Why are conspiracy theories always so anti-athourity?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It seems like every conspiracy theory is about how the government is doing something evil. 9/11? Government planted bombs. Kennedy? CIA paid off another shooter. Chemtrails? Government’s spraying mind-control gas. Area 51? The government has a secret facility for aliens.

Etc., etc., etc.

Why is it always the government? Why not, say, the mafia, or some militia or something? Is it just that they are the only ones who have a hope of doing something like that? Or is the conspiracy theory mindset just similar to the ‘I hate government’ mindset?

2

I came up with this theory a few years ago and I have since espoused it strongly and will continue to do so, though I highly doubt I am the first to believe it. I think that conspiracy theories fulfill the exact same need in people that religion does - it gives people a sense of order in life where there is none; it lets people think there is some powerful and intelligent force that’s in charge of everything. This is like their form of God - it provides answers for seemingly unanswerable things; it presents a view of life that has a form of logic and reason to it, even if it’s a twisted and bizarre one.

It’s a comfort to people. Perversely, they are more comforted thinking that there is some huge malevolent conspiracy that’s in charge of everything that happens, instead of just accepting that the world is a random and unordered place.

The government is the biggest symbol of order and control in people’s lives.

Put two and two together; there’s the explanation.

3

Well, most conspiracy theories HAVE to be “anti-authority,” because ONLY an entity as large and powerful as the federal government could conceivably pull off some of the things that conspiracy theorists worry about.

IF you accept the notion (I don’t, I think it’s preposterous) that Lee Harvey Oswald was a mere patsy, you HAVE to start asking, “Who’s powerful enough to get him in and out of Russia, to get him a job in a place where he’d have a clear shot at the President, to kill him off before he could talk? THAT requires a vast conspiracy, which means the very highest levels of the government MUST have been in on it.”

If you look at ANY assassination or terrorist incident, you’ll find dozens of minor coincidences that enable it to succeed (and when they fail, of course, there may be dozens of minor coincidences that lead to the failure). If you’re NOT conspiracy-minded, you dismiss such coincidences as mere chance. If you ARE conspiracy-minded, you look at all those coincidences and say, “That COULDN’T have been mere chance. To make all those dozens of things happen, there had to be MAJOR planning and forethought! This had to be EXTREMELY well-organized! A few crooks or a few terrorists couldn’t have made ALL that happen. This must go all the way to the top.”

The first attempt to blow up the World Trade Center was a fiasco, and the conspirators were roundly mocked for their stupidity and incompetence (remember that comedy rap video about the hapless Mohammed Salameh?). Nobody suggested that there was a huge conspiracy then, but that’s ONLY because the attack was an abysmakl failure.

Well, the guys who pulled off the 9/11 attacks weren’t any smarter than Mohammed Salameh. They just got a lot luckier. If they’d been busted at the strip club where they spent all their spare time, a few days before 9/11, people would be laughing at THEM, too.

But because they got lucky and managed to destroy the WTC, people don’t laugh at them. Instead, they look at them and think, “A bunch of moronic towelheads couldn’t have pulled off something THIS big. They HAD to have had help. WHo’s strong and powerful enough to manipulate this and pull it of? It HAD to be a massive conspiracy that began at the highest level of government.”

4

astorian starts it off well. Who cares if Uncle Bud is in on a conspiracy with Aunt Betty to short the bridge club out of finger sandwiches? It is a conspiracy of scale that matters.
Another aspect is because the ones that observe conspiracies in the works, real or no, are people that question authority by nature. IIRC, investigative reporters like Woodward and Bernstein, et al, in the 70s and 80s, were hailed as being hard nosed, ‘in search of truth’ guys that would not be put off by the party line, and would keep digging until the truth was known.

5

There’s theories that Jack Ruby, dying of cancer, was recruited by the mob to kill Oswald to shut him up. The mob would then help his family,

And the mob covered up the murder of Marilyn Monroe.

Big Foot is clearly a conspiracy of pranksters and opportunists supporting each other. I’ll say I believe your home movie if you tell the TV audience we sell copies online.