The New Republic

I would strongly recommend continuing to respond to comments, as time will allow. In response to your response, I think Americans are on the whole perversely ignorant and irrational, terribly provincial / ethnocentric, and altogether way too religious/superstitious/given to conspiracy theories... It might not be right to call that crazy, but it isn't far off. .

- purcellneil

September 7, 2006 at 3:18pm

so thanks for posting on it. I wonder if Hume's critique of induction and causation helps. Hume remarks that we only ever find a conjunction between event A and event B, and always therefore have insufficient evidence from which to conclude that A caused B. Nevertheless, we operate in everyday life with an absolute conviction in the truth and utility of our notion of causation. So while such a belief may be "irrational" on Hume's defination, it's far from aberrational. I wonder if something larger isn't the case for the way the mind treats any set of disparate events. We tend to find not only causation without sufficient evidence, but also agency behind disconnected events in the world. In fact, the more intelligent a person is, the greater will be his skill at finding common causes for disparate events might. (I mean intelligence of a certain kind.) In general, we skeptics are in no position to tell the conspiracist that he's wrong. Most conspiracists are animated, bright, larded with facts, diligent about research, and able to counter glib (in Tom Cruise's phrase) dismissals of their theories very effectively. With rare exceptions, we're never in a position to know for certain that no conspiracy exists. And, in fact, our conviction that no conspiracy exists is often less factually substantiated than the conspiracists' belief that one does. I justify my rejection of conspiratorial explanations by two arguments, both a priori: First, conspiracies usually ask me to accept a truly masterful manipulation of events, which seems very difficult to achieve (this is Rauchway's argument from incompetence). And the fact that I am psychologically inclined to posit agency where there is none gives me a pro tanto reason for rejecting any theory involving agency. These reasons are not satisfactory to someone who is convinced that a conspiracy exists -- he often has reams and reams of research, and is infuriated that I won't even look at it. And, at the end of the day, I may simply be too lazy to be a conspiracist: The research! The dedication! The suspicion! I'd rather be deceived and go read a book than do all that work and learn the truth.

- jhschwartz

September 7, 2006 at 3:34pm

"I am trying to say it's maybe not helpful to call them crazy. When one person believes something of this nature, maybe he's crazy; when a hundred people believe it, maybe they're a cult; when a few thousand believe it--when they have their own journals and organizations and bumper stickers--we're to the level of, if not culture, then subculture maybe." Well, that was my point, Eric's view of conspiracy theories implies that there is not truth, hence calling them crazy gives us the illusion that some other theory isn't crazy. This is a species of deconstructive thought, and I think it is wrong headed. A man who believes in flying saucers and that some power is trying to hide the truth is crazy in the same way that Don Quixote is crazy when he says that a herd of Sheep is an army on the march. In each case the person believes in the reality of something that is demonstrably false, which is a pretty good definition of insanity. One can be amused such believes, but let's not confuse it with "thought."

- jacksondyer

September 7, 2006 at 3:40pm

when a few thousand believe it... we're to the level of, if not culture, then subculture maybe Or sub-subculture. Aka blog.

- teplukhin

September 7, 2006 at 4:27pm

"Well, that was my point, Eric's view of conspiracy theories implies that there is not truth, hence calling them crazy gives us the illusion that some other theory isn't crazy." I don't think this has anything to do with what is "true" or not (or in deconstructive theories of "truth"), and I don't believe that's what Eric is implying. The validity of conspiracy theories are the least interesting thing about them. What IS interesting is the socoiological phenomenon that causes otherwise rational appear to cling to these theories. I wouldn't be surprised if the rise of religious fundamentalism in some parts of our society was based on a similar phenomenon (I have no data to support this...just a hypothesis). The question of "Who's in control?" is not an easy one to answer in the modern world. Actually, in that sense, deconstructive theory DOES seem to enter the picture, since that's yet ANOTHER way of dealing with the lack of control in our world, albeit by embracing the idea that control and authority don't really exist, at least not in ways we've traditional thought. But again, Eric's argument isn't taking a deconstructive stance. He merely seems to be commenting on a phenomenon, one which has parallels in other areas of our culture.

- thomaselrod

September 7, 2006 at 9:17pm

No, I don't wonder if Dr. Rauchway is going to always respond to comments, but wonder if he's going to plug his book every week. OK, I've bought it, already!

- gedavis

September 9, 2006 at 9:23pm