The text below is from http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2015/06/post-no-718-intellectual-cowardice-and.html,
but also see http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-28/parents-of-sandy-hook-massacre-victims-told-they-never-existed/7546536 for the sort of appalling behaviour
conspiracy nuts are capable of, https://theconversation.com/the-galileo-gambit-and-other-stories-the-three-main-tactics-of-climate-denial-63719 for tactics used by climate change
deniers, https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/science/2021/07/25/conspiracy-theorists-lack-critical-thinking for evidence that they lack critical
thinking abilities, https://gnwmythr.blogspot.com/2015/06/post-no-718-intellectual-cowardice-and.html for my thoughts on their intellectual
cowardice, and also https://gnwmythrsglossary.blogspot.com/2021/12/lbi-left-brain-interpreter.html (which I also often refer to as the Left
Brain Interrupter). I object to dignifying such malicious, dangerous,
anti-thinking rubbish with the word theory, and thus I now refer to these as
conspiracy fantasies - and have edited the below copy accordingly.
Also see :
I've always been dubious about conspiracy
fantasies. I've known people who held to those, and some of the them were truly
concerning – such as the woman I knew a few decades ago who believed that the
moon landings were faked. I didn't have any sense that she strongly felt that:
it was more a case of mild incredulity combined with wanting to have a
characteristic that would set her apart - and that’s probably the key for me :
the lack of intellectual rigour that many of these people have. That is part of
why I consider it so essential for children to be taught Brendan
Myers’ "Clear and Present Thinking",
and to generally find the balance point between scepticism and gullibility.
(Incidentally, I suspect part of
the reluctance to provide such teaching [at any age] is that people with less
or no critical thinking skills are easier for elites [including political] and
media to manipulate, control, and generally turn into organic AI robots …
another is the valid fear of parents that they will be “shown up” by their kids
– which is why parents should be given a FREE booster course by the
course in the semester previous to the one their kids will be taught [and maybe
in other subjects as well] .)
Now, some matters that seem to be conspiracy
fantasies are later found to be true - for instance, those who have been crying
wolf over http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA#Corruption_and_legislative_interference could possibly have been viewed as a
conspiracy fantasy, but now the facts have shown the allegations were
true.
Others, such as the people who still believe
the Earth is flat are clearly wrong (in my view 😊 - which is based on
as objective assessment of the facts as I can make), and never will be
right.
What is the difference?
Facts, and clear thinking.
Conspiracy fantasies are largely built around
questionable, insubstantial “evidence” : it is not the equivalent of, for
instance, “facts” determined by forensic science in a criminal investigation
(which are largely over-rated by members of the public).
There is also a whole range of facts that
mainstream science dismisses without proper investigation, including – too often,
in the past - anything related to psychism or mediumship (which is being
changed for the better in recent years – for instance, by the Institute of
Noetic Sciences [URL https://noetic.org/] ).
However, in my opinion, there is adequate evidence supporting the
existence of psychism and mediumship (including the problems that can and do
happen with those as well - don't discount what the sceptics say: it is
important to avoid being gullible). For more on this, refer to Victor
Zammit’s website at http://victorzammit.com/ , the blog at
https://weilerpsiblog.wordpress.com/ , "Briefing
for the Landing on Planet Earth" by Stuart Holroyd, and no doubt
many other websites and sources. (And I consider many sceptics -
particularly those I encounter in everyday life - are guilty of bullying, as
well as intellectual cowardice and dishonesty and the other matters I have
touched on.)
Having got that out of the way, I have rarely
felt that the conspiracy fantasists I have met were dedicated to the truth :
there was mostly (not in all cases!)
some emotional flaw or need (remember to do your shadow
work!) that was being met by their adherence to their position - just
as many sceptics are also comforted by their emotional allegiance to their
ideology. In both groups, there are exceptions - for instance, http://aformerskeptic.com/ - but that doesn't excuse or justify the
problems that go with both sides.
Now, I have come
across a few articles where people look at the problem of conspiracy fantasies
from the point of view of an (in my words) intellectual thinking style :
Is this truly a problem?
Oftentimes, no - but it is when it stops
other people being all that they can be, or robs resources from worthy causes,
then I become concerned.
In the case of faked moon landing or flat
earth conspiracy fantasies, I don’t think it greatly matters -
considerations of funding and survival (there is an argument that Gaea
promoted the evolution of a species which could leave the planet to enable
survival of the next "planet killing" asteroid [1]
or super-volcano [2] )
are far more important than whether or not the moon landings happened. In many
cases, it harms the advocate more than anyone else. For instance, there are a
couple of ET contact groups here in Australia that I have considered going
along to, to see what they're like, but they’ve failed on intellectual rigour
because they consider the UN is an attempt to impose a bad form of world
government (I am all in favour of a world government, if it is a good form,
incidentally, as it might take care of many of the conflicts and the
misallocation of food and other resources), and a post about the Exhibition
Building [3]
and a fountain [4] in
the Carlton Gardens [5]
which alleged “Illuminati” [6]
and reptilian [7]
symbols. (The symbols were typical of the era those were built in, and what
is termed a classical education. The “half reptile” people described were
mer-people, meaning the person did not know what a mermaid or a merman were.)
You don’t do your case any good if you cannot
get these sort of fundamentals right. If they had shown awareness of that, and
then argued their case, it would have had more cogency [8]
and credibility.
From a personal point of the view, the
greatest harm in that is that I also want to experience a sense of
belongingness, and clearly, I have to keep searching.
PS - if you’re not
familiar with a particular conspiracy fantasy, I would suggest you at least
listen to them. To not do so is much intellectual cowardice as those who I have
written about in this post. Also, people cannot effectively “de-bunk” a
conspiracy fantasy unless they know how those who adhere to it think. For
example, I have been planning on writing my version of a de-bunking of the
hollow earth fantasy - largely because I think I know enough to do so,
including having some familiarity with how those who adhere to that fantasy
think. Incidentally, if a conspiracy fantasy is bunk, there will be, or it will
be possible to prepare, an effective, calm, sensible rebuttal. If no-one has
done so yet, well, maybe think about it all very carefully - in fact, why not MEDITATE on it ... Also, see http://regression-rescue.blogspot.com/2010/12/general-flow-charts-discussion.html
And also consider :
- from http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/post-no-633-for-tomorrow-nights.html :
the “War on the Rocks” blog has an
article which mentions astral battles
between the US and Russia (despite the somewhat disparaging reference,
potentially significant in view of the Correllians determination of the causes
of current negativity in the world) and gives a good example of the dangers
of ‘urban myths’ and other conspiracy fantasies ; - from http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2014/11/post-no-614-for-tomorrow-nights.html :
I first started looking in to this as a result of a BBC online article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/z26bjxs#zsvdhyc ,
which I wound up looking at after I started research to see what others had
thought of the possibility of avoiding World War Part One – and it seems that,
if the violence in 1914 had been delayed, or limited to a small conflict, it would
have been possible to avoid the larger world wide violence. Of course, the
question then becomes, what would the world have been like? Obviously, Hitler
wouldn’t have come to power on the basis of the “stab in the back”
conspiracy lunacy, and thus no Holocaust and no World War Part Two, and no
Russian Revolution and no Cold War but would the empires have been swept away?
Would women have had a boost to employment and other rights? Would the massive changes
in social attitudes that have led to a world more committed to equality and
less inclined to automatic obedience of the upper classes? I’ve found a book
which looks at a few scenarios, some better and some worse, and am looking
forward to getting it one day. The book is “Archduke
Franz Ferdinand Lives! A without World War 1”, by Richard Ned Lebow (it
even seems that the Archduke himself would have made some good changes to the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, had he lived). - from http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/reading_17.html :
finally, an interesting and reasonably well thought out and presented article
on UFO conspiracy stuff (I normally dislike these because of the shallowness of
thinking - often being based on downright stupidity): http://whitehouseufo.blogspot.ca/2013/10/ufos-what-does-thepresident-know.html .
I particularly liked the following quotes from Eisenhower:
“I hate war as
only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality,
its futility, its stupidity.”
- from http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/forms-living-in-chakras-more-fear-and.html :
Now, one of the sets of people who almost unfailingly annoy me are conspiracy
fantasists. I think they are often seeking distraction and entertainment to
pass time at the expense of other people - but a comment I posted some time
ago, to the effect that they're trying to impose order on what is frightening
chaos, could also be applicable [8]. Recently, as I did some
clearing, a thought occurred to me, that the problem is that conspiracy
fantasists assume people in the physical are aware and actively involved in
what is being theorised - such as the "the US government did 9/11",
or the idea of "economic
Shock Doctrine" (aka disaster capitalism). The truth is, such
things may be happening on non-physical levels (a lot of
them aren’t!), but aren’t at conscious level. Thus, for instance, a
politician may wish on the physical level for something like a war to take voters’
minds off internal problems, and this tends to be latched on by negative forces
on the non-physical and thus is created. This activity on non-physical levels
is what Dion Fortune was working against and wrote
about in "The Magical Battle of Britain" (see http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/encouragement-and-magical-battle-of.html ).
- from http://gnwmythr.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/what-do-i-do-next.html :
My last quote is from Alan
Moore [2], on the topic of conspiracy fantasies:
“Yes, there is
a conspiracy, indeed there are a great number of conspiracies, all tripping
each other up… the main thing that I learned about conspiracy fantasies is that
conspiracy fantasists actually believe in the conspiracy because that is more
comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it
is not the Jewish banking conspiracy, or the grey aliens, or the twelve-foot reptiloids
from another dimension that are in control, the truth is far more frightening;
no-one is in control, the world is rudderless.”
Finally, there is also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory ,
and a good debunking of the 2012 hysteria on Witchvox at http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=ustx&c=words&id=14189 .
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