crucial distinction I - material

Conspiracies Or Institutions: 9-11 and Beyond

z-mag: institutional vs conspiracy-type analysis

"Conspiracy theorists rarely have a vast amount of evidence confirming the conspiracy with only a little detail or two that doesn't quite fit and can reasonably be set aside. Quite the contrary, conspiracy theories are often strung together from the thinnest reeds of evidence and the counter-evidence is often an irrefutable negation of the very piece of evidence that the conspiracy theorist previously claimed was decisive.

[...]

Conspiracy theorizing that highlights individuals is the modus operandi of prosecutors, of course. After all, they must identify proximate causes and human actors to punish. But why does conspiracy theorizing appeal to people concerned to change society? Many possible answers arise.

First, the evidence conspiracy theories reveal can identify actual events needing other explanation. More, describing the detailed entwinements can become addictive. We find one puzzle and then another and another to uncover. The appeal is of the mysterious. It is dramatic, vivid, and human. And we can make steady progress, like in a murder investigation. Finally, the desire for retribution fuels forays into personal detail. It is a journalistic task with clear parameters and obvious satisfaction to be had, unless, of course, one rejects the entire premise, logic, method, and prioritization.

Second, conspiracy theories have manageable implications. They imply that all was well once and that it can be okay again if only the conspirators can be removed. Conspiracy theories explain ills without forcing us to disavow society's underlying institutions. They allow us to admit horrors and to express our indignation and anger or undertake vendettas, but without rejecting the basic norms of society. We discover that a particular government official or corporate lawyer is bad, but the government and law per se remain okay. We urge getting rid of bad apples, but leaving the orchard intact. All this is convenient and seductive. We can reject specific candidates but not government, specific CEOs but not capitalism, specific writers, editors, and even owners of periodicals, but not mainstream media. We can reject vile manipulators, but not basic institutions. And we can continue to appeal to the institutions for recognition, status, or payment.

Third, and least likely among Leftists, conspiracy theory can provide an easy and quick outlet for pent-up passion withheld from targets that seem unassailable or that might strike back. This is conspiracy theory turned into scapegoat theory. Some minority, some enemy, is tarred, and the talons are unleashed. Racism and conspiracies have long gone together, if not universally, certainly frequently.

Evaluating all this, it would be bad enough if conspiracy theorizing just attuned people to search after coteries while ignoring institutions, thereby reducing energies applied to useful ends as in the wasteful misallocation of energies of the many Kennedy assassination theorists of past decades. At least in that case the values at play could be progressive and we could hope, however faintly, that people involved would in time gravitate toward real explanations of more structural and important phenomena. But the sad fact is that the effects of adopting a conspiracy theory orientation can be and often are still worse."

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