Today on Pajamas Media I consider the “odd allure of the conspiracy theory,” that is, why bright and dim people alike choose to believe preposterous things. It would take greater insight than I possess to say conclusively why some folks find it plausible that Satanic puppeteers manipulate most or all of world affairs. In any case, I’m less concerned with the causes than the consequences of wasting one’s time tearing threads from the curtain of sanity. Call it the human cost of nonsense:
Many intelligent commentators have offered cogent explanations for the “paranoid style.” I can’t say enough for Daniel Pipes’s book,
published a few years before 9/11, on the subject. A common refrain is
that people seek order, an “invisible hand,” where there is none, but
this problematically assumes two things: that there is no order in the
conventional narrative of Islamic terrorists attacking the U.S., and
that conspiracy buffs really believe every word of what they say about
that narrative.I have a theory of my own, that these parallel
narratives . . . offer the seductive
consolation of heroism without risk. No less a personage than G.I. Joe
once said, “Knowing is half the battle.” For the current generation
of conspiracy-minded “investigators,” to consider the more lurid
possibilities is to win the day. These YouTube gumshoes risk nothing
by, for example, heckling the former national security advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski at the 92nd Street Y.
Read the whole thing, but don’t for a moment think that I’d shut these people up: They’re an object lesson, if not much else. Mark Steyn seems to agree, though he’s been insulted by David Icke, the lunatic whose very right to lunacy he defended.
Following my item below on Richard (Lucy) Warman declining to “allow†David Icke to speak, David Icke writes:
Hello Mark . . . saw your post. You’ll have to let me have your secret for knowing it all.The way to protect freedom for everyone, you and me, is to unite in
mutual respect—not resort to pathetic and oh so predictable “yawn,” “yawn” abuse.In your own way you are as stuck in the box as Warman. It’s just a different box, that [sic] all.
Sad. I hoped you were bigger than that and diverse opinions could come
together behind the banner of freedom for all. Clearly not.David
Oh, come on, David, you don’t need me to let you into my secret for
knowing it all. You’ve famously found the secret for knowing it all—the secret of the universe, the Illuminati and all the rest—and I
entirely support your right to let everybody in on it in Britain,
Canada and every jurisdiction on the planet. I’m with you all the way—on your right to say whatever you like. Likewise, I’m exercising my
right to say that I’m personally skeptical that the Queen is a
shape-shifting space lizard. That’s all.
As to whether the Clintons are shape-shifting space lizards, the evidence speaks for itself.