uhuh
thanks for the eloquent response. what, cat got your tongue?
Ugh, too late to delete the prev post
Anyway, for every horrible thing that’s happened, there’s two others we don’t know about. And empty scoffing won’t make this country any better.
Many conspiracy theorists are motivated by a desire to blame all the problems of the world on groups (or individuals) they despise, or similarly, a desire to find a group to blame all problems on (the two motivations are similar but not identical). Note, for example, how most of the 9-11 conspiracy theorists come from the pacifist left - many of this group despise the U.S. government and tend to blame all the world’s problems on it (note that I am not claiming the U.S. government is perfect or faultless - I believe there are plenty of things that the U.S. can be blamed for). Anti-semites blamed the great depression on a conspiracy of Jewish bankers. Some right-wing Roosevelt-haters believed the president was responsible in some way for the attack on Pearl Harbor (with the motivation of getting the U.S. into the war against Germany and on the side of the Soviet Union).
Another motivation can be an aversion to unpleasant facts, or to admitting that one has been wrong about something. For example, if one believes that the U.S. really was attacked by an outside force on 9-11, it could justify military action. Some people who believe that military action is never justified conclude that the attacks couldn’t have come from the outside. Again, I should note that I am not trying to justify anything the U.S. has done since 9-11 - I’m only examining the motivations of those who don’t believe what seem to me to be obvious facts.
There are some conspiracy theories that are harder to explain. For example, the belief in a flat earth doesn’t seem to be a way of blaming any group for the world’s troubles, or a way of avoiding unpleasant facts (how bad could a round earth be?). Some people apparently have a deep-seated need to distrust authority and any knowledge that comes from authority, no matter how innocuous. This may be a compensation for feelings of inferiority (i.e. “I’m really smarter than those know-it-all eggheads.”)
A problem in discussing all of this is that (as has been noted) there are some real conspiracies. Iran-Contra was one. Hitler and Stalin conspired to divide up Poland. People within the Nixon White House conspired to burglarize the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and then cover it up. I believe the OP was asking about crackpot conspiracy theories, which raises the question of how one can tell the difference between a reasonable belief in a conspiracy and a believe that isn’t grounded in reality. The crackpot theories tend to have certain features:
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a belief that huge numbers of insiders are privy to some secret which none of them ever let slip
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explanations on top of explanations on top of explanations. It’s not simply that the theory describes a complicated series of events - it’s that to overcome objections the theory must explain away more and more facts, to the point where it dominates the world view of the believer.
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big conclusions drawn from flimsy evidence. I’ve seen pictures of the plane that hit the Pentagon that supposedly prove it couldn’t have been a civilian aircraft. These photos are so indistinct - just some blotches of color - that it’s hard to see how one could reach any conclusions based on them, yet the conspiracy theorists look at them and say, “See! The shape of the tail is all wrong!”
I have a WAG as to the motivation of at least SOME conspiracy theorists.
Perhaps the world seems to be too frighteningly out of control.
If there is a secret cabal of people actually running things, then it IS in control - there is a reason for everything.
This might be comforting, on some level…
It may be just that simple. A lot of folks don’t want to believe that chaos reigns.
Well, you have a huge epistemological problem here. An event that no one knows about is indistinguishable from no event at all. To put it another way: there are two reasons events leave no evidentiary trail - a) they’re covered up; b) they never happened. And without actual evidence, one can not tell one from the other! So to say “there are two we don’t know about” is to say nothing. Perhaps you should put Hegel aside for awhile and read some logical positivists. 
I think Jeff Lichtman has provided a fine summary of the matter and I would like to thank him for it.
The same belief also appears to be a big part of the religious impulse that, to a greater or lesser extent, is apparently hardwired into all of our brains. We have an inate need to explain “cosmic events”. That thought makes it a bit easier to be tolerant of those who buy into most every conspiracy theory that comes down the pike - they’re compelled to do so, and there’s no point in trying to “reason” with them.
Anyway. I’ve been doing some thinking and am ready to propose a category that seems to describe a few folks who vigorously push conspiracy theories - the intellectual sociopath. By that I mean someone who, by training and ability, should know that his arguments are a bunch of hooey, but presents them anyway. It’s the only way I can figure to explain those folks who seemingly should know better. They do - there just is something in their psyche that compels them to spout BS, to the detriment of society.
I’ve pondered this question as well; here are three factors that I think play into the phenomenon:
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The desire to be in on a secret. This seems to be a fairly basic psychological impulse–it seems cool to be one of the select few who know what’s “really” going on. This same impulse is, I think, involved in the common desire to gossip, or to insist that you’ve got inside information that Celebrity X is gay.
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The desire for a world view that puts you in a positive light. This doesn’t apply to all conspiracy theories, but many conspiracy theories imply one or both of two things: (1) the conspiracy theorist is a victim of a world controlled by vast and sinister forces that are oppressing him or “rigging things” in some way (and thus, any unsatisfactory aspects of your life may not be your fault–it’s the work of Jewish bankers, or a secret one-world shadow government, or what have you); or (2) the conspiracy theorist is a heroic beacon of truth battling powerful forces who wish to silence him.
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Ego investment in the theory. This doesn’t account for the genesis of conspiracy theories, but it helps explain why they’re so persistent. Someone who is a hard-core conspiracy theorist expends a lot of energy telling everyone about the “real truth,” and enduring skepticism and scorn from others. After doing this for a while, it becomes very hard to find a face-saving way to change your mind. I once read an article once about die-hard Kennedy assassination conspiracy theorists who went to conventions on the subject and spent thousands of hours of their lives on their quest; I remember thinking that there’s no way the debate could end until these people are all gone, because there’s no way they could abandon their conspiracy theories without admitting they’d wasted a large portion of their lives.
Name one?
Hey, I’m going off of old memories here. Lincoln conspiracy theories aren’t my bag, I couldn’t even tell you the names of anyone involved other than Booth. I just remember hearing that some historians question the guilt of some of those involved and that the descendents of one of the people involved are working to clear the name of their ancestor. (Fat lot of good that’ll do the ancestor.) If you’ll note in the portion of my post you quoted I did not state that this was a fact.
Regarding the Hinckley-Bush connection:
The source claims that this broadcast was never mentioned on television again. Actually it was. I saw a discussion of it myself in recent years. Apparently the Hinckleys are a wealthy family and were at that time casual friends with the GHWB family. It is obvious now how the Bushes handle information that they don’t want made public. Information such as driving records disappear. The friendship was hushed up. It was probably irrelevant anyway. John Hinckley really is mentally ill and the families’ connection was a coincidence.
This is not to say that it should have been hushed up. But conspiracy theorists are going to see an evil plot either way.
I believe that Vanderbilt University has kept copies of all three network evening news broadcasts dating back to the 1960s and should have John Chancellor’s statement that night.
Regarding JFK’s death:
I’ve been truly surprised at the attitude of Dopers toward those who have ever held the idea that there may have been a conspiracy in the assassination of JFK.
I am almost certain that if you have never considered the idea, you were not an adult at the time.
That his death might have been a conspiracy has not been considered by people of my generation (mid sixties and older) to be in the same category as “nutcake conspiracies” until Oliver Stone’s damned fool movie confused the issue for others. **His movie was never meant to be taken as a claim that that was the way it happened. **
We watched on live television as Jack Ruby walked up to the man that we believed had killed President Kennedy and gunned him down on the spot. Then Jack Ruby died before he could be brought to trial. You have to admit that those circumstances looked suspicious. But we believed what our government told us. Times were different then. People trusted the government more.
It took a long time before rumors of the conspiracy began to be taken seriously. And it was the intellectuals who paid attention first – not the nut jobs. For years there were books and more books and lots of television programs. We were allowed to see more of the McGruder film. More files were released. Science allowed for better analysis of varying aspects. People were back and forth on it.
About the time of the Oliver Stone film and another book or two, and sound analysis, many people became convinced that Oswald acted alone. That was okay with me. Then here at the Dope I find the attitude that if you have ever thought that there was a conspiracy to assassinate him in Dallas, you are part of the black helicopter crowd. That is very frustrating and so incredibly ignorant of history.
Many of my friends say they never will know for sure one way or the other. And that is where I will stand on the Kennedy assassination. But if you didn’t know that experience from the inside out, you are not in a position to judge me.
Tom Brokaw said that that day was the beginning of the Sixties and I understand why. I was eighteen and I’d been in college for two months. It was harder on me than 9-11 was. And it has lasted. That’s all I can say.
Nonsense. I don’t have it.
That’s ridiculous. My objective analysis of (say) ballistics is supposed to be trumped by your self-centered feeling of how it was and you had to be there, man.
Ridiculous.
These are two of the most compelling factors motivating diehard conspiracy theorists, in my experience.
They find current events confusing and frightening, and in their inability to understand how bad things happen it is comforting to be able to single out a particular group that is behind it all (Jews, Masons, the Illuminati etc.).
Scratch a conspiracy theorist and you will often find a bigot.
Re Zoe’s post (I’m sparing the hamsters from having to scribble out the whole thing again):
This gives me the opportunity to make a snark at folks who actually think there must be something sinister in the fact that a relative of John Hinckley knew a relative of GHW Bush: have these folks never played Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon??
Anyway. I think you are misstating things. I believe many who reject the notion of conspiracy in the JFK assassination have considered the possibility of conspiracy at one time or another. Indeed, one of the popular pasttimes in the conspiracy community these days is to compile lists of prominent people who have ever publicly mused about the possibility of conspiracy (as if this “appeal to authority” proves anything; maybe they’ve grown tired of the “suspicious deaths” meme).
Jack Ruby had been tried and convicted. His case was on appeal when he died from complications of lung cancer. But you are certainly right in the fact that his action made a lot of people wonder if there was more than met the eye.
While some of the earlier conspiracy theorists could be characterized as intellectuals (Sylvia Meagher, Josiah Thompson), there were “nut jobs” in on it from the beginning. I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head (I can’t decide if Penn Jones fits that category or not), but I recall a few getting mentioned in Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History. (I don’t know what to make of Mark Lane; maybe he fits the “intellectual sociopath” category I suggested earlier.) Then there’s David Lifton. Though he is sharp and appears to grasp the “rules of reasoning” (even cranky old Bugliosi gives him high marks for scholarship), his first theory involved multiple assassins hiding in fake trees that had been trucked into Dealey Plaza for the occassion. :rolleyes:
And it really didn’t take “a long time for rumors of conspiracy to be taken seriously.” Mark Lane was already mucking around in Dallas in December, 1963, if not in late November. He also insinuated himself into the Warren investigation.
While I can speak only for myself, I think most people do see a world of difference between talk of conspiracy in the JFK assassination and stuff like the Moon Landing Hoax.
By the way: it’s the Zapruder Film, not McGruder. Not that it makes much difference - the latest rage in the conspiracy camp is to proclaim the film a fake. This is one of the things that prompted me to start this thread - the question of how folks can be so determined to find a conspiracy that, when hard evidence is presented to them, they promptly claim forgery or whatever. Wish I could be so damned certain about everything. . . .
Another factor is that seperating the concepts of truth and belief seems to be beyond the capacity of much of the populace. “If I believe it, it must be true. If you believe differently, then you are calling me a liar.” Without giving examples, you can apply this to many political debates, and see that it is so.
I don’t particularly believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone…but I will conceed that this may well be true, and I have no problem with the fact that many people are certain he did act alone…they are likely correct. A conspiracy theorist isn’t capable (or maybe just unwilling) to make this distinction.
I take it you mean “the religious impulse”. No problem. I did qualify that with “a greater or lesser extent”, which would include “not at all” (though perhaps the impulse is expressed in some other way in your case). I base the notion on a case detailed in V.S. Ramachandran’s Phantoms in the Brain (must reading for anyone who is curious about how the brain works). He had a patient who, whenever a certain region in his temporal lobe was stimulated by something like an epileptic seizure, had an intense religious experience. Whence my notion that the “sense of the numinous” is actually hard-wired into our brains. More or less.
Actually, the latest, latest, latest theory is that the tape starts after the first shot was fired. That makes the three shots span a period of 11 seconds and makes the need for Oswald to be a miraculous shooter moot. Interesting, but not something I can speak to one way or the other.
I’m a little younger than Zoe but I was probably equally affected by Kennedy’s assassination. I also know that talk of a conspiracy started about the time Johnson was sworn in.
So what? Having lived through all the conspiracy accusations just gives me better cause to understand how stupid they all are, how much the facts were cherry picked, twisted, made up, and distorted to fit their contradictory theories, how little they bother to recognize any advances made over the years, how they depend on people’s memories being affected by the theories so that “witnesses” now say very different things than they did at the time, and how much investment they have in the government lying so that anything they believe can be made correct. Being older means I better understand that Kennedy conspirators are in the same boat as Moon Hoaxers. That’s what age should do.
Isn’t the more likely explanation that brain misfunctions created a cultural need for explanation and therefore gods and religion were invented? I think you have cause and effect reversed.
Has anyone seen the trailer for the new Nicolas Cage movie, National Treasure: Book of Secrets? Apparently the president has a secret book with all the answers to all the conspiracies in it! Now I know what I’m getting Alex for Christmas. 
Out of curiosity, can you name any prominent political figure who has died of natural causes in the last 20 years?
I asked this question of my “conspiracy-theorist” pal some years ago and he could not come up with a single name. Seems that 100% were murdered.
Now that’s one helluva conspiracy!
Not quite. He was convicted on March 14, 1964 and sentenced to death. He filed an appeal, claiming that the change of venue he had requested should have been granted. The appeal was upheld on October 5, 1966. When Ruby died on January 3, 1967 (more than three years after he shot Oswald) a retrial date had not yet been selected.
For the record… Four conspirators were hanged for their involvement: George Atzerodt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and Mary Surratt.
Atzerodt was assigned to assassinate Vice President Johnson on the evening of April 14, and went to the hotel where Johnson was staying… but chickened out at the last minute. He hung anyway.
Powell and Herold went to assassinate Secretary of State Seward. Powell attacked Seward, stabbing him several times, but failed to kill him. He also wounded several other people at the same address. While this was happening, Herold also chickened out.
Mary Surratt ran the boarding house where the conspirators met. There has been what I would consider a legitimate doubt raised in her case, not that she was innocent of being in on the conspiracy, but that she thought it was a kidnapping plot and had not intended murder. When President Johnson signed her death warrant, he said “she kept the nest that hatched the egg.”
All of these individuals were definitely part of the conspiracy–although none of them actually killed anyone–but they were all aiding and abetting John Wilkes Booth, the ringleader. I think part of the reason they all hung is that they were tried by a military tribunal. I doubt that civilian trial with tighter evidentiary rules would have found enough to sentence Surratt to hang. As for Atzerodt and Herold whose only crime was conspiracy but no actual assassination attempts, I don’t know, under different circumstances I don’t suppose would have hung either. Anyway, their participation in the conspiracy is not in question. They were all implicated in one way or another.
Trivia–Surratt’s boarding house is in DC’s Chinatown and is now a Chinese restaurant named “Wok and Roll.”