Why Do We Embrace Conspiracy Theories?

[Mark Kohut]

Fools rush in, I'm here. Zakaria is very worth reading, listening to, on modern 
geopolitics. 


I thought this piece so lightweight as to say about nothing. Esp. from his coign 
of vantage
about the modern world. 

What I write below has just about no relation to any of the particular 
conspiracy theories
he might have gone into. 

But, we cannot think conceptually without forming an idea that involves linking 
some assorted
perceptions into a concept. (This will soon come up in The Recognitions. In 
fact, a character will say
that he couldn't see anything [re something] because he had no idea of what he 
was looking for. (Centuries
of philosophy we could recapitulate there and prolly will). 

More controversially---is it an inherent vice?---we often project blame about 
'bad' things, esp when any other
human beings have been involved. 

So, many, many, most, all at some time?---of us---generalize to an easier theory 
than doing the harder work
of lassoing all the particulars into an explanation that doesn't 
overgeneralize...(I think I am remembering that
De Tocqueville wrote that Americans overgeneralized more than Europeans because 
they had nothing in their mind
between all the visceral realities of their daily work and lives and authority 
from a distance. Fantasy, so to speak, filled
in that mental space...

From Fareed's platform, State lies have been so pervasive, we doubt it all and 
jump to conspiracy conclusions too often.




----- Original Message ----
From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>; pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Sun, May 8, 2011 4:21:44 PM
Subject: Re: Why Do We Embrace Conspiracy Theories?

I'm not sure about how the question is worded, but it certainly is worthy of 
discussion. I wonder what other P-listers made of the article. I'll reserve my 
own view for now. Dave, what did you think?

Ciao
MC


----- Original Message ----
From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sat, May 7, 2011 4:19:01 PM
Subject: Why Do We Embrace Conspiracy Theories?

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/06/why-do-we-embrace-conspiracy-theories/