Originally published at: What the Difference Between Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories Tells Us About American History—and About Now - TPM – Talking Points Memo
On March 24, the Paris-based offices of Swiss bank Edmond de Rothschild were raided by French police. Officials were searching for evidence of wrongdoing for an investigation into possible corruption by a former UN diplomat turned employee who is mentioned dozens of times in the Jeffrey Epstein emails. Current head of the bank Arianne de…
“What if it was just one of the countless connections many wealthy people have to each other, with their deeds difficult for outsiders to understand and mostly carried out through the banality of electronic communication?”
This is the kind of question that rational, intelligent people ask when dealing with the topics of conspiracy and conspiracy theory.
I, too, have been fascinated with conspiracy theory since way, way back to Soc Psych 102.
I’ve learned that it’s near impossible to talk rationally about the topic with the average person. I’ve given up even trying.
ETA We want “structure” – explanations for things not always quickly explicable.
Just the fact that someone named Rothschild wrote this, will, in itself, provoke some kind of conspiracy theory.
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Fascinating that Lee Zeldin, a conspiracy zealot, could be tapped to replace Bondi.
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Of course, “Mike Rothschild” would make this argument to throw us off the trail.
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There is money to be made promoting various conspiracy theories. Alex Jones comes to mind.
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I see conspiracy theories and pseudoscience as fellow travelers: squishy models with poorly reasoned causal chains, lots of floating variables, and no clear path to falsification. And just like with pseudoscience vs. science, the existence of conspiracy theories doesn’t mean that meaningful, testable hypotheses of conspiracy don’t exist.
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Excellent article. I’m really excited for this new series.
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If the author is suggesting that the plot to kill Kennedy was actually just a crime hatched on a whim, then he is not paying attention to history. And the House Committee that investigated the possibility of a conspiracy produced evidence that cannot simply be ignored. As for his comparison with the assassination of President Garfield, I cannot really comment except that it is interesting he chose that case rather than the case of Lincoln’s assassination, where I believe there is general acceptance of a conspiracy.
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One of the ongoing conspiracy theories that really grinds my gears is “Havana Syndrome.” Somehow that fact that the US government investigated, and some doctors claimed to see evidence in MRI’s has cemented the realiyy of this conspiracy for so many. And yet, they don’t pay attention to the myraid holes in the presentation of evidence or the fact that it acted quite like any other mass hysteria.
The fact that that evil sonovabitch still has a pot to piss in, never mind a show, means that he is still mocking the bereaved Sandy Hook families, whose only crime was to have their children brutally murdered, every single goddam day.
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Wondering how ”rugged individualism” and conspiracy theories might overlap or contribute to one another. We are seeing how the focus on liberty, as opposed to the well being of all, is crumbling our nation’s sense of togetherness. Trust in our (trustworthy) leaders must be re-kindled by tamping down the individualism. You can’t go off and live in the woods alone anymore. There is/are an infrastructure(s) that needs to be maintained by everyone’s involvement whether you like it or not. But the GOP’s constant and successful stoking emotional embattlement means too many feel alone, uncared for, angry, depressed. And they’ve been convinced to be mad at the wrong entities. The liberal elites are perhaps not perfect, but they’re not as bad as the worst of the bad guys. They are a better place to initiate change from.
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As I recall, the conspirators confessed to hatching the plot at the boarding house. Initially, they wanted to kidnap him. Booth took it on himself to kill him.
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Alex Jones: Making money on so much parental grief over murdered kids is one of the vilest acts I’ve seen in my lifetime.
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Interesting hypothesis, but it might not pan out. More social/collectivist societies (e.g. Weimar Germany, or Russia in just about any era) also have been fertile ground for conspiracy theories. (Usually about The Jews, of course.)
i never though much about the so-called ‘rugged individualism’ is it just another another tale americans tell themselves? the people who crossed the plains in their waggons certianly were ‘rugged’, but they also travelled in groups./ trains.in to days USA, finding a rugged individual would take some serious searching…we have become a nation of wimps, motly because of the really unlearned politcians that get elected..we probably have the least qualified person elected to our highest elected office, he is a convicted felon, convicted by a jury..you can disagree with that or not..but it is reality, and he is not even close to being a rugged individual, He couldn’t exist with his supporters, some of whom actually wear shoes 3 sizes too big..and these are the leaders of a supposedly ‘rugged’ country/ GMAB!!!
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I can’t get into the minds of these people, but my sense has always been that they aren’t talking about political liberty – that is, assembly, speech, church separation. It has always been a do-whatever-I-damn- well- please idea. Of course, don’t forget 2nd A with more guns that an infantry squad in the closet.
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Sure thing, people are begging to have more bombs landing on their heads. This is utter madness.
living where the bombs are exploding.
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Read the Wikipedia article on Booth for more about the conspirators, one of whom stabbed Secretary of State William Seward.
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Yes, it was a documented conspiracy.
My father had only the vaguest notion of his family history, and much of the little he knew was wrong. I learned a great deal about the great grandparents from whom he derived his surname, Richard and Lydia, who left RI (1837/38) for WI, and then (1859) went to MN, from a WI publication of the late 19th c., “The Pioneers of Whitewater,” and from an 1880’s series in the Mower County (MN) News, “The Pioneers of Mower County.” Each set of accounts had Richard and Lydia (mit kinder) settle in WI all on their lonesome. (Lydia joined Richard with their two very young children 9 months later, so she was also treated as an individual pioneer.) From my research I learned that Richard went to WI with his brother, John, who soon returned to RI. Within a year or two of Richard’s arrival, He and Lydia were joined in WI by John and his wife, Richard and John’s father and step-mother, several sisters (with their husbands), and a half-brother. (I’ve wondered if Lydia, kinder in tow, actually made her heroic trek (from RI to Milwaukee via the Erie Canal) accompanied by some of Richard’s family. Or maybe her own – I’ve never researched any of her brothers or sisters – large families, all.) Richard and Lydia did go to MN on their own (at least, as far as family went – they may have gone with friends), but by that time they had several sons fully old enough to help break prairie. The required narrative was well established by the 1880’s: rugged individuals who were “pioneers.” The language JFK invoked for space exploration.
In the mid-19th c. a researcher – surname of Pope, as I recall – wrote about the earliest English settlers around Boston Harbor as “planters.” Later in the century he wrote about “The Pioneers of Western Massachusetts.”
I wonder if the shift from “planters” to “pioneers,” the former associated with communal endeavors and the latter with “rugged individualism,” can be correlated with the shift from “wilderness” to “frontier.” I am sure it’s related to the growth of industrialism.
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