42 Comments
deletedMar 23, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
deletedMar 11, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby
Comment deleted
Expand full comment
Mar 11, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby

Great essay. The systemicist/conspiracist divide is one of the most significant epistemological debates of our time. On the one hand, as you say ably demonstrate, a great deal can be explained as the straightforward consequences of human social instinct interacting with the nature of whichever social system those humans find themselves in. When that system becomes strongly misaligned with desires or expectations, there's a natural tendency for conspiratorial thinking to project a malign intent - as for example the magical thinking engaged in by BlueAnon regarding Russia, systemic racism, the patriarchy, and so on.

But on the other, there is the real historical existence of conspiratorial organizations acting to great effect on society. The American revolution may not have been a Freemasonic conspiracy in the sense that it was carried out to advance some long term Masonic goal, but the lodges certainly played their part in enabling clandestine coordination. The existence of the Italian Mafia was officially denied for years even as it established itself as the most significant criminal organization in the world. In the modern context, there's the role played by intelligence agencies, which are compartmentalized and secretive by their very nature; what would one call COINTELPRO, Mockingbird, Gladio, or the various color revolutions if not conspiracies? To say nothing of revelations concerning the backchannel coordination of spooks and social media companies in order to reduce the impact of political dissidents.

This is why I tend to adopt a both/and approach to the question of conspiracy vs system:

https://barsoom.substack.com/p/a-conspiracy-of-systems-a-system

Another factor worth mentioning on this topic is the tendency for the regime to label any noticing it dislikes - for example of the long term impacts of mass immigration, or the designs of the World Economic Forum - as 'right wing conspiracy theories', even as they openly promote and celebrate such things. Anton's celebration parallax in other words. But of course the WEF etc. are not "conspiracies" in the sense of being secretive about thei aims, and their use of the term 'conspiracy theory' is really just a mixture of status attack and gaslighting, so not actually relevant to the question of whether organized clandestine activity plays a significant role in world politics.

Expand full comment

The big problem here is that conspiracies do indeed happen. The suppression that COVID was a lab leak was a global conspiracy

- see https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/covid-was-a-lab-leak-the-evidence .

Worse still, most people knew it was a conspiracy as it was happening (COVID breaks out next to the main research centre on coronaviruses in the world - what are the chances? - about 10,000 to 1 or higher that it was the lab). Now we know chapter and verse but still the conspiracy continues.

The existence of obvious conspiracies means that global politics is, as it has always been, about wealth and power. As wealth and power shifts to women they promote themselves. But the women did not start the power shift, it was the wealthy wanting originally, cheap, highly qualified labour that did it. The platforms owned by the powerful invite them in and, as you point out above, create a fake narrative to increase their influence. As the wealth and power of China grows it can do no wrong.

PS: The COVID conspiracy was global. The academics lost any attachment to accurate accounts.

PPS: I know no-one who believes Qanon. It is in the same category as reptiloid aliens running the world. These are largely fake conspiracies that inflict collateral damage on people who support part of the agenda - for example, Bilderberg is dangerous to democracy but anyone saying so is asked to take the tin foil off their heads. How many of the archetypal "conspiracy theories" (the nutty ones) are actually supported by a lot of people and how many are platformed to create the impression of mass insanity? - The "sane" being the wealthy and powerful and their apparatchiks.

Expand full comment

"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" -Upton Sinclair

Conspiracies succeed by those in in positions of power create and tell the lie, and then all those dependent on them proceed to spread the lie because their paychecks depend on it.

Expand full comment
Mar 11, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby

Something that keeps emerging with modern feminism is an oddly anti female and pro male cornerstone. It's the unspoken but clear concept that to be a successful woman you must be indistinguishable from a successful man.

It holds what men do as the ultimate and what women did as worthless. We don't celebrate woman teachers or nurses, but watch what happens if you become a scientist or an astronaut! Women who raise children are certainly failing compared to the woman who forgoes children to be a CEO.

It goes further where feminists view their physical femininity as a burden to delete with pharmaceuticals so as to be able to participate better with (or as) men.

It's no wonder why so many girls are becoming transmen these past 5 years. Because that milliu has bizarrely accepted that men are the ultimate.

Expand full comment
Mar 11, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby

I assume you meant to cite Henrich on the WEIRDest people in the world

Expand full comment

The article was too long .It should have used everyday language to make its points.Interesting as it was I stopped reading 1/4 in.

Expand full comment
Mar 12, 2023Liked by Helen Dale, Lorenzo Warby

You unravel the conspiracist mindset very well. My tendency to presume that things are not a conspiracy comes from this: governments and bureaucracies are just not that competent. In fact, notoriously the opposite.

Expand full comment

Wonderful piece! It seems to me that conspiracies are slotted into two main categories: elite/academy/left approved (eg. feminism, decolonisation efforts) and tin-foil, right, low class (which ends up containing e.g. qanon but also covid lab leak). Conspiracies are so easy to believe even for the highly intelligent perhaps in part because they are so used to deciphering and explaining patterns, it's easy to conjure them up where there are none. Too many of those same intelligent people then can't see that they could be wrong, or could be in the same mindset as those lower class/less educated/right wingers with their unapproved conspiracies.

Expand full comment
Mar 12, 2023Liked by Lorenzo Warby

I appreciate the explanations provided here, and understand the lesson to be taken away is different from the complaint I am about to make.

This article is one of many which effectively says "Conspiracy thinking is flawed". Here I read the ends of a conspiracy can be achieved without an actual conspiracy of actors coordinating and hiding that coordination. However I am used to reading "it is just people with aligned interests, therefore not a conspiracy, therefore the proposition there are people acting together to achieve a goal is untrue". The difference between these two formulations is the absence of hidden coordination in the case of this article doesn't dismiss the fact that people are moving in concert to achieve ends.

When in modern times someone says something like "there is a media conspiracy against certain narratives" the thing that is concerning is the resulting suppression, not the mechanism by which the people have come into alignment to perform that suppression.

There is little solace to be had in knowing that the people who have come together to gaslight and make you an outcast didn't have a group meeting about it first.

Expand full comment

"The quintessential Gnostic cosmology is that all material Creation is a conspiracy of the Demiurge."

Or Rousseau in his Second Discourse - that man was initially a peaceful, solitary cattle-like creature, and all socialization, even family, was at odds with this nature. I believe all modern revolutionary theory is built on the assumption that our social system(s) oppress our nature - and thus are rooted in Rousseau's absurdity.

Expand full comment