The Psychology of Conspiracy Theorists

The first thing to note about "Conspiracy Theories" is that they are invariably American.

Within the "Conspiracy Theory" mindset the belief is that "Conspiracy" is applied to a theory by the establishment if that theory is critical of the establishment so as to invalidate it. But that doesn't explain why this way of thinking is American.

Take UFO sightings. I have seen a UFO in Italy so not speaking from a perspective of disbelief. But there are anomalies. UFOs you might expect to show up randomly across the globe. But the vast majority of reports come from America and a secondly Europe. 

[source: https://web.archive.org/web/20051231121342/http://www.larryhatch.net/]

Even in Europe the distribution is uneven:   

UFOs (whatever they are) do not occur at random. They appear to be linked to territories. Now why that should be who knows, but it means that UFOs do obey Earthly territories which seems highly unlikely if they are Extra-terrestrials as many believe.. I mean they are "extra" terrestrial! It could be for example that exposure to the culture in certain territories makes people more likely to see them. My sighting was possibly linked to recently having seen the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

So the way we think and see does seem to show some relationship with where we are. Does being American or coming into contact with American thinking making you more susceptible to Conspiracy Theory?

Now the most important thing about America is its history especially the American Revolution. Much is said about French, Russian and Chinese Revolutions but the American Revolution came first. And it bought America its freedom from the British Empire, with the help of the French. This is why the Statue of Liberty is French. France and America were both celebrating the victory of the Americans over France's old enemy Britain and the victory of Liberty over the "ancien régimes." In fact French support for the US was a precursor to the Napoleonic Wars. Indeed without French support the US Revolution would never have happened. Its interesting from a British perspective that Napoleon and America are one and the same. And some would say they both went from aspirations of liberty to eventual dictatorship.

Anyway the US mindset follows this Revolutionary thinking and is very much one opposed to overseas government, and even after the civil war their own government. Increasingly extreme ideas of Liberty is everything. The fact that the US celebrates a 20 year period of anarchy where the Wild West escaped control by Washington says a lot about the New World.

In a nutshell all Conspiracies stem from distrust of some establishment.

But its not just normal distrust, it must be a swing from total blind acceptance to total enlightened rejection. For me it was the film JFK that did it. David Ferrie's discussion with Jim Garrison is the point for me when it goes from a cop show and a detective searching for a bad man, to realising its systemic. The system did him in. "Don't you get it" Ferrie says.. well no I didn't, not up to that point.

You get the exact same thing in Jack the Ripper realised 3 years before JFK. Sherlock Holmes is investigating the Jack the Ripper murders. Its all detective work, and you think no one can elude the famous Holmes. Well what gets him is finding out that the murders were done to protect Edward VII. In other words the very establishment that Holmes seeks to protect came together to do the murders. He is forced to drop the case.

So its not just distrust of an establishment, I mean no one is interested in the idea the Nazis were collectively bad. No revelation there. It must be that the system that you once felt part of is bad. Its that moment when a once faithful Nazi realises the system they supported and championed actually stands against everything the believe.

So Conspiracy is actually a kind of alienation where you feel you no longer belong. But unlike the psychiatric condition where the individual faces a separation from the world around them, it becomes a collective experience as people see solidarity with other alienated people. Its a togetherness in all being outsiders.

In fact its a negation of establishment. Unlike the individual facing alienation all those people previously connected by faith in an establishment, now become connected by rejecting that establishment. They are still joined by the establishment, just negative now instead of positive. This actually gives us deep insight into human feelings. We like being connected by a cause or by an establishment, so even when we reject that establishment we keep the solidarity and connection. If you want to control people you can either get them to support you, or you can get them to reject something they hold in common.

To really blow the mind of the Conspiracy Theories, one might suggest that the very collective that they have found in sharing distrust of an establishment is itself just a new establishment.

In fact that is my belief. Conspiracy Theories were created as psyops by foreign powers like Russia or China to internally rot the West, or they were created by the West to distract people from the actual truth. In either case belong to a conspiracy mindset is actually a very dangerous piece of brainwashing that strips you of your freedom.

Indeed this must be true. True freedom is not something you can gain by joining a collective to overthrow another collective. That is just war.

Now who is "The Establishment" that Conspiracy Theorists are unified against? Well its not clear. It is sufficient just to have a "them" to hate.

Take the Moon Landing Conspiracy. Its not enough just to say that the moon landing were faked. Well perhaps they were. We know the Piltdown Man was faked, but no one cares. The point is "who did the fake?", and for the Moon Landings to be faked it must be a very powerful group. And it is that powerful group this is really the interest behind suggestions of the moon landings being fakes. Who is powerful enough to do much a thing. Perhaps they are faking other things? Suddenly the certainty we had dissolves in doubt. If we throw ourselves into that doubt then we are a conspiracy theorist.

Every conspiracy theorist says the same thing. I used to trust these people, now I have no trust.

A common enemy on the web is the Democrats. Which points immediately to US sources. Other enemies are aliens, satanic paedophile cabals, Jews, foreigners, Capitalists. Anyone in fact who is different from oneself.

To be a really successful Conspiracy theory it must involve the flip from a group we once belonged to and trusted, to realising we don't. So the essence of the mental process is for example that we thought "our government" was "ours" until we realise it is overrun with Jews who are not us. Then we flip and find ourselves outside the group.

Now given the blogs recent focus on "self" we have a good insight into why this is happening more these days. If one thinks that millions of people laid their lives down for government and country in the Past without alienation and now fewer and fewer people can think like this, something has changed. And that is to do with "self."

Under recent Modern Western thinking the atom of society is the "self" and this is both indivisible and sufficient. That is a self needs no one else, and cannot be split into anything else. Thinking like this Western people have a growing strong attachment to them self as something solid in an otherwise uncertain world. As a result it is literally just a matter of time before Modern Selves cannot find any home in a group.

But its ironic. The truth obviously is that selves exist in communities. But the Modern Self cannot accept this because it contradicts the idea of the solid self-existing self. So the solution is to think we are a solid self, but also form a collective with other solid selves (who we don't need) but who share our belief in false, fake groups.

This the conspiracy theorist is not interested in any evidence or truth (I can confirm this from exploring the issue) and will not be swayed by even the most obvious evidence that they are wrong, because the goal is simply to gain solidarity with people who reject groups because they are fake, false and corrupted establishments. And all such people need to signal to each other is that the do not trust the "establishment" (whatever the "establishment" actually is).

So its an interesting phenomenon, but one very much predictable from the path of the Capitalist self.

Unfortunately Buddha noted 2600 years ago that this way of thinking is the cause of suffering. So the lives of people who believe in the solid indivisible, self reliant and existing self, are lives of growing suffering. But obviously that suffering is all due to the "establishment" and the "group" that they are united in rejecting.

And returning to the top, the reason that most conspiracy theorists are American or have been influence by America is that America is also committed to this idea of the solid self.

===

An typical example of US thinking was to be seen on EarthX TV last night. An American was presenting solutions to the environmental catastrophe in America. And he was arguing
(1) that Private Farmers were the solution.

But then also then arguing for

(2) how to incentivise them to protect the environment.

In other words he was saying that "private" farmers by themselves (1) would not protect the environment. In which case they are problem not the solution surely?

Surely all he needed to say was that farmers needed to be given financial incentives to protect the environment. Where did the "private" come into the debate?

Well its obviously this US cultural hatred and distrust of government. What he was actually saying is that the government should take over the issue and protect the environment cos farmers were not doing that. But the US brain is so unable to deal with the idea of something other than a "solid self" that it feels the need to reframe what it is saying in terms that base it upon a "solid" or "private" self. In fact this is completely irrelevant, and serves only to meet the dogmatic obsession of Americans.

In actual fact the real answer if for all farmland to privatised and run by the government and do away with private enterprise all together, but this is so anathema to American thinking they would short circuit if they ever tried to process that thought.