I am what conventional historians call a conspiracy historian. We call them court historians. They call us conspiracy historians. We are both right.
I became a conspiracy historian in the fall of 1958, when I did a term paper on the Pearl Harbor attack. That was when I realized that Franklin Roosevelt did know an attack was coming, and he took no steps to warn the targeted victims. I have studied this event ever since, and my opinion has become even firmer.
I have branched out into other areas. But, for most events in history, they are explainable apart from discussions of hidden hierarchies. Most of my life is. Most of your life is. What we experience firsthand in our own lives we should assume applies to most other people most of the time.
There are networks of self-interested people. These networks sometimes get into control of large government agencies or even the government itself. Where there is a lot of concentrated political power, there you will find evidence of conspiracies. The reason is obvious: the lure of money, sex, power, and fame. The average man living in average circumstances has limited access to all four. This is a good thing.
The solution to conspiracies is a reduction in the power of central government. That's the bottom line on conspiracies. Murray Rothbard understood this. So did my father-in-law.
I was introduced to conservatism in 1956 by a woman who lived her whole life in terms of conspiracies, especially the Communist conspiracy, which really was not much of a conspiracy. It was pretty much aboveboard as to what it wanted. There were a handful of Communist conspirators in the federal government, but with the exception of Alger Hiss, none of them had much influence. She got deeper and deeper into conspiracy history, and then she went off the deep end. She abandoned the whole thing. Her marriage broke up. She wound up in some kind of cult at the end of her life.
One tipoff that you're dealing with somebody who is essentially off-track in his life is this: ask him what he is personally doing to fight the conspiracy. Asking what organization he belongs to actively exposes conspirators, which also offers solutions to the problem. You will find that this person does not belong to any such organization. That would involve commitment: time and money.
When you are presented with a conspiracy theory of whatever it is he's talking about, ask him who was responsible. Ask him to name names. Think about JFK. The question is this: who pulled the trigger? Why did he pull the trigger? How was he in a position geographically to pull the trigger?
These people do not want to know who pulled the trigger. That would make them responsible in some way for participating in political action that would make such trigger pulling more expensive or more difficult. They don't want any responsibility. They indulge in conspiracy theories precisely because they are fleeing personal responsibility. They don't want to know who did it. They want to know only that the official theory of who did it is a vast deception.
These people shift interest from one conspiracy theory to another, from one historical event to another. They never study half a dozen books of conventional history on the topic. They may study one paperback book of conspiracy theory, but the details of that book they have forgotten a long time ago. They are convinced that conventional histories are incorrect, but they cannot tell you why. That is because they don't read seriously. They don't want to read seriously. They want to read one book, forget 90% of it, and thereby justify themselves for not reading five more books of conventional history, especially books that call into question their particular favorite conspiracy theory.
Again, take the assassination of JFK. How should you proceed? Begin with the Warren Commission's final report. Then read a pro-Warren Commission report book. The best is probably Vincent Bugliosi's Reclaiming History (2007). He was a highly successful prosecutor in Los Angeles County. He understands the use of evidence. Then read a recent JFK conspiracy theory book. The book must respond to Bugliosi's book. This will get you started. Keep reading.
The problem with conspiracy theory history is that there are multiple conspiracies for every contested event. If somebody doesn't have a detailed theory of exactly why this particular cause was the true cause, and if he is unaware of detailed answers as to why five other conspiracy theories are incorrect, then you are dealing with somebody who is simply indulging in fantasy. He is trying to escape personal responsibility by telling himself that the conspirators are in charge, and he is impotent. The only thing he thinks he can do is to mouth off about how the conventional historians have got it all wrong. But he doesn't read the conventional historians. He has no idea about the nature of historical evidence. He doesn't read primary sources. He doesn't follow the footnotes of the conspiracy theory that he does accept. He is doing all this in order to indulge in fantasy that he thinks relieves him from any personal responsibility for participating in political or other action that will reduce the power of conspiracies in the future.
My father-in-law called these people gravediggers. He had in mind the practice of Soviet and Nazi execution squads that had their victims dig their graves before they were executed. I think this is a pretty good description of the mentality of these people. They think they are powerless. They rejoice in the fact that they are powerless. They want to be powerless because possessing power involves personal responsibility. If you have the power to fix something, and you don't fix it, you are to blame. They don't want to be blamed. So, they live in a fantasy world in which historical cause and effect is controlled by some secret cabal to which they do not belong, and over which they have no power. They think this lets them off the hook.
I have known intelligent people who held this position. They flit from conspiracy to conspiracy. They will never tell me how the conspirators pulled off their conspiracy. They will never tell me step-by-step what each conspiracy did to redirect history. That would involve studying history. They have no intention of studying history. They want to avoid studying history, because studying history would provide indicators of the nature of cause-and-effect. Once you understand cause-and-effect, you can become part of a cause that will have positive effects. But they do not want to invest time, money, and emotion in trying to fix things. They want to escape such responsibilities. They do so by constructing a mental universe in which decent people have no power, and unnamed conspirators run the show.
They attribute to conspiracies the power of God. But they do not worship these conspiracies. They only complain about them. They don't tell you what God they worship: a God who is able to undermine conspiracies. They don't worship God.
Probably the best approach if one of these people really bugs you is to hand a piece of paper to him and a pen, and ask him to write down all the books you should read. He may have two or three paperbacks, written back in the 1970's, but he will not have a list of 10 hardback books.
These people do not chase rainbows to get the pots of gold. They chase will-o'-the-wisps to get to buckets of garbage. They don't know what's true. They live their lives exclusively in what they think is false. They have no interest in the truth. They have an interest in briefly pursuing exposés instead of the truth. They think this will relieve them of any personal responsibility for fixing what's wrong.
Avoid them.
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