've read anything in ages I think, and thought it was great.

 

1 : This is long, I split it up into 3 parts so that there's not just a ton of text that can't be read in bits.
2 : I could have shortened it, but I don't think it's wise for me to decide what bits are best here to be included and what aren't, so the whole unbroken extract is here.
3. It took ages to type from the book, it's maybe online in some form but I didn't find it, sorry for any typos that couldn't be edited out in time.

 

Extract from the final chapter, part 1 :

 

Beyond "tolerating" the theorist of conspiracy for the sake of reeducating him, activists' own ideology suggest that they might listen for subversive social commentary amid unfamiliar exposition. When activists instead immediately dismiss the subaltern "conspiracy theorist" as a problematic "distraction," we are invited once again to consider how the theories of epistemology related to "intersectionality" that activists proclaim within their social milieus are incoherent with actual practice, and ask why such a contradiction should prevail.

 

With respect to this question, and beyond the aforementioned dynamics of bourgeois "good politics" as a partial explanation, I am here tempted to advance a further tentative hypothesis: perhaps theories of "conspiracy" are rapidly dismissed by intellectual elites precisely because they uncomfortably highlight disavowed agency among persons of the professional class. Maybe members of the ruling class simply don't want to think about the fact that they do enjoy more power to affect institutional affairs than the janitor does, because then they would have to feel partially responsible for the workings of global capitalism (instead of blaming a sexist, racist, homophobic janitor). After all, only to the elite observer should it be surprising that persons in oppressed groups find the activity of dominant groups "suffused with intentionality" that elites cannot see or, to use the phrase of Pierre Bourdieu, "misrecognize." Any orthodox historian is capable of illustrating that social elites only enjoy the power they do because they conspire to retain and accrue it, just as the institutional elites involved in the Holy Alliance or "Conspiracy of Kings" did at the turn of the nineteenth century. There is no politics without conspiracy. The question is simply "who" is conspiring to do "what."

 

One feature of "conspiracy theory" oft maligned by elite observers is a suggestion inherent to many popular theories that global power functions as an entirely streamlined system, with total orchestration topping exactly one extremely pointy pyramid. It is true that social scientists could productively contribute compelling critiques in this regard. Pelkmans and Machold, for example, point out that the "most theoretically interesting field of conspiracy is theorizing that addresses conspiracies that supersede the 'petty' without extrapolating suspicions to a global scale." In other words, we might productively intervene by first granting that there are indeed many "pyramids" (plural, fragmented, and contestatory, of course) characterizing social space, and that the people at the tops are usually actively vying to stay there, whether they admit it to themselves or not.

 

The dismissal or the "conspiracy theory" is not explained simply by a politics of class distinction, it is also about rationality and how we understand power, yet it appears that here too class informs our position. The anti-Semitism within many popular theories of power is the most often stated concern among contemporary anarchist activists, yet ethnographic observation suggests that in their imagination the "absurdity" of the "conspiracy theory" is instead often attached to the involvement of what they call "supernatural" elements. As suggested earlier, here we see again how the presumed "irrationality" of suspecting successful political conspiracies (which indeed happen all the time) and the presumed "irrationality" of believing in aliens or psychic mind control collapse in the critic's mind. While popular thinkers develop allegories for capitalist extraction, wherein Jews, aliens, Templars, and Freemasons become protagonists in turn, the fact that UFO's and "magic" appear in some accounts is brought to delegitimize the larger popular search for understanding altogether.

 

In fact, insofar as we may discern a consistent substantial difference between the ideas commonly referenced as "conspiracy theories" and those commonly understood as "social theory," it is simply that social theory takes "society" as its unit of analysis, whereas "conspiracy theories" grant more power to individuals. More specifically, orthodox social theory generally involves a structural or post-structural theory of social change, wherein history unfolds due to relatively impersonal forces (e.g., Marx's "dialectic" or Foucault's "discourse"), whereas "conspiracy theory" appears to be judged as such partially due to a voluntarist theory of history embedded within, wherein the activities of individuals and groups can and do change the course of events. (This is Karl Popper's main grievance in one of the earlist published critiques, for example.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Extract part 2 :

 

Given that for decades now social scientists have cited Michel Foucault to elaborate the constraints of "discourse" and institutional power on their own range of thought and movement (while highlighting "resistance" among people living in relative poverty), perhaps the "conspiracy theory" is uncomfortable for the intellectual elite partly because it constitutes an anti-Foucauldian theory of power. This is, of course, another way of saying that considering "conspiracy" among elites is uncomfortable for elites because it highlights the social power they do structurally enjoy and, therefore, incovenient responsibilities that they do actually have. Chosen definitions of rationality and how one understands power, as well as one's proclivity toward an impersonal (structural) versus personal (voluntarist) understanding of history, do appear related to social class, wherein both elite and the popular theorists enjoy different insights and suffer different blind spots.

 

I invite all politically engaged readers, both activists and academics, to rearrange and play with the questions opened up here in critically productive ways. Given the current prevalence of the phrase "conspiracy theory" and its diverse and proliferating contents, it is important for us to properly explore how opposing arguments on either side of "conspiracy theory" debates are defined by distinct a priori premises regarding history and causality, as well as different forms of argumentation and exposition, and how the vastly different epistemologies in play as activists "talk past each other" about "conspiracy" appear related to differences of class culture, interest, and subjectivity. I have focused on this question, rather than using this space to simply scold the contents of various amateur YouTube videos on Freemasonry (which would be succumbing to the elite predisposition I discuss), as it seems more important to explore why so many participants recently involved in leftist activism and scholarship have not actively worked to challenge the increasingly popular idea that the left (in general) and the Illuminati (in particular) are one and the same with a secret world government.

 

Since the election of Donald Trump in the United States in 2016, persons involved in left politics have been aghast at the overwhelming number of neofascist groups parroting the anti-Semitic ideas found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, yet such a scenario was not entirely unpredictable. As I pointed out in my introduction, the analysis of the Occupy movement provided on YouTube by David Icke (purveyor of the lizard banker hypothesis) enjoyed more "views" than almost all activist produced videos concerning Occupy combined. Yet it seems that during the past decade many persons involved in left politics have cared more about keeping their own hands respectably clean, scoffing at the "conspiracy theory" from a distance, than about preventing damaging disinformation, including theories of history that inspire and justify the growing movements in North America today. This scenario alone is enough reason to begin seriously hypothesizing the "conspiracy theory" in relation to the making and unmaking of class respectability, whereby some ideas are made polluted by a constructed association with others, and wherein people are made polluted by and pollute ideas via the same chain of associations.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Extract part 3 :

 

Going forward, anti-capitalists of all stripes would do well to properly tackle the abundant and curious confusion regarding the left and the Conspiracy of Kings, the disturbing racialized political imaginaries, and the plethora of "bizarre" origin stories of capitalism often found within the works marked "conspiracy theory." I hope this book may come in useful to that end. I hope that some persons identified as "conspiracy theorists" read it and feel both productively challenged and validated by my words. Being written in elite genre, it will also likely be read by the sort of professional middle-class subject who generally disdains the "conspiracy theory," wherein the utility of the work will depend entirely on how these readers themselves decide to use it. Hopefully they will use the information acquired to engage with diverse "conspiracy theorists" in public forums and everyday life. Rather than disdaining from a distance the millions of people who fear an Illuminati-controlled "New World Order," perhaps they might engage in substantive argument with them, using some of the facts provided in this work in the process. They might discuss with them how the neoliberal world order is indeed controlled by conspiring elites, including bankers, yet the bankers are not specifically Jewish or lizards nor associated with the Illuminati. They might explain further how it serves the real "blue-blooded" parasites in power to have people believe they are.

 

Of course, it is here that a true conspiracy may exist. Indeed it would be irresponsible to discuss the topic of the "conspiracy theory" as much as I have without attending to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States has specifically worked to promote the category in the media - this fact having been duly researched and established in peer reviewed academic literature, something I feel I must mention, lest I be tarnished as a "conspiracy theorist" myself. The fact that the CIA has promoted the concept of the "conspiracy theory" and potentially contributed to its media content does not mean, following a certain misguided logic often attributed to "conspiracy theory," that the CIA "invented" the conspiracy theory or is the sole or primary "cause" of the "conspiracy theory," which is the outcome of diverse and combined historical and cultural forces.

 

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published at the turn of the twentieth century, and various books that associated left politics with a secret world government were published around the same time, long before the CIA existed. Yet every social scientist is capable of understanding that a government agency may have a vested interest in promoting existing ideas that distract from true government corruption and violence, including those of the increasingly global oligarchy currently enforcing neoliberal austerity programs (predatory capitalist extraction) throughout the world.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, General Dryness said:

Can somebody sum this up for me? 

 

a few points are :

 

- ridiculing conspiracy theorists can be partly seen as based in a class issue. It could be that elites would rather ridicule working/poorer classes and stick to their own social science theories of how things are supposed to work than look more seriously at some conspiracy theories and accept that elites are near constantly conspiring. This can be seen to an extent with Brexit (not mentioned in extract, an example I'm thinking of) where half the country is branded as thick, racist, etc, instead of accepting that the conspiring and corruption by elites from EU governments and the EU staff themselves could be partly to blame for the referendum outcome in the way they've ran things over the years.

 

- the left in doing the same (dismissing and ridiculing conspiracy theorists) could be/have already been empowering the right and those on the fence politically instead of engaging with them and maybe helping clear up some of the errors they're making.

 

- governments could be intentionally making sure that conspiracy theories of certain types are kept going in order to distract from the real problems and corruption they're engaged in themselves.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

Extract part 3 :

 

Going forward, anti-capitalists of all stripes would do well to properly tackle the abundant and curious confusion regarding the left and the Conspiracy of Kings, the disturbing racialized political imaginaries, and the plethora of "bizarre" origin stories of capitalism often found within the works marked "conspiracy theory." I hope this book may come in useful to that end. I hope that some persons identified as "conspiracy theorists" read it and feel both productively challenged and validated by my words. Being written in elite genre, it will also likely be read by the sort of professional middle-class subject who generally disdains the "conspiracy theory," wherein the utility of the work will depend entirely on how these readers themselves decide to use it. Hopefully they will use the information acquired to engage with diverse "conspiracy theorists" in public forums and everyday life. Rather than disdaining from a distance the millions of people who fear an Illuminati-controlled "New World Order," perhaps they might engage in substantive argument with them, using some of the facts provided in this work in the process. They might discuss with them how the neoliberal world order is indeed controlled by conspiring elites, including bankers, yet the bankers are not specifically Jewish or lizards nor associated with the Illuminati. They might explain further how it serves the real "blue-blooded" parasites in power to have people believe they are.

 

Of course, it is here that a true conspiracy may exist. Indeed it would be irresponsible to discuss the topic of the "conspiracy theory" as much as I have without attending to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States has specifically worked to promote the category in the media - this fact having been duly researched and established in peer reviewed academic literature, something I feel I must mention, lest I be tarnished as a "conspiracy theorist" myself. The fact that the CIA has promoted the concept of the "conspiracy theory" and potentially contributed to its media content does not mean, following a certain misguided logic often attributed to "conspiracy theory," that the CIA "invented" the conspiracy theory or is the sole or primary "cause" of the "conspiracy theory," which is the outcome of diverse and combined historical and cultural forces.

 

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was published at the turn of the twentieth century, and various books that associated left politics with a secret world government were published around the same time, long before the CIA existed. Yet every social scientist is capable of understanding that a government agency may have a vested interest in promoting existing ideas that distract from true government corruption and violence, including those of the increasingly global oligarchy currently enforcing neoliberal austerity programs (predatory capitalist extraction) throughout the world.

Could you send me this in a voice note in Morgan Freemans accent please? 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a good and shorter extract from the intro of Erica Lagalisse's book on some of what's above :

 

The folk sociological account of "conspiracy theory" hegemonic among the professional class further suggests that "conspiracy theories" are only attractive to small-minded people looking for a simple and therefore satisfying explanation for global exploitation and violence (although many proposed "conspiracy theories" and not particularly simple). The "conspiracy theorist" is also imagined to be politically apathetic: the idea that global capitalism is headed by magic-wielding aliens means there is no use in organizing against it. In short, according to many educated elites, "conspiracy theorists" are all thirty-something white men who live in their mothers' basements (a euphemism for working-class status) and are socially unengaged except for periodic ranting on their respective keyboards. And if "conspiracy theorists" tend to be white working-class men, this is because only people who benefit from race and gender privilege in society would need to invent an imaginary wizard caste of evil world leaders to explain why economic developments don't seem to be working out in their favor.

 

The many YouTube videos I have reviewed over the years are, by and large, presented by disaffected white men, and surely this last suggestion above reflects certain insight. And I too have had many conversations with "conspiracy" buffs who do not play by the rules of logical argument, and for whom my university studies on the topic merely prove that I am an untrustworthy element of the "Illuminati" establishment. Yet my studies originally began because of an argument I entertained with educated Mexican men who were active members of a Zapatista collective - they were not white, nor where they politically apathetic, and while one of them was originally attached to anti-Semitic stories about modern banking, following debate he considered altering his theory of history.

 

With this in mind, one wonders if progressive elites themselves are not being somewhat irrational, or perhaps holding on to a crude stereotype of "conspiracy theorists" as a way of justifying a comfortable routine of disengagement, wherein the English-speaking world is increasingly ridden with anti-Semitic theories of global conspiracy but it's "not worth trying" to change anyone's mind. Of course, reasoned debate will not be sufficient to turn devoted neo-Nazis away from their project, but it may affect the future actions of those still sitting on the fence, so to speak. And maybe when it comes to fighting fascism, every possible strategy is worth trying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To be honest I didn't think a single person on here would be spending (or wasting) their time on a book mainly focused on the "occult features of anarchism" along with some focus on conspiracy theories, which is exactly why I posted an extract on one of the parts of the book related to this thread. We have plenty of views from university educated professionals talking about the "psychology of the conspiracy theorist" in ways that often direct most or all of the errors on those with the theories, so thought it'd be good to share some views from one that has a bit of a different perspective.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

a few points are :

 

- ridiculing conspiracy theorists can be partly seen as based in a class issue. It could be that elites would rather ridicule working/poorer classes and stick to their own social science theories of how things are supposed to work than look more seriously at some conspiracy theories and accept that elites are near constantly conspiring. This can be seen to an extent with Brexit (not mentioned in extract, an example I'm thinking of) where half the country is branded as thick, racist, etc, instead of accepting that the conspiring and corruption by elites from EU governments and the EU staff themselves could be partly to blame for the referendum outcome in the way they've ran things over the years.

 

- the left in doing the same (dismissing and ridiculing conspiracy theorists) could be/have already been empowering the right and those on the fence politically instead of engaging with them and maybe helping clear up some of the errors they're making.

 

- governments could be intentionally making sure that conspiracy theories of certain types are kept going in order to distract from the real problems and corruption they're engaged in themselves.

Thats the short version? 

 

You have one sentence. Make it happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, General Dryness said:

Thats the short version? 

 

You have one sentence. Make it happen.

 

I don't really think it's a good idea to take the extract I spent 3 posts on and try to turn it into one sentence.

 

You can half that longer first point if it helps in what you quoted because the rest was an example I was making. I don't think someone's speech, article or essay going on about the "psychology of conspiracy theorists" like we've seen several times recently would be much use to those interested if it was turned into one sentence either, and can't really see how it would help much in this case.

 

I could be being less helpful after reading the short book in the early hours of the morning and only just now being about to try and get some sleep too, but still struggle to see much use in trying to put a good enough explanation into one sentence!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Red Phoenix said:

To be honest I didn't think a single person on here would be spending (or wasting) their time on a book mainly focused on the "occult features of anarchism" along with some focus on conspiracy theories, which is exactly why I posted an extract on one of the parts of the book related to this thread. We have plenty of views from university educated professionals talking about the "psychology of the conspiracy theorist" in ways that often direct most or all of the errors on those with the theories, so thought it'd be good to share some views from one that has a bit of a different perspective.

Fair enough,  o issue with you posting it. My issue is with her unsubstantiated assumptions that she based her entire work on. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Fair enough,  o issue with you posting it. My issue is with her unsubstantiated assumptions that she based her entire work on. 

 

The early history of anarchism has links with groups that were also involved in the occult, including the Illuminati and the Masons. She doesn't mean this in any type of negative way either. Anyone that actually reads the book will see that that's clearly supported.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

I don't really think it's a good idea to take the extract I spent 3 posts on and try to turn it into one sentence.

 

You can half that longer first point if it helps in what you quoted because the rest was an example I was making. I don't think someone's speech, article or essay going on about the "psychology of conspiracy theorists" like we've seen several times recently would be much use to those interested if it was turned into one sentence either, and can't really see how it would help much in this case.

 

I could be being less helpful after reading the short book in the early hours of the morning and only just now being about to try and get some sleep too, but still struggle to see much use in trying to put a good enough explanation into one sentence!

Steady on, Mr Logic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...