[talk.religion.newage] The Conspiracy Conspiracy

prof@chinet.UUCP (The Professor) (03/31/88)

  (Copied verbatim, without permission)

  Researchers (and ex-conspiracy theorists) Tom  Hansen  and  Michael  Levitt
  have  released  the  findings of their extensive study of the conspiracy in
  America in a new book called "The Conspiracy Conspiracy:   The  Battle  for
  Control  of  Public  Opinion."  The book describes the network of collusion
  among so-called conspiracy theorists of a variety of disparate persuasions,
  from  all  sides  of  the  political  spectrum,  to induce fear, panic, and
  confusion among the American populace (and the rest of the world) over  the
  answers to the question of "Who is running things in the world today?"

  "The goal is not just to gain followers for a  particular  movement,"  says
  Hansen.   "The  real  purpose  is  to  create an atmosphere in which people
  really come to believe that there is some sort of  hidden  conspiracy  that
  actually  runs  things,  and  to  dupe  people into believing they have the
  inside line on what's really happening.  It  doesn't  matter  whether  they
  think   it's   Jewish  bankers,  Freemeasons,  the  Trilateral  Commission,
  Communist dupes, or the infamous Illuminati.  What  matters  is  that  they
  become  convinced  that  it's  somebody,  somebody  they  don't like who is
  secretly working specifically against them and their personal interests."

  But isn't saying that there are groups of people out to convince  us  about
  the existence of these conspiracies implying the existence of a conspiracy?
  "Yes, as a matter of fact, there really is  a  conspiracy  of  conspiracies
  going on," says Levitt, who belonged to many fringe groups spouting various
  conspiracy  theories  during  his  college  years  at  the  University   of
  California  at  Berkeley.   "The  point  is that they're not 'in charge' of
  anything the way they purport  their  fictional  conspiracies  to  be,  and
  they're  not  really very good at what they do, which is duping people into
  believing their own conspiracy theories the same way they claim  that  'the
  conspiracy'  is duping people.  They work on the latent fears and ingrained
  prejudices of their intended victims,  deliberately  targeting  people  who
  feel  wronged by the world and telling them exactly what they want to hear:
  that someone is out to get them, actively working against their  interests.
  The  interesting  thing  is  that  although  they  haven't  been remarkably
  successful in recruiting converts thus far, they have been  getting  a  lot
  better at what they're trying to do.  They've incorporated both biochemical
  tactics and new methods of psychological manipulation through media imagery
  into their arsenal."

  Though  it  sounds  like  these  "conspiracy  mongers"  are  targeting  the
  illiterate,  the  feeble-minded,  and the unsophisticated, nothing could be
  further from the truth.  "Of course they find their way into areas like the
  Bible  Belt  and  prey  on  the beliefs of people who are superstitious and
  naive, for whom learned prejudices are woven into the social fabric of  the
  region.   But  to  say  that  they  are going solely after people like that
  misses the mark.  Their biggest campaigns are on college campuses, and that
  includes special effort directed at some of the most prestigious schools in
  the country."  Hansen included CalTech, Stanford, MIT, and a number of  Ivy
  League schools in his list.

  "Bright kids are a target group just as much as any other  group.   Growing
  up,  they  often  feel isolated, ostracized for their different outlook and
  behavior. Conspiracy mongers use inductive literature, records, and movies,
  to teach them that the reason they're treated that way is because they know
  something that less aware people don't know about  the  way  the  world  is
  run."   Hansen  included  a number of comic books, rock groups, and science
  fiction authors in his list of  indoctrinating  influences  on  the  target
  group.   "They use their own inside vocabulary to describe people they view
  as too stupid to realize what they naively think they know about the world.
  Homeboys,  pinks,  toadies, mundanes, dweebs, and geeks are common terms of
  derision used by the followers.  Remember, a lot of these kids are the same
  ones that are called nerds and geeks by the other people, so it's sort of a
  role reversal.  Nothing has changed--the kids are still the same nerds they
  were before--but now they have a way of looking down on the people who look
  down on them.  This new way of looking at the world is a  godsend  to  kids
  who  had  always thought of themselves as freaks and outcasts, and they eat
  it up, embracing the whole kit and kaboodle.  Unlike the other groups,  for
  whom  any  biochemical  mind alteration has to be done surreptitiously, the
  college kids buy into the drug mentality wholeheartedly, and willingly take
  the drugs that realign their brains.

  "Through their exposure to these ideas about their superiority,  they  come
  to  associate  with  like  thinking people who hold similar views about the
  world and about 'what's really going on.'  They come to  think  that  their
  high  scholastic test scores and degrees from top rank schools mean they're
  actually smarter and better than other people, that they're actually  privy
  to  knowledge  that  the  'mundanes'  don't  have.  They learn to look with
  condescension and disdain at anyone who's not as 'enlightened' as they are,
  anyone  who  doesn't  share  the  same  tastes or opinions they hold.  They
  become genuinely convinced of their  superiority,  based  on  reinforcement
  from  the  literature and from fellow believers.  In pointing their fingers
  at others and calling them dupes, they become dupes themselves."

  Levitt also named his alma mater, Berkeley, as one of the prime focuses  of
  the  conspiracy mongers' efforts.  "Berkeley is a place full of people with
  intense feelings about almost every political issue.   The  University  has
  always  been  a  magnet for the disenfranchised, the disillusioned, and the
  disappointed.  The town continues to be  a  haven  for  people  of  unusual
  political  leanings.  Minorities, women, gays, members of obscure religious
  movements, all find a home there.  The one thing all the movements have  in
  common is that shared belief that the world at large is making a deliberate
  effort to work against them.  That and the intense  gullibility  they  also
  seem  to  share  makes  them prime targets for the conspiracy mongers.  Not
  that any of the groups are more prone to  being  gullible  than  any  other
  group,  but  the  nature  of  the movements themselves gives them a greater
  capacity for embracing conspiracy theories about what they  think  are  the
  'real' reasons behind their problems."

  The authors postulate a relationship between the conspiracy mongers and the
  New  Age  religious  movements common in Northern California.  "Many of the
  New Age religions teach this doctrine of subjective reality as  truth,  and
  that appeals to the audience the conspiracy mongers are trying to reach.  A
  lot of the New Age types have roots in the  conspiracy  movement  to  begin
  with.   A  lot  of  these movements had their beginnings in groups like the
  Discordians and the Subgeniuses,  pseudo-anarchic  groups  whose  credo  is
  deliberate  obfuscation and confusion to get people to believe things their
  way, instead of accepting the status quo way of looking at things.  They're
  just  jokes  that  a few people have begun to take seriously.  Even some of
  the original jokesters are now prominently serious leaders in these New Age
  religions."

  The message that Hansen and Levitt present has not been well-received.  The
  lectures  they  present on college campuses are often packed with audiences
  that shout them down and often boo them off the podium.  One student leader
  at  the  University of California at Santa Cruz led a rally denouncing them
  when they made an appearance on campus.  She said that  Hansen  and  Levitt
  were  themselves  part  of a conspiracy to squelch and discredit groups who
  are actively exposing the inner workings of the real conspiracy.

  But lest you think that denunciation from the left wing equates to  support
  from  the right, spokesmen for the Reagan Administration have also come out
  against Hansen and Levitt.  "If we really  were  tools  of  the  government
  conspiracy,   you'd  think  we'd  have  their  endorsement,"  said  Hansen.
  "Instead we get remarks about how we're just relics from the era  of  left-
  wing conspiracy-paranoia who've shifted our attention to the very groups we
  had been involved in as we've grown older, persisting in our suspicion  but
  redirecting  our  focus.   My question is why did the Reagan Administration
  feel the need to come out and say anything at all!"

  Is that automatic dismissal by left and right alike part of a conspiracy by
  the  conspiracy  mongers?   "Well, yes and no," says Hansen.  "The American
  public  has  been  well  conditioned  by  the  media  to  have   relatively
  predictable  responses to these sorts of things.  In the 50's, we witnessed
  the rise and fall of Joe McCarthy, who waged a one man war against supposed
  infiltration  of the U.S.  Government by Communists.  When it was all over,
  we had coined a new word:  McCarthyism, a paranoid overreaction to imagined
  infiltration  by  enemies  resulting in a monomaniacal focus on rooting out
  those enemies by whatever means were necessary.  Since  then,  anyone  even
  hinting  at the idea of an infiltration conspiracy is called a McCarthyist.
  But did anyone stop to think that Joe McCarthy himself was the infiltrator,
  the  one  who set the stage for the atmosphere that followed his demise, in
  which McCarthyism would become a dirty word?

  "So nowadays you have this two-sided coin.  You have people  thinking  that
  anyone who shouts 'conspiracy' is a nut case, but at the same time you have
  other people--sometimes it's even those  same  people--willing  to  believe
  their  own  pet  conspiracy  theory  about which group of people must be in
  collusion to cause all the problems in their lives.  And don't try to  mess
  with what they believe, they'll slice you down cold.  If you look at groups
  like the Aryan Nations, the Scientologists,  the  New  Age  religions,  the
  feminist  movement,  the  nationalist  terrorist  groups, the 700 Club, the
  Libertarian  Party,  the  people  involved  in  the   'tax   revolt,'   the
  survivalists,  the  pyramid  scheme business venture groups like Amway, and
  the other oddball groups like the Subgeniuses, you see the  common  thread.
  They  all  share  exactly  the  same  messages,  the same methods, the same
  tactics, and the same results.  They preach this doctrine about there being
  some  force  preventing  you and others like you from getting what you want
  out of life, and they get you to focus your  energies  on  working  against
  this  force.  In reality, the thing you work against is something that only
  affects them, and the effort you put into working against it serves only to
  feed their egos and line their pockets."

  "The clincher," says Levitt, "is that when you examine  who's  involved  in
  these  groups,  you find that the reason their messages and tactics are the
  same is because the people behind them are the same.  You'll see  the  same
  people  behind the scenes at Klan meetings, EST seminars, Amway gatherings,
  and recruitment drives for everyone from  the  Moonies  to  the  700  Club.
  There  really  is  a  hidden network working together here.  The individual
  groups may ultimately despise each other on the  surface,  but  they  share
  common  sets  of organizers, and apparently a common goal.  That goal would
  seem to be the  recruitment  and  eventual  alignment  of  specific  target
  populations  according to some larger plan.  Their biggest problem has been
  that they aren't numerous enough or organized enough to achieve the desired
  end  result.   By worming their way into existing groups, like a virus, and
  by creating or reviving groups where they see a  'social  need'  for  them,
  they  expand  their influence beyond their numbers, which could potentially
  have a devastating effect on our society."

legare@ut-emx.UUCP (Dr. Robert Tech) (03/31/88)

sounds like there's a conspiracy afoot...



gak. anyone who takes the Church of the SubG that seriously is missing the 
joke entirely. i bet they don't catch things like irony either.


actually, you know, the entire planet is run by a little guy with a purple
john deer cap who lives in a deserted oil platform out in the pacific.


he's about this high...



BoB
teCh

UE4@PSUVMA.BITNET (Dan Schultz) (04/01/88)

In article <4359@chinet.UUCP>, prof@chinet.UUCP (The Professor) says:
>
>   Conspiracy theory . . .
>  (Copied verbatim, without permission)

Heute die Welt, Morgens das Sonnensystem!!!!
-------
Daniel B. Schultz

    "There is one proposal that some may regard as revolutionary:  We
    need a new political party in America.  A party with a new aware-
    ness of our problems, committed to the national interest and will-
    ing to ask Americans to sacrifice to achieve long-term objectives.
    We can no longer look to the tired old parties of the past for
    solutions to the problems of the future.  We need a new American
    economy and a new American politics to shape it."
                   John B. Anderson

kent@xanth.cs.odu.edu (Kent Paul Dolan) (04/01/88)

In article <1508@ut-emx.UUCP> legare@ut-emx.UUCP (Dr. Robert Tech) writes:
>
>sounds like there's a conspiracy afoot...
>
>gak. anyone who takes the Church of the SubG that seriously is missing the 
>joke entirely. i bet they don't catch things like irony either.
>
>actually, you know, the entire planet is run by a little guy with a purple
>john deer cap who lives in a deserted oil platform out in the pacific.
>
>he's about this high...
>
>BoB
>teCh


"Somnambulist to Deer Slayer; BoB teCh has broken security, recommend
 immediate deletion."

Kent, the (no conspiracies here, nope, nope) man from xanth.

kettyle@homxc.UUCP (Starsha) (04/04/88)

In article <37893UE4@PSUVMA>, UE4@PSUVMA.BITNET (Dan Schultz) writes:
> 
>     "There is one proposal that some may regard as revolutionary:  We
>     need a new political party in America.  A party with a new aware-
>     ness of our problems, committed to the national interest and will-
>     ing to ask Americans to sacrifice to achieve long-term objectives.
>     We can no longer look to the tired old parties of the past for
>     solutions to the problems of the future.  We need a new American
>     economy and a new American politics to shape it."
>                    John B. Anderson


       In other words:

                  Support the Birthright Party
                       Kent For President
                         Vote For Kent

tracer@stb.UUCP (Jeff Boeing) (04/07/88)

But we really ARE being plotted against by the Communist Homosexual Bourgeois
Martians!!!

No, seriously, people use conspiracy theories for the same reason they choose
enemies to hate.  They want somebody or some group to blame their frustrations
and misery on, when in reality nearly all their problems were caused by one
person and one person only:

Themselves.
-- 
Jeff Boeing (which is not my real name)   |   ...!uunet!stb.uucp!tracer
------------------------------------------|----------------------------
"All right, you weak bosons!  You're not dealing with some obscure 9th-level
 by-the-book paladin anymore!"   -- Sick Sword