The Three Rules of Conspiracy Theory

Published: Tue, 05/12/20

Over the past 28 years since I became involved in Stav the world has changed somewhat. One of the biggest changes has been in methods of communication. In 1992 the infrastructure for computer to computer communication existed but the internet as we came to understand it was still to come. I discovered Stav by reading an interview in a printed magazine which I purchased from a newsagents. I still have the copy. I wrote articles for magazines myself and got paid when they were published. As the 21st century approached it became necessary to ‘get online’ and master the arts of emailing, writing html, and using search engines. You could argue it all really started with the release of Netscape Navigator in December 1994 and the rest is still history in the making

The on line experience has been an interesting journey and an aspect I have been intrigued by has been the development of the ‘Conspiracy Theory’. Indeed there were those who thought that Stav sounded improbable that on occasion we were accused of creating one of our own. As you may have noticed the Covid19 pandemic has been a rich C T source too in the past few months.

I believe that the term ‘conspiracy theory’ originates long before the advent of Netscape in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, on the 22nd of November 1963. The official version of the story is that a former US marine, Lee Harvey Oswald, was solely responsible for the crime. It was suggested that the execution of such a deed would need a conspiracy involving many people. Conveniently, Oswald was killed the following day by Dallas Nightclub Operator Jack Ruby, apparently another nut case acting solely on his own initiative. This meant there was no trial at which many questions would have been asked. Whether or not Oswald could have carried out the assassination alone (if indeed he was involved at all) might have been a major argument for the defence case. Those who speculated on these coincidences risked the accusation of being a ‘conspiracy theorist’.

When the events of 9/11 occurred in 2001 the Internet was well established and people could connect and discuss things more easily than ever before. Questions were asked such as how did two aircraft crashing into two buildings bring down three tower blocks? The third building, building 7, neatly collapsed in its own footprint several hours after buildings 1 and 2 had disintegrated. No satisfactory explanation has ever been given and the official narrative generally just leaves building 7 out of the story as far as it can.

Today questions are being asked about the validity of the lock down we find ourselves living under in nearly all of Europe and many other parts of the world too. It is not a matter of dispute that the UK government justified its actions by following the advice of Neil Ferguson of Imperial College, London. Ferguson advised the government in the brutal fiasco of Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001. It has been revealed that the computer modeling he used is highly unreliable. Imperial college is heavily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation which is very keen to see the whole world vaccinated for CV19, which hardly makes those who take the money unbiased in their advice. Ferguson suggested that over 500k people would die of CV19 which gave the government a big stick with which to scare the population into accepting lock down. It is now clear that this was a massive exaggeration and, given Ferguson’s previous record, it is very
hard to see why his figures were ever taken seriously. Finally, Ferguson was caught out when his mistress, Antonia Staats traveled across London at least twice during the lock down to visit her lover. Which, at the very least, suggests that Ferguson himself does not see much risk in breaking the CV19 inspired lock down.

So, there we are a potted history of conspiracy theories from JFK to Neil ‘I hope the sex was worth it’ Ferguson. However, although questions should be asked about world events and the decisions governments make, conspiracy theories are still dangerous things and need to be handled with care. So, here are my three rules of engaging with conspiracy theories:

1. Look for cock up before conspiracy. We all make mistakes and bad decisions and we have to live with the consequences. Incompetent governments make mistakes on a bigger scale than individuals and the consequences can be correspondingly more awful. We want to believe that those who rule us are intelligent and know what they are doing. They may be out to screw us over, but at least they have a plan. It might be much more worrying to realize that we are actually led by well meaning idiots.

Was Oswald set up to be shot by Ruby in order to avoid a trial at which the truth might come out? Or were the Dallas police just spectacularly incompetent in their security arrangements?

2. Just because it is obvious you are being lied to does not mean that your alternative version of the truth is necessarily correct. If your teen age daughter was not where she said she would be last night it does not mean that she was definitely selling her body for crack in the worst part of town. She was somewhere she doesn’t want to talk about yet but, it was probably something quite innocent.

When John Major was prime minister in the 1990s he told the the House of Commons that the British Government would never negotiate with Irish Republican Terrorists. At the same time secret talks were going on between senior government officials and representatives of the IRA such as Martin Guinness. So, it is a conspiracy fact that John Major lied to Parliament in denying communication with the IRA. The explanation? Senior members of the IRA could not let it be known that they were talking to the British Government for the sake of their own security and credibility. So, lies were told, but it is unlikely the peace process could have started any other way.

3. The narrative will be managed. Call it propaganda, public relations, spin, or press relations it actually comes down to the same thing. This means that as a story develops there will be those who want a particular version to be accepted. The narrative may be managed for the sake of making money and consolidating power over a population. The narrative may be managed to cover up massive incompetence and spare those in charge embarrassment or even condemnation. Occasionally, there may even be a relatively good reason, such as initiating the peace process in Northern Ireland.

To sum up, bad things do happen in the world, lies are told for many reasons, and those in power need to be scrutinised and held to account. For those who wish to manage the narrative the words ‘conspiracy theory’ may be a magic bullet for negating legitimate criticism and curiosity. We must ask questions, demand answers, and not take anything for granted. However, we would also do well to consider this quote from Fredrich Nietzche:

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

Regards

Graham

PS The ‘lock down’ is relaxing now but I am not going to speculate on how quickly full freedom will be restored. As for normal, I guess we will just have to get used to a new ‘normal’. This means that anyone who was planning to host a camp of any kind this summer still can’t say for sure if going ahead will be possible or not. I will make a decision on the Midsummer Rune Retreat at the end of the month. I can’t say I am hopeful. I know for a fact that there are people living near the venue who have called the police because they thought social distancing protocols were being violated on VE day. I would not want to cause our hosts any embarrassment. It may be that we just do something here in Beverley in the Autumn. Here is the link in case you are wondering what you are missing http://rr.stavcamp.org/