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The (Non) Logic of "Conspiracy Theory" Accusations

The term "conspiracy theorist" as it is almost always used is simply nothing more than a logically self-contradictory ad hominem attack.

The reason the charge of "conspiracy theorist" is logically self-contradictory is because everyone with an I.Q. high enough to tie their shoes is a believer in conspiracies. Governments are the biggest promulgators of belief in conspiracies--witness all the laws against "conspiracy" and all the criminal charges of "conspiracy" brought against people. The offical U.S. government story regarding such events as, e.g., the Pearl Harbor attack, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 9/11 attacks are charges by the U.S. government of conspiracy having been conducted against it by other governments or by non-government terrorist groups.

Thus, those making the charge of "conspiracy theorist" are also believers and/or promulgators of notions regarding conspiracies--often far more so than the person being accused as being a "conspiracy theorist."

A conspiracy is simply when two or more people formulate a plan which involves doing something untoward to another person or other people (of which plan may or may not be kept secret, i.e., secrecy is not a necessary component of conspiracy).

It certainly says something regarding the intellectual blinders one making the charge of "conspiracy theorist" is wearing that they don't even stop to realize the logically self-contradictory nature of this charge, as going by the literal meaning of the two words in the phrase "conspiracy theorist." For the one making this charge is himself a believer in conspiracies.

And so it is here where we come to the real meaning of the term "conspiracy theorist" as it is used by those making the charge. What they mean by this charge is that the accused believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which have not been offically sanctioned by the accuser's government--whereas the accuser making this charge believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which his government has deemed appropriate for the public to believe in. The difference between the two is that the accuser believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which are statist in their implications, in that they merely reiterate the offical government line--whereas the accused believes in and/or promotes ideas regarding conspiracies which are anti-statist in their implications, in that they go against what the accuser's government would have the public believe.

Also, the term "theory" as it is used in this logically self-contradictory ad hominem attack is misapplied and inappropriate. The term "theory" suggests a principle or law of operation. Thus you have the General Theory of Relativity and the Theory of Evolution. Yet almost always the logically self-contradictory ad hominem charge of "conspiracy theorist" is against those who are making specific claims regarding historical events. To illustrate this point, if someone says that it rained over the Bahamas on September 2, 2004 are they then a "theorist" for saying so?209.208.77.74 19:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

209.208.77.74 seems to miss what most people mean by conspiracy theory or conspiracy theorist, which is not a matter of the details of the story alleged, but one of how that story is structured and substantiated. We know from experience that certain stories, exhibiting similar clusters of features, tend to have their own internal reasons for spreading and growing, ones which have no necessary relationship to reality. Unless the anonymous individualist wishes to argue that all conspiracy theories are true, he must admit that some are produced as a result of, shall we say, human error? If so, it becomes of significant interest to define what the early-warning signs are of such human errors, and to investigate their causes. Adhib 23:59, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

The "anonymous individualist" is me, James Redford (see http://www.geocities.com/vonchloride/anarchist-jesus.pdf for more on me). Indeed not all conspiracy theories are true, such as the U.S. government's lying, self-serving, a-historical, a-factual, and provably false official fairy tale conspiracy theory concerning the 9/11 attacks. Since issues regarding conspiracies are issues pertaining to historical events, we use historical inquiry (e.g., who is recorded as doing what, and when and where are they recorded as doing it; or what is recorded as having happened, even if the "who" of it is not known) and deductive logic (e.g., along the lines of "If A is true, then so also B must be true, because ..."; or "If A is true, then B must be false, because ...") while attempting to answer the standard questions of criminal investigation and criminal court cases, such as who had the motive (i.e., cui bono?), opportunity or ability (i.e., means), modus operandi (if applicable), etc. 209.208.77.70 11:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

But what of my point re: narrative features? No comment? Adhib 20:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

---

But this logic holds in both directions. Unless Adhib wishes to argue that there has never been any instance of actual conspiracy ever, then absent further evidence to substantiate or falsify the situation, there exists the possibility of truth in the claim of conspiracy as there is the possibility of falsehood. Consensus dismissal without any evidence, based solely on an intuition or faith (a faith disproved regularly by historical fact) that large conspiracies are impossible, would ironically exactly meet the charge of a true conspiracy.

This is why it's prudent to return to Aristotlean scientific empiricism each and every time. The conspiracy theorist and his accuser are ironically simply displaying two different possible human instinctual reactions to large-scale events. While the conspiracy theorist seeks to rationalise the senseless (which can lead to human error, as you called it), the anti-conspiracy theorist practices another human instinctual reaction which we can simply dub "denial". The conspiracy theorist tries to attribute malicious conscious sense to the event, the anti-conspiracist seeks suppression and denial.

Amusingly for the empiricist watching, the two forms of reaction feed each other. The anti-conspiracist denies which is viewed by the conspiracist as evidence of cover up which in turn keeps the issue prominent that the anti-conspiracist wants it buried even further.

This can be seen as the basic "flee or fight" human instinct applied to the memetic realm. This instinct is simple. In a moment of crisis - say, attack by a predator (e.g. prehistoric man coming face to face with some dangerous beast, such as a dinosaur or rhino or similar) - there is an assessment of whether it is more prudent to stand one's ground or simply run away as fast as your legs can carry you.

Different situations demand different reactions. But there is an observable tendency to note that some people are more likely to choose one over the other in the general case. Some always flee. Some always fight.

In reaction to a large event, the conspiracy theorist represents the fight. They look for the enemy (one source of the said human error is to attribute an enemy where there isn't actually one or to, for example, lay the blame all on one individual - "it's the President!" - rather than what is a tragic but ordinary systematic failure e.g. the CIA and FBI really did just simply screw up sharing information about terrorism in a unconscious and purely accidental way). They confront the enemy.

The anti-conspiracist takes the other. A rarely recognised category because, yes, the most sensible instinct is "flee", when possible, and a majority possess the instinct to lean to this reaction first and foremost, only choosing "fight" when forced into it. This is the most logic and sensible decision to "flee" in the face of a danger of life and limb. If you can win a fight without actually fighting then this makes the most abundent sense. As the consensus possesses "flee", the resulting paradigm is to see "fight" as extraordinary and often insane, with no critical review made of their own position. The censoring phenomenon that everyone always believes that they are right, whether they are or not. Taking consensus as re-inforcement of this perception. In truth, reality pays no attention to our consensus and if everyone believes the world is flat (though that is itself a myth as there never was a time in recorded history where there doesn't exist record of the acceptance of the Earth being round but further demonstrates how humans take consensus as re-inforcement because a majority likely believes what can be shown by direct evidence to be factually untrue that there ever was a time in recorded history when people believed the world flat. The actual valid example would be to reference a belief that the Sun orbited the Earth, which was actually believed yet false. But this too acts as an example of consensus re-inforcement that bears no resemblence to the truth of the matter either).

The anti-conspiracist chooses "flee". This is the generally most sensible policy, as he who runs away does indeed live to fight another day. The human error that can be introduced from this alternative choice, though, is that of "deny everything". To run too far away from the danger. To not stop running, even when the danger has clearly passed. This can produce "bury your head in the sand" behaviour which, dependent on context, can be as idiotic and dangerous as the ranting "fight" conspiracy theorist.

It exhibits itself in, say, a public apathy to known corruption. The tolerance and acceptance of it. "There's no point voting as it makes no difference" / "there's no point protesting as they won't listen" / "that's just the way things are". To retract into a seige mentality. As her recent sad death reminds me, Rosa Park's refusal to sit at the back of the bus was a "fight" reaction. But the majority reaction is "flee" and seige mentality. Not to cause a fuss. Not to draw attention to yourself. Not to do anything that might bring danger to the door. To accept the situation as the way things are (both blacks and whites did this because not all whites necessarily thought segregation was a good idea but "it's the way things are" so they would not rock the boat and provoke danger to the door).

But logically it is as wrong to automatically dismiss every conspiracy theory as wrong, as it is to automatically assume everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. Therefore, logically, an "always flee" or an "always fight" instinct is going to be wrong at some point. The choice should not be made automatically but be made as circumstances determine.

Certain facets of human behaviour need to be taken into consideration in the assessment. Humans, even if we're always loathe to admit it, are generally incompetent and lazy. This, by the way, is another survival instinct and not a value judgement. It is a sensible energy conservation strategy (most appropriate in ancient times when humans might not have known when and where they would next eat, before the development of agriculture solved that problem). Humans also disagree far more than they agree. Just follow conversation on the internet to gain empirical proof of that. We are not a very conspiratorial species by nature. But our intelligence grants the ability when necessary.

Consider the construction of our large cities. This is a conspiracy. A conspiracy of architects, builders, plumbers, electricians, town planners, politicians, accountants and so forth. They conspire to build the city between them. This is rarely thought of as a conspiracy because it is a benevolent one. It is for good altruistic as well as selfish purpose. But when necessary, we are more than able to "conspire" to some pretty impressive levels. The construction of one of the most impressive cities of the world - Las Vegas - in the middle of a desert (on the strength of a gambling law or two alone). Placing men on the Moon (but ultimately only as a status symbol of an ideological battle in the Cold War).

My secondary comments there are delibrate. Because these extraordinary achievements are ultimately most often grounded in rather ordinary goals. Which is typically human in nature. I make these observations on the grounds that it is a mark against actual conspiracies in general (the "flee" is the majority instinct with good evolutionary reason) because they are very difficult to pull off. The secret conspiracy with hidden agendas often nigh-on impossible from the strength that if it involved thousands or tens of thousands of people, good old human nature would undermine it because someone would screw up, someone would turn whistle blower, someone would make a mistake and leave evidence of conspiracy out there in the wide open public gaze (fail to clean up the evidence properly). But the ability to pull it off relates to what the conspiracy is. The Nazis were able to pull off the Holocaust conspiracy in a relative form of "secrecy" because ordinary communications between nations are broken off in times of war (it was secret outside Germany, even though it couldn't possibly have been made utterly secret to everyone inside Germany).

Churchill's insistance to British Parliament that Germany was secretly re-militarising was laughed off as "conspiracy theory" and "war mongering" at the time. Until it eventually become clear he was absolutely right and then become the natural choice of war leader. Churchill, without doubt, had nothing but "fight" instinct in him. Even in personal affairs, he was known to be grossly stubborn. "Fight" instinct was in every fibre of his being. As there was an actual conspiracy afoot then his instincts were on-the-mark and we needed him.

The basic rule of thumb, I would venture, is to simply not react instinctually at all. Make a conscious choice based on available evidence. To exercise the logic of the subject heading and the principles of empiricism. Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence. If there is no evidence then you don't know whether there is or isn't a conspiracy. You will have your beliefs. But beliefs are not facts. Reality is typically always uneffected by what we might wish or not wish to be the case. PetrochemicalPete 07:59, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, Pete, your empirical lecture lost me right around where prehistoric man was facing off to a dinosaur. But you had already touched on the key issue by then, in your own way: it is possible to see this argument as simply one instance of that general argument between empiricism and the various historicisms. For myself, the Berkeleyan kick of a pebble was never a convincing epistemic gambit. You pays your money ... Adhib 20:35, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

"When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge."

Confucius

Let's be serious

As it stands, the article has no logical structure or narrative cohesion, rambling from one side of the debate to the other, making no clear statements of much value to a general reader, and is generally a blot on the 'pedia landscape. I propose that we try to rationalise the entire article along the following lines:

A brief introductory paragraph

One sentence sharply defining the term, and one follow-up sentence noting its controversial application.

Features

A list of features commonly identified as characteristic of conspiracy theory narratives, eg:

• Initiated on the basis of limited or partial evidence
• Concerns a topic of widespread historical / emotional significance
• Reduces complex phenomena into simple good v. bad morality play
• Attributes extraordinary skill or intelligence to the conspirators
• Key steps rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning
• Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies
• Is produced and circulated by 'outsiders'
• Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities
• Rebuttals provided by expert communities are ignored or accommodated through new twists in the narrative

Origins of CT

A summary of the sociopolitical and psychological theory addressing the genesis of false theories.

Controversies

All the griping that is currently smattered through the article

Endmatter

Links, etc

Any thoughts? Adhib 19:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I would add to your list:

• Attributes extraordinary skill or intelligence to the conspirators

(the conspirators always seem so much more clever than, say, the Watergate burglars)

–Shoaler (talk) 19:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Good observation! Any more suggestions? I'm aiming for a pretty comprehensive list of features, of which we can say that several such features must be demonstrated in a narrative for it to be legitimately described as a conspiracy theory, and the more such features demonstrated, the more confident the description can be. Adhib 07:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The Nazi government conspired to murder 6 million Jews. The Soviet government conspired to murder over 50 million of their own citizens. The Communist Chinese government conspired to murder over 50 million of their own citizens. Mainstream history records that the Nazi, Soviet, and Chinese governments were all successful in conspiring to put to death the aforementioned numbers of their own subject people. But then again, massive government conspiracies don't exist--I heard it on the TV.209.208.77.74 19:52, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Watching TV is where so many people go so tragically wrong. I recommend books, myself. Adhib 23:29, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Somewhat less frivolously, 209.208.77.74 is wrong to imply that the features list amounts to a confirmation of government blamelessness - it has no bearing on such issues. The features are simply a rough guide to whether a particular story is cooked-up from froth, or hard evidenced. It might be that anti-government cynicism such as (his?) is fully justified. But that could never have any bearing on whether or not it is right to make up scary tales about evil politicians and attempt to pass them off as true. Adhib 23:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Works for me; I look forward to reading it. Presenting it as one type of narrative among others might defuse some of the concerns about bias. Tom harrison 22:56, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Sounds good, I look forward to it as well. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:11, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

For use in a descriptive sense the phrase "conspiracy theory" and the entire conspiracy "genre" or "narrative" are illegitimately and improperly tainted and tainting beyond hope of repair for use in an allegedly neutral encyclopedia. Why do you need a phrase to describe this "narrative" all at once, why not list each of the above "features" individually and directly where ever you notice them in what you consider to be a dubious theory? What of the plan to simply present things using clear language and the scientific method and keep any debunking simple using the novel concept of facts and logic? "Enjoys zero cerdibility in expert communities" is stating things directly without using confusing language (if cited and absent counter citations), why can't we just do that? I think we should add "perhaps illegitimately" to the last paragraph of the article "...is used to disparage", and the first two seemingly new paragraphs need clarity work. Scientifically speaking, descriptive words should never connote that a subject is unworthy of serious consideration. zen master T 16:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

My instinct is to concentrate the article on the 'serious consideration' that sociology, psychology, etc, have given to the question of conspiracy theory, ie, to what the invention of conspiracy theories might tell us about the human condition. For the purposes of those academic disciplines, disparaging a particular story is a side issue - rather, they are attempting to trace the genesis of a kind of folklore, to draw wider conclusions about the social production of meanings. As with many questions in the human sciences, serious consideration of what happens in a perverse case can shed significant light on how the norm functions. Adhib 07:27, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I read somewhere that conspiracy theory, especially on the web, has elements in common with fan-fiction. Is there some sort of taxonomy of narratives that we could use to put 'conspiracy theory' in context? Tom harrison 13:39, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Interesting question. I'll pursue it. Adhib 15:24, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, that was a wrong turn (but an interesting one!). It heads off into all kinds of issues around semiotics, structuralism and poststructuralism. See Narratology. I'd love for there to be a taxonomy of narrative, but academia wouldn't stand for it! Adhib 10:39, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Looking at the article again, it seems like most of the so-called "griping" comes down to two assertions:

1. That some conspiracy theories are valid because they are eventually proved correct - I doubt that the percentage is very high but we should have a place to list CTs that have been proved correct. (Watergate doesn't count because it was not generally called a CT)
2. That "conspiracy theory" is sometimes used to discount a theory - Yes, this is true and we should say so.

A lot of the bulk in this article, though, consists of confusing "conspiracy theory" with "conspiracy." The latter is common and generally accepted. The former is frequently an extraordinary explanation for an event requiring, as they say, extraordinary proof to be accepted. --–Shoaler (talk) 13:05, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There's definitely a place under the 'controversy' heading to discuss how a narrative exhibiting the features specified under 'features' might yet stumble onto something that happens to be true. I'm working on extracting relevant pars from the existing and arranging them accordingly in my off-line draft. IMHO, those which prove true (such as the Dreyfus example) would probably not qualify as CTs to begin with, since they tend to be methodical investigative journalism, not speculation of the order of a typical CT. Was MKULTRA in fact a viable CT before exposure by the New York Times? Furthermore, when a narrative with such features happens to express something that is in fact true, does it matter to us whether it does so more or less at random, ie by chance? There's at least one sense of true in which the CT is false despite the facts it alleges being true, since it alleges them on false premises. Adhib 08:30, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Adhib, you are resorting to disinformation tactics by constantly bringing up a tainted genre and ignoring the core issue which is the fact that "conspiracy theory" is a biasing and non neutral way of presenting things. zen master T 15:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Zen-m, I have no idea what you're implying by 'disinformation tactics', but I assure you that all I'm attempting to achieve here is a reasonably objective account of the category, Conspiracy theory, such that we can all agree on what it means, the better to determine whether it legitimately applies to a specific conspiracy story. I have proposed some features, and am working on some more, which together help identify true members of the set. These features, taken together, indicate that a story has been constructed according to the formula of the genre, not driven by evidence and logic, so I am not in the least ignoring that membership of the genre correlates with long odds against being true.

The way I see it; either you are interested in differentiating viable conspiracy accusations from the ramblings of crackpots (in which case the 'features' list will be a positive help to you), or you are committed to defending a story that does exhibit many of the warning signs listed (in which case you might well hate me for mentioning them, but can't seriously expect to deny them). Adhib 11:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Once again you have resorted to disinformation tactics. You consistently misdirect from the core issue that duplicitously discrediting literal language is insuffient evidence to establish whether a particular theory belongs in a dubious, tainted and tainting "genre", let alone justification for violation of the scientific method to unfairly present even a dubious but cited theory. The first step towards differentiation is to use plain non duplicitous language. A good definition of "conspiracy theory" I found on the inet states that if there just one shred of evidence for a theory then it is not a "conspiracy theory", I think that is a good standard for us to follow. What do you think? We also have to consider the possibility and plausibility that the entire dubious and tainting "genre" or "narrative" was itself created for disinformation purposes. zen master T 13:00, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Zen-m, I can only invite you to consider the listed criteria and make your specific comments - these general objections appear to me to be failing to move your case forwards. BTW, I think you're wrong to suggest thatWe also have to consider .. x,y & z. If x,y & z are frivolous or fringe, our priority has to be to avoid giving them undue weight, unless we are hopelessly beguiled by such notions ourselves... Adhib 13:21, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Uhhh the discussion moved here because of all the illegitimate "conspiracy theory" titled articles. Instead of trying to rationalize situations where "conspiracy theory" is ok my specific complaint is that we should instead move towards using clear and direct language in descriptive contexts. Concerns of illegitimately biasing presentation trump concerns of undue weight, and "undue weight" can't possibly justify a 100% discrediting method of presentation. Perhaps you should take your argument to the wikipedia guideline that deals with presenting allegations which have citations and evidence (hmmm, is that the NPOV policy perchance?). zen master T 13:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Watergate

the article says the following about Watergate, is this accurate: " but which only existed as a series of initially-unbelieveable allegations in newspaper reports for several years". When it first came out I didn't find it "unbelievable". It was reported by many of the major news organizations. It wasn't unbelievable in the way the moon landing conspiracy theory is unbelievable. I don't ever remember Watergate being called a conspiracy theory. Bubba73 (talk) 01:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theory" etymology

Colloquially the term "conspiracy theory" is used to disparage any non-mainstream theory about current or historical events, often with the connotation that the theory is unfounded, outlandish, irrational or in some way unworthy of serious consideration. It is never used by a theory's proponents, only by its detractors. -From the article

The Online Etymology Dictionary (as well as the 1997 Oxford English Dictionary) lists "conspiracy theory" as dating to 1909, and there is one usage in a newspaper in 1877 on record; but does anyone happen to know when the colloquial (disparaging) use began?

Or, what's the earliest-dated disparaging use anyone can find?