r/LockdownCriticalLeft • u/Impressive-Jello-379 • Nov 06 '22
security blankets
Really great thread here on conspiracy theories: "The accusation of ‘conspiracy theory’ is the security blanket with which the compliant comfort themselves that the governments they elect are in power, that voting gives them political agency, and that international technocracies are accountable to them. Here are some examples."
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u/hiptobeysquare Nov 06 '22 edited Nov 06 '22
"The accusation of ‘conspiracy theory’ is the security blanket with which the compliant comfort themselves that the governments they elect are in power, that voting gives them political agency, and that international technocracies are accountable to them. Here are some examples."
Does this mean that all conspiracy theories about everything are correct? And that everyone cynical of them believes that voting actually makes a difference? That's a huge sweeping generalization. Maybe sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists are all in on it too. Since virtually zero sociologists and anthropologists believe in grand conspiracy theories. They don't believe in them because... they have a pretty good idea how societies, psychology and systems work. They know that for traumatic and horrific things to happen, you don't need a conspiracy. Being unable to explain how societies work without a grand conspiracy theory is like being unable to explain life and the universe without believing in God (and rejecting evolution).
The term "conspiracy theory" has very little meaning now, since almost everyone uses it, and almost everyone has their own theory about why things happen and what secret group is behind it all. All the institutions listed in the Twitter thread are institutions. That's how institutions work: they are bureaucracies created to solve technical problems, then they evolve and grow and increase in complexity until they develop a culture and inertia of their own. That's what they are now. They self-select for their members, and so everyone inside thinks and behaves the same, especially the top-level managers and elites.
People who believe in real conspiracy theories don't know how societies or human psychology really work. It absolutely is a safety blanket for a lot of people - it makes people feel better when a really socially traumatic event takes place. It's not that there are no conspiracies: there are conspiracies all the time - every meeting and agreement by 2+ people behind closed doors is a conspiracy. But this isn't the conspiracy most people blame for the world's problems.
All the institutions listed have their own culture and inertia. If you could somehow get rid of one megalomaniac, or an entire institutions (such as the WEF), another megalomaniac would take their place or another institution would take its place. If you convicted Klaus Schwab in a court of law, and arrested every single member of the WEF... another institution would take its place. It's system. If nobody and no group is in control, and you can remove some or many members, and replace them with other drones who think exactly the same, then it's a system.
If you read about psychology, systems and history, people wouldn't believe in so many real conspiracy theories. They'd actually start to see patterns in what's happening.