Those seeking to discredit that which so inconveniently goes against the grain of historical memory are often deemed “conspiracy theorists” – the connotation being that alternative explanations for historical events must certainly be in the realm of bigfoot and little green men. However, such assertions are not always accurate. In fact, more often than not, alternative explanations are intentionally overstated in order to discredit them.
Defining the Conspiracy Theorist
One good definition for the word conspiracy is a concurrence or general tendency, as of circumstances, to one event, as if by agreement. A good definition of theorist is a person who theorizes. So a conspiracy theorist would be a person who theorizes about occurrences or general tendencies, as of circumstances, to events, as if by agreement.
Theories involve propositions; absent a proposition a theory cannot exist. For example, if I were to say that Lee Harvey Oswald in collusion with the Soviets assassinated President Kennedy that would involve a definite proposition. (And just so we’re clear, this is a hypothetical theory that I do not personally subscribe to.) Now, if I were to simply say that I do not believe that Oswald acted alone in his attempt to assassinate the president that is not a theory because it does not involve an absolute proposition about who is responsible. In other words, I am not making accusations about the guilt of any particular party; rather I am saying that I remain unconvinced, from my examination of the evidence, that the accused is solely responsible for the crime.
Basics of Criminal Investigation
When criminal acts take place, those given the responsibility of investigating the crimes gather evidence (including circumstantial evidence), conduct interviews of witnesses, determine persons of interest and interview them. On the basis of the evidence gathered, the authorities formulate a theory about how and why the crime took place and who is responsible. By definition, this is a conspiracy theory if it involves more than one person. Most of these theories involve some degree of hearsay and conjecture.
Basics of Criminal Prosecution
After the authorities determine the guilt of an individual or individuals on the basis of their investigation, formal charges are made. However, the accused has a right to present his defense, and until he is proven guilty his innocence is assumed. He may enter a plea of guilty, not guilty, or no contest. Assuming the defendant has maintained his innocence, the guilt or innocence of the defendant is determined by those whose function it is to weigh the evidence, either a judge or a jury.
Disruption of Criminal Process
When there is a disruption in the criminal process, and a “rush to judgment” occurs, the outcome should always be in question until a satisfactory and independent examination of the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Unfortunately, many major crimes involving national security fall into this category, and thus the official explanation is naturally discredited.
This would be the case concerning the attacks on the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001 in New York City. First of all, there is the question of jurisdiction. Whose responsibility is it to investigate the crime and prosecute the criminals? The NYPD? The FBI? Whatever the jurisdiction, the investigations that have followed in no way resemble legitimate criminal process. The suspects have been tried in the court of public opinion, an opinion shaped almost entirely by information disseminated to the public with the intent of manipulating public opinion.
Assuming the crime fell under the FBI’s jurisdiction, it might interest the public to note that the FBI has never named Osama bin Laden as a suspect for the crime despite the fact that millions of Americans still believe he is responsible. Why not? Obviously, if a person is not even named as a suspect, there might be some reasonable doubt as to his guilt or a lack of evidence. And such a conclusion does not constitute a conspiracy theory.
The Motive of the Accusers
When there is a disruption in the criminal process, it is left up to the public to examine the possible motives of the accusers. This is where the public is duty-bound to check government power and police the police. Because the accused, for whatever reason, are being denied their day in court, the information given to the public can only be propaganda; it is the strongest possible case the state could make because there is no opposition to it.
The most obvious motive the state has is to maintain the appearance of competence. No one wants to lose their job because they fail to measure up to what the public expects of them. Prosecutors who wanted to keep their jobs and maintain their reputations for being “tough on crime” have been guilty of locking up innocent people, only to have them released years later when suppressed or new evidence is presented. In some cases, the prosecutors have still maintained that the formerly accused are guilty even after their release.
Naysayers and Complicit Gatekeepers
For some reason, rather than questioning the second and third-hand information and outright propaganda that comes from governments, many people actually internalize it. This is the best situation that the state can hope for - to foster collective consent in the public such that any opposition to the official government account is quickly and instinctively extinguished. Even this concept, likely to be mistaken as a conspiracy theory itself, is just institutional analysis; all governments have a stake in controlling public opinion.
In some cases, the CIA has literally fed propaganda through a media filter in order to marginalize opposition. (This is a fact, not a theory.) However, not everything is handled with the same techniques used in Operation Mockingbird. Although such techniques are definitely in use today, most recently evidenced by the CIA’s infiltration of Iranian media as exposed by Brian Ross at ABC News, manufacturing consent does not usually require such covert practices. All governments have to do is wait for the public to reach a consensus on the basis of their version of events, and those thus indoctrinated will cry “conspiracy theorist!” at the slightest mention of anything that questions the official government account. Of course, this only works when the public trusts the government or is too lazy or apathetic to look at the evidence independently. One sure way of becoming a government stooge is to repeat what they say as a fact.
Psychological Warfare through Word Association
One of the techniques used by governments and government stooges alike is a straw-man involving the use of word associations to misrepresent a point of view. Sometimes these word associations use legitimate terms that have taken on a different meaning through negative usage, like conspiracy theorist or liberal. Other times words like kook, crazy, tinfoil hat, compound, separatist, anarchist, un-American, terrorist, and the like are used in conjunction with the mention of a dissident person or group of persons.
Another similar and popular technique involves using ridiculous ideas and comparisons to discredit a point of view. For instance, a person might say, “The government’s explanation for the destruction of the Salomon Brothers building just doesn’t make sense.” A stooge might respond by scoffing, “I suppose a secret cabal of Zionists and Jews is to blame.” Or another response might be more extreme like, “Yeah, the little green men detonated the building from their flying saucer.” Either way, the desired effect is the same whether a person is shamed into submission by associating his point of view with something politically taboo or science fiction. At any rate, a careful examination of the evidence is discouraged through peer pressure.
Formulating a Theory
The formulation of an accurate theory as to the motivation for something like an assassination, for instance, is a near-impossible feat. This is due to the complicated nature of a multitude of parties of interest and the limit to which one may investigate all possible motives and associations. A much more practical approach is to remain skeptical when the evidence warrants skepticism. The last thing anyone wants to be is a sucker, and you can be a sucker being a government stooge or voicing opinions about questions you are ill-equipped to answer. Nevertheless, a healthy sense of skepticism is a guard against deception, and there is no reason why a person must – especially if he in good conscience cannot – formulate a theory.
Although the formulation of conspiracy theories is generally (though not always) ill-advised, the communication of evidence of complicity is encouraged. It must be understood, however, that this is a means of public investigation. For instance, the fact that the North American Aerospace Defense Command ran military exercises very similar to the actual real world scenarios that occurred on 9/11 and then lied about it, is evidence of complicity; it does not involve the formulation of a theory, but states a matter of fact. Now, if an individual were to take that evidence (not proof) and formulate a theory involving NORAD as a possible conspirator to the crime, that would be premature. Nevertheless, the emergence of the many theories that have entered the national consciousness (some of them quite ridiculous) bears witness to the fact that not all of the populace is asleep. That is a good thing.
First of all, there is the question of jurisdiction. Whose responsibility is it to investigate the crime and prosecute the criminals? The NYPD? The FBI? …the FBI has never named Osama bin Laden as a suspect…
The big shift after 9/11 was that the USA stopped treating terrorism as a criminal matter and started treating it as a war. The FBI may be involved in gathering intelligence, but the FBI doesn’t have to name bin Laden as a suspect. You don’t have suspects in war. If you’re hung up about suspects, you’re still thinking about this as a criminal matter. We’ve moved beyond that. The criminal justice system is great for a lot of things, but it is not intended to fight a war. This is a war.
Mini-rant: Now if we could just make up our minds to actually declare a war and treat captured enemies as POWs, maybe we could make some progress. End of rant.
And correct me if I’m wrong, but hasn’t the FBI said that the evidence implicated al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks? Maybe the FBI hasn’t formally named bin Laden himself as a suspect (which is the Justice Department’s job, right?) but the FBI isn’t saying al Qaeda isn’t involved.
I’ve been thinking about your article all day, Chris A. I’m still not sure what to make of it. I think I agree with you in principle if not in the particular examples you cite. You’re right that it should be acceptable to question the conventional wisdom, especially if there has been a rush to judgement before the facts are in. But beyond that, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.
I don’t think you do a good job in separating “conspiracy theory” from regular theories. You attack by reducing the phrase “conspiracy theory” to the two words that form it and create, to be frank, a straw man. There is more to things than the sum of their parts, just as a pineapple is not related to pine nor apple and “water polo” is something different than just “water” and “polo” (those poor horses). From the two words that make up the compound “conspiracy theory,” you reconstruct a compound that isn’t really about “conspiracy theories” as it totally ignores the secret and illegal nature of conspiracy.
Because of that above, you feel that you can deny any explanation of historical events on the basis of there being a lack of evidence. However, this is misleading because it is still, according to your own definition, still a theory. It may not be fully extended or detailed, but it is still a theory, still a definite propositional statement, etc. Here’s the thing: you can’t try to reduce things to a simply binary logic and then expect to be able to use modal logic (e.g. shades of grey).
It’s one thing to question the “traditional” opinion, but it’s another to deny it on the basis of some undiscovered evidence whose existence is suspect or on the basis that the investigators (who are supposed to be experts in their field) failed to arrive at the most logical conclusion based on the available evidence, especially if this is proposed by someone who is either untrained or poorly-skilled in that field. This is exactly what happens in the “creation vs evolution” debate as the proponents of the “creation” side are typically untrained in the field in question (e.g. biology). This isn’t to say all of them aren’t, but most debates in this case are between trained scholars (e.g. PhDs who have published in prestigious, peer-reviewed journals) and untrained laymen (e.g. Southern Baptist minister whose extent of training in science was the high school biology class he took 15 years ago). Also, I’m not arguing for the superiority of trained experts, as there has been cases where they have been wrong; however, if it is a game of public opinion, there’s got to be good evidence against the experts and a good reason why they haven’t looked at it….and a “conspiracy” isn’t really enough these days.
Correct. A theory requires a statement of what one believes happened, not merely a lack of being fully convinced. Of course, saying “Lee Harvey Oswald was framed” would again be making a statement of what you believe actually happened. The standard of evidence used in the US is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and though some juries are not reasonable in considering doubt there is a difference between this and “beyond any possible doubt”. Even a crime committed with many witnesses who clearly see what happens and solid scientific evidence could have some possible doubt. The standard is “a reasonable doubt”. A conspiracy theory generally requires unreasonable doubts which are then constructed into an unreasonable alternative theory.
Incorrect. A conspiracy requires that the parties pre-planned the crime. Two parties who happen to commit an unplanned crime without previous or future interaction are not conspirators. Example: two people get into an unplanned argument and are both arrested for disturbing the peace.
Rightly or wrongly, the attacks on 9/11 have not been treated as a criminal act, but an act of war. Acts of war are not tried by law enforcement investigations (police, FBI), but by military spies (CIA, NSA) who determine what most likely (not “beyond a reasonable doubt”) occurred. Note that law enforcement HAS determined the identities of the actual hijackers, and where and when they entered the country. The government then determines whether to apply diplomacy to obtain compensation or to apply military forces to force the opponent into a position to accept terms.
In this case, Osama himself and the spies both attributed the attack to Osama. From a law enforcement perspective this issue rests too strongly on “secret evidence” (obtained by spies) and might not stand up in a court of law. I would not accuse you of being a conspiracy theorist for saying that Osama was not personally involved in the attacks, as insufficient evidence has been presented for this to be verifiable. What is NOT in question is that the towers went down as a result of two planes hitting them which were piloted by people from the middle east legally allowed to enter the country.
This is where your position becomes a conspiracy. You are ignoring the clear evidence of what happened (hijackers crashed planes into the towers causing them to collapse) and choosing without a shred of evidence to make up theories that conflict with the evidence we DO have. It is entirely plausible that our government never actually figured out who hired the hijackers or that they did and haven’t told us, it ISN’T plausible that our local law enforcement agencies and various industrial experts who have analyzed the damage and video are all in collaboration to cover up the event. Conspiracies are plausible where a handful of people have control over all the information, they are NOT plausible when they involve the confidential collusion of tens of thousands of people.
There is a higher standard of evidence required when proposing that a previously reliable source is being dishonest, and an even higher standard of evidence required when dozens of such sources are in agreement. Had the government shut out media and civilian experts from the examination of the attack, there might be an argument to be made that their findings were in doubt. With the large number of non-military, non-intelligence sources though, a high standard of evidence is required. Like I mentioned, I am fully willing to accept that Osama might not have been behind the attack, but we definitely know what happened and who physically implemented it. The only part that COULD be in doubt is who was behind the planing and funding of the effort. It seems implausible to accuse the government of having done this without any evidence, and a training exercise based on a similar possibility doesn’t count. There were plans regarding a hurricane hitting New Orleans, does that mean Katrina was a government operation? Some conspiracy theorists would say it does, and this precise willingness to believe a theory with no evidence that what is theorized is even possible is what makes people disdain conspiracy theorists.
Investigators tend to report the most likely cause of an event. When suggesting that they are wrong, a more plausible explanation for the facts observed should be offered. If not, all you are doing is showing that the best known explanation is not fully understood. If we want to take “all possibilities” into consideration we can’t rule out green men or zionist conspiracies. Those who DON’T rule out the possibilities considered impossible are left with an infinite set of imaginary possible causes that can never be differentiated between. This is why such people are denigrated, since there is no way to tell whether a wizard did it.
Correct. Formulating correct theories with no access to evidence is nothing better than random guessing. If you believe that the publicly available evidence has been tampered with (as most conspiracy theorists assume), then no public evidence can ever be convincing. After all, if there are already thousands of participants in this conspiracy, why wouldn’t the press also be involved? One is left having to doubt everything regarding which one does not have complete first hand knowledge. Of course, in a world where such conspiracies exist, those who opposed them would quietly disappear without a trace. Therefore, most conspiracy theorists MUST be wrong, since if they were right they would not still be alive. Why would we pay high attention to a class of people who are almost always wrong, and when right are only right based on random chance (since they formed their position independently of factual information)?
One of the main points of this article, which seems to have been largely missed, is that raising questions and reasonable doubt does not constitute conspiracy theory. And the fact that any crime can be reclassified as an act of war should be a red flag to anyone with any degree of zeal for truth (Hey, ya like that?). And to be clear, I do not make a distinction between the government’s version of events and OTHER conspiracy theories, despite what some say is the burden of proof.
In every major American criminal event beginning with the assassination of Lincoln all the way up to 9/11 there have always been alternative plausible explanations, or at least details that history has sought not to record - these were not all cooked up on the internet by kooks and crazies, but many times came from people within government or the intelligence community. Their explanations are generally from their own perspectives and not from an objective look at all the evidence. Nevertheless they can be valuable and important, whether or not a theory is actually constructed from their testimony.
But when one looks at all the AVAILABLE evidence collectively, including anecdotal and circumstantial evidence, I really don’t see how someone could agree with the government’s explanation most of the time. I mean, for the life of me! I think most people don’t want to bother to think about why people within the NYPD, the FBI, and the CIA say such horrible things. Don’t they have a heart for the victims’ families?! Every time they bring new evidence they cause more heartache…not! If you want to know what the victims families think about the Murrah Building bombing or 9/11 you should find out. Of course their opinions are varied like everyone else, but I think you would find that on the whole most of them have serious unanswered questions. Some of these questions the government really never bothered to answer. In fact, they don’t have to because THIS IS WAR! It’s the War on Terror, whatever that means. To me, it means a war on fear fueled by fear. And you should be so afraid that you run to Big Brother with open arms, hoping that they will save you from the people they once armed. So don’t ask questions because if you do you are a conspiracy theorist, and Big Brother doesn’t like conspiracy theorists.
Chris A. wrote
Hmm, this was a physical destruction of US lives and property by foreign nationals with a claim of responsibility by a leader supported by a foreign government. If a nuclear weapon were launched from China and hit San Francisco, would you insist on a criminal investigation and trial before retaliation took place? I 100% fully agreed with your assertion that reasonable doubt does not constitute conspiracy theory. I still do. Where I disagree is when you claim that any doubt however unlikely is a “reasonable doubt”.
It is reasonable to question whether Osama was truly responsible. It is not reasonable to question that foreign hijackers crashed planes into the trade center killing large numbers of people. You can as legitimately claim that nobody died on 9/11, but that they were all smuggled out through the subway and locked in secret concentration camps. The bodies were from the morgue, and medical records faked to make them match. This is how ridiculous your claim is. You’re claiming that tens of thousands of people secretly participated in a conspiracy to fake what happened. It isn’t possible. Maybe the US government secretly employed the hijackers (unlikely, but possible), maybe the building wasn’t quite as strong as it was supposed to be (again unlikely, but possible), but we DO know what happened (even if we never know why). Even for the unlikely suggestions I made, SOME evidence is needed for them to be “reasonable suspicions”. Just making them up and expecting them to be treated seriously isn’t reasonable.
Chris A. wrote
Why exactly should a theory which doesn’t objectively view the evidence be treated seriously? Any crackpot can make up crazy possibilities if they are willing to ignore facts. I just made up three above, and they have NO basis in reality. Every interesting story in the history of humanity has alternate tellings, but that doesn’t mean they are all equally reasonable. Sure, its possible that we live on a planet built by mice to derive the ultimate question whose answer is 42, but is it really likely? If there is no evidence to support a position, it is nothing but an interesting supposition and there is no reason to expect anyone to treat it as anything more.
My brother said 9/11 was created by a team up of Godzilla and the Hulk, lured there by the hidden vat of the refined essence of innocent victims stored there by the secret society that REALLY runs the US government. With anecdotal evidence like that, I don’t understand who would have doubts. Seriously, I can believe that the evidence against Osama might have been manufactured to justify a retaliation. We might have closed the investigation early because it was just 20 random guys who decided to act alone, and that was too simple an explanation to satisfy political leaders. These are possible because there is only a handful of sources tying this back to Al Quaeda, and if they are lying we might not know better. Still, without evidence that they are lying it isn’t reasonable to assume that they are. If you HAD any real evidence you wouldn’t be relying on “circumstantial and anecdotal” evidence. All you have is a petty unwillingness to address facts in an open and unbiased way to come to a logical conclusion.
“You can as legitimately claim that nobody died on 9/11, but that they were all smuggled out through the subway and locked in secret concentration camps. The bodies were from the morgue, and medical records faked to make them match. This is how ridiculous your claim is. You’re claiming that tens of thousands of people secretly participated in a conspiracy to fake what happened. It isn’t possible.”
Dude, what are you even talking about? I don’t remember claiming anything remotely close to this.