Why Do We Embrace Conspiracy Theories?

[Michael Bailey]

 Mark Kohut  wrote:
> In Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon, too, deals with how the mind has
> to find patterns, yes? I mean in some actual words about same, not just
> in the plot pattern...................
>
>

there are ones (GR quotes) I've remembered so many times that I've
spun them into my own thoughts and don't even remember them the way
they were written:

a) In a paranoid system, everything fits

b) a paradoxical reaction, exactly the opposite of the textbook reaction

c) "He's not so sure he wouldn't actually rather have that purpose
[even though it's to be a pawn in some plan foisted upon him by Jamf
et al, originally said of Slothrop, but applying widely]

and one by Burroughs - "treatment is symptomatic [diabolical laugh]"


----- why do we embrace Conspiracy Theories?
because they're just so darn huggable!

"Commere lemme check those dimples, yes *there* they *are*, and *let*
yer *grand*, -ma *check*, for *lint*, she's *just*, the *cute*, -est
*lit*' tle *thing!"

"Hnof ikh, Angh-ah!"
(_Vineland_ p367)