Conspiracies are for Theorists

I wrote this as a "viewpoint" paper for my class, an excuse for my professor not to assign grades to anything and allow a pass/fail system for everything. It's about Kennedy, obviously. I hope it's not too long for you.

09/13/06

Viewpoint 1: Conspiracies are for Theorists

Having just spent an entire class discussion on Conspiracy Theories surrounding September 11, I have come to the conclusion that the biggest conspiracy theory is the idea of conspiracy theories themselves. Conspiracy theories are statements, stories, or ideas based on the notion that for some diabolical reason, the government is out to get us; that the government is not “by the people and for the people” but rather, “by the underhanded and against the people.” The reason I say that conspiracy theories are the greatest conspiracy of all is because of the kind of people that are attracted to these bogus doctrines, and the effect they have on people unwilling to grasp reality and never let it go.

When you look at the types of people to whom these theories cater, you see varieties of people; among them the most vulnerable of mind and the mentally/socially unstable –people who might need just a bit of an increase in their dosages. They don’t trust the government because, obviously, there are satellites reading our thoughts and tracing our movements. In many cases, the government must be out to get them because they hold information valuable to the state in their trailers and underground bunkers filled with Spam and Easy-Cheese. But that is just one group, and they aren’t the ones who concern me.

The ones that concern me the most (because I have to sit through two classes each day with them) are students –not all students though, just the ones that apparently read every article in every newspaper publication every day and spend every spare hour watching C-SPAN and the BBC. This type of student generally believes what is said in the news, but is more interested in the “unconventional” ideas presented, usually by people in the first demographic I have presented. They latch on to these ideas, expand on them, make them their own, and will defend them to the death (as we found in our class). The reason this demographic is so susceptible to conspiracy theories is, ironically, because of all of the information they have absorbed from the news media.

These students feel intellectually invincible; they are the Achilles of news. They are so well educated and informed that no one should dare ask this Achilles any questions about current events because the inquisitor will inevitably receive a four hour lecture on the reasons why globalization is a good or bad thing. This Achilles is smarter than the government; he has read and seen everything written or broadcast, he somehow knows more than the experts and government leaders that have worked hard and been elected as people that this nation feels it can trust. But to Achilles it’s all a ruse; Achilles sees the holes in the stories, or makes up the stories and then puts holes in them; nevertheless, the government will never slip one by this informed, intellectual demi-god. Thus is this Achilles’ heel. He has slipped, and become so over-confident that he is unable to think reasonably and independently. All these theories have him convinced that the government is indeed an evil institution and that everything it does is for an ulterior motive. Eventually his heel has been hit so hard and he has fallen so far that he can no longer trust the government at all.

He has become the subject of one of the greatest conspiracy theories, that great conspiracy that ruins the promising minds of the future. The bright, inquisitive student has fallen subject to the wiles of the media, and thus the race of crazies grows. Now everyone is under suspicion because, before you know it, even the squirrels will have microphones. And so he builds his underground bunker, buys a big satellite dish, plenty of Spam and cleans every grocery store and gas station in the county out of Easy Cheese.