The New Age of Conspiracy Theories

by Sarah D. | January 2, 2007 at 05:18 pm

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Today's 9/11 conspiracy theories not only differ in their near singular, unified conviction that the attacks were self-inflicted by a venal U.S. administration, but also in their claim that America itself is hopelessly tainted by an irredeemable past and corrupted by a cabalistic power elite. September 11 conspiracy theorists, unlike the JFK assassination ones, are virulently anti-American and often found among an eclectic mixture of extreme right-wingers, neo-fascists, anti-Semites, unreconstructed Confederates, and various types of left-wingers, New Age-thinkers, and youthful, counter-cultural hipsters both of the 1970s-era UFO-cults and the later Internet generation.

Michael Barkun takes an in depth look at the mind of a conspiracy theorist " The appeal of conspiracism is threefold. First, conspiracy theories claim to explain what others can't. They appear to make sense out of a world that is otherwise confusing. Second, they do so in an appealingly simple way, by dividing the world sharply between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. They trace all evil back to a single source, the conspirators and their agents. Finally, conspiracy theories are often presented as special, secret knowledge unknown or unappreciated by others. For conspiracists, the masses are a brainwashed herd, while the conspiracists in the know can congratulate themselves on penetrating the plotters' deceptions."

More from Cinnamon Stillwell: "Rather than accept that Islamic terrorists flew planes into buildings and slaughtered innocents in the name of a fanatical ideology, the Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists believe the perpetrators included members of their own government -- that somehow the Bush administration, with the collusion of the Pentagon, was either behind the attacks or simply allowed them to happen in order to institute a quasi-police state.

Whatever one's criticisms of the administration and its approach to the war on terrorism, one would have to be awfully cynical to believe that it would kill or allow thousands (at the least) of Americans to die, simply to accumulate additional powers. But even if one assumes the government acted purely in its own interests, why on earth would it risk weakening the economy and creating instability for the foreseeable future? Not exactly a winning formula for the so-called ruling classes."