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