This article is long but well worth reading:

I would like to say something both to those who believe in what some people call conspiracy theories, and those who do not:

First, to the "conspiracy theorists".

By "conspiracy theorists" I mean both the "right wing" (so-called) ones who believe that this or that socialist/royalist organization is secretly running things, setting up their own brotherhoods as an elite class, and the "left wing" (so-called) ones who believe that the capitalist/corporate organizations are secretly running things, trying to make everyone else poor, destroy the planet, et cetera.

I will admit, for the moment, that you may be right. And I don't mean I will agree "for the sake of argument". I seriously admit that you may be right. In fact, you may have seen definite proof. Or you may simply have chosen to believe the right theory.

But you still may be making a serious mistake.

Imagine this, if you would:

What if I believed that an invisible, untouchable person was following me around talking to me. Or that, somehow, I heard a voice that was another actual entity talking to me, that nobody else could hear.

Let's set aside whether I'd be right, or crazy, or whatever. In fact, let's imagine that it's really happening, and I am right.

So I'm not crazy (this is all hypothetical, I don't actually hear voices, so put away the restraining devices).

But let's imagine that, it being true, the voice being real, I go around telling other people about it.

Now I am crazy. Even though the voice is real. Not for believing in the voice, but because I apparently do not have a good enough grasp on reality to understand that nobody else is going to find me sane.

Think of every piece of fiction, like various movies, where the guy runs around telling people about something which we, as the audience, understand, but which he, as the victim, should have enough sense to know sounds crazy to other people. So they get locked up, or ignored.

Does that make sense to do?

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say that telling people about a conspiracy is crazy, but it certainly is a less dramatic sort of version of the same problem.

Yes, you believe that X is happening. But, even if you're right, if you stop and think about it, most of the people you meet fall into one of two categories:

 

1. Those who think it's just impossible, especially if you just start telling them about it without FIRST showing them the proof.
2. Those who think (like me) that maybe it's possible, but it's damned unlikely that one could ever guess which "conspiracy" is true, and/or what the real facts are, if there really is a conspiracy. And worse; who realize that you're saying this even though many people fall into the first category, and don't place a lot of faith in someone who didn't realize how crazy it sounds, even if it's true.

So what does that leave you doing, when you tell people that you are certain of these things? It leaves half of them thinking (wrongfully, if you ask me) that you are crazy to even think that such things are possible, and the other half wondering why on earth you think you're so certain about this, and worse, why you're trying to tell people who probably belong to the half who will find you crazy, right or wrong.

Does any of that help your "cause", whether it's "to stop their tyranny" or just "to get the truth out"?

No, I'm afraid that, if anything, you actually help any real conspiracy, even if it's the one you believe in, by perpetuating the idea that all conspiracy theorists are a little out of touch with reality. Whether or not you are out of touch.

Think of Ross Perot. No, I'm serious.

He would probably have split the ticket and done us all a big favor, whether or not he was right, except that he made one big mistake (OK, a lot of little ones too, but one big one)

He got on TV and told everyone that the FBI was trying to mess up his daughter's wedding.

You know what? I believe that it's entirely possible that they were. I mean, look at what the Nixon election people did. But I, and over half of people who had been saying they would vote for him over Bush and Clinton, still lost interest in him, deciding that he was a "kook".

Not because he believed, but because he was dumb enough to get up in front of millions of people and claim he believed it.

In fact, the FBI did not need to actually mess up his wedding. If they were doing anything, all they had to do was walk right up to his house, sneak past his security, catch him alone in a room and say to him "Hey, by the way, we're considering messing up your daughter's wedding".

Not to threaten him. In fact it might not work well as a threat at all.

It would work because he had so lost touch with what people took seriously that he would really get up in front of everyone and claim the FBI was going to do it. That made him a kook, in most people's eyes, including my own.

The agents, of course, would be chortling in their sleeves and watching him doom his own campaign.

If you did guess or learn about the right conspiracy, and they wanted to keep you from blowing their cover, all they would have to do is make sure you saw proof that they existed. Take you to a secret meeting, let you have some copies of some documents, use some secret info or technology around you, whatever it is that they actually have that would prove things to YOU alone.

Then they could sit back and let you run around telling everyone, people who would never believe you, and thus make fewer people actually suspect that they existed.

Think about this.

OK, so what should you do, instead of saying things that make people think you're crazy? Well, you could just take the evidence that you should have before you believe these things, and present the evidence, without saying what it means. Let them draw their own conclusions.

I'm afraid a lot of people won't believe the evidence, either. But more will believe it, being allowed to reach their own conclusions without being driven off by claims of conspiracy before they see it, and few will necessarily think that just saying "Hey, I'm not making any claims, but look at this" is crazy.

Now, to those who believe that all people who believe in this or that conspiracy are lunatics:

If you read the above, you know that I admit the act of telling people about conspiracies is a little dubious.

But does this mean that none could exist at all?

Perhaps, but let's weigh the facts we can know, first.

What is a conspiracy? A conspiracy is, as a dictionary can tell us, simply whenever two or more people agree to something in secret. Especially, I would add, if what they're agreeing to affects someone else (or the "secret" part wouldn't matter).

We can know that I probably have some friends who are "like-minded". They and I have ideas which we wish we could cause to be more popular, or we're mutually greedy, or whatever.

We know that I might get together with some of them and agree that, if any of us are ever successful, we should help out the others, and get as many people who are "like-minded" with us into positions of power as we can.

You agree that this makes perfect sense, right? Maybe I even have a group of friends just like that...telling you won't hurt, even if we want to keep it secret, believe me. You go try to tell people about it, even if I get famous someday, and people will call you a conspiracy nut. No problem for me.

Now, am I the only person who might theoretically, ever have thought of getting together, secretly, with my like-minded friends? Of course not, you say. Anyone could think of this.

OK, there are five billion people alive right now.

Human history is at least six thousand years old, probably at least ten thousand, perhaps even six hundred thousand.

Even if it's only six thousand...that means that at least two hundred full generations of people existed, among whom someone might have gotten together with friends and had a "conspiracy", where they just agreed to help each other out, secretly, and forward their "cause" (whether it's an ideology or just their own little quest for power).

I think we can agree that this has happened before. Probably many, many times. In fact, it probably happened every generation in every little village. I mean, all it takes is for a few merchants to get together, or a few worshipers of Og the Magnificent, or a few Corporate heads, or a few ex-royalty types. Or guys with some idea they like (like me). Whatever. They don't have to plan to run the world, just to quietly stick together on certain things. Remember the part about a conspiracy being nothing more than two people secretly agreeing on stuff that might somehow effect someone else.

OK, so we have a world history full of, overall, thousands of "a few like-minded guys" conspiracies. Not really even a big deal, but a ton of it.

Now, what if just one in ten were actually pretty good at it?

I mean, good enough that they managed to not get caught, and managed to do pretty well for themselves or their "cause".

And what if just a few of those happened to have the kind of ideology, or friendship, that one might pass on to new people as one grew old?

So now we have, perhaps only rarely but certainly on occasion, a few conspiracies that last, for generations. They, of course, would grow. So would their power and influence, even if they were originally just a few like-minded guys helping out themselves or their idea.

So, soon enough, of course, a few people would begin to suspect. But we've already talked about what happens to them...they don't even need to die, they can discredit themselves, or are smart enough to keep their mouths shut.

Now, why would such "few guys" conspiracies, the rare ones that did not die out with the first generation, ever die out?

I mean, being part of a group of like-minded guys is a big advantage. Sociologists are now saying that social networking far less organized than that is one of the differences between those who "make it" in the world, and those who do not.

So we can guess that, once in a while, some group of like-minded guys becomes pretty influential, wealthy, ends up having themselves made rulers of this or that little town, or gets allies among the rulers of this or that little town, et cetera.

They probably spread, those few who have the kind of ideas or organization that would last more than a generation. They probably spread until either they get "caught" or hit the spreading boundaries of power of some other group who is spreading the same way.

And what's to stop people, way back in history, who are ALREADY powerful from forming their own little groups of like-minded guys? A bunch of bishops or monks, perhaps. Or a bunch of minor royalty. Or some big-time merchants/bourgeois? In fact, isn't history full of that kind of thing? It's just that we hear about the ones that came out in the open, or got "caught". Of course.

And if like-minded regular guys can get a little more power through their "conspiracy" (secretly helping each other), then the bishops, minor royalty, and/or merchants may be able to get a king or pope into, or out of, their ranks, eh?

In fact, even kings and popes are likely to sometimes have agreements with other like-minded people, secretly, to forward their own causes, wouldn't you think? It's rather hard to imagine someone in that position not taking advantage of it at least a little bit, eh? Or feeling they have to, since anything they do openly is so likely to be criticized and analyzed to death.

I'd think that the old groups that perpetuated themselves, or the simple tendency among already powerful people to "conspire" with others, didn't stop existing, just because we're in modern times. Jeez...imagine the power vacuum if they did not exist now. If there's no competition, then I and my like-minded friends can have a special advantage over EVERYONE else, who isn't conspiring! We can work our way up the un-organized ranks of things which are just how they seem, until we are the New World Order, or at least the people who inherit our conspiracy are.

Personally, I think we'd be likely to run into some previous occupants, though. I have no reason to think that it's the Bilderbergers, or the Petrochemical Corporations, or the Jews Who Secretly Run Everything, or the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, New World Order Marxists, or the Masons, specifically. In fact, if they exist, it's probably nobody we've ever heard of. Not that it would matter if we did...who takes those theories seriously anyway? And maybe, if they exist, they don't actually have the kind of simplistic Conspiracy that one might imagine, with secret meetings of the Committee of 300 or the Illuminati or the Military Industrial Complex or the Council on Foreign Relations.

But maybe something occupies the societal niche of "powerful guys who happen to be like-minded and secretly help each other" or "group of like-minded guys who help each other, that has grown some traditions and lasted a really long time".

Just maybe. I don't consider it a crazy idea to accept as possible, certainly.

          Authors email address: kaz@freedom.usa.com