We have all been exposed to it, either knowingly or not knowingly. I personally find it both disgusting and irritating because most are stupid and unsupported by any kind of facts – just innuendo and emotion. But they can be disruptive because people seem to love to believe them. From the world ruler cartels of Jews, business magnates or financial powers to continual economic or political innuendos, we tend to eat them up. Why? mystery, envy, retribution, emotional instability or just because they are fun – for some. But they are out there.
On the other extreme are “facts” released by “insiders” that portend big changes either good (for some) or bad (for many) designed to undermine something or other – or someone. They are usually power oriented (to build or destroy), emotionally oriented and tantalizingly perception driven. As with true conspiracies they are more likely to have something to do with misuse of power. The same? Maybe, but perhaps different only in scope. Many are alleged wrong doing of one kind or another, either without facts or just enough to make them plausible.
In between is what has become known as crony capitalism: power favoritism of one or another faction, or dis favoritism; both resulting or potentially resulting in changing balances of power, either political or financial, if there are any differences between those two. Crony capitalism, however, is more reality than fiction, spreading the wealth or withholding it through political manipulation. But the lines among the three are not clear or well defined, and each can be used to feed into the other. Competitiveness? If you like, if one sees pursuit of power as mere competitiveness. I prefer to view the differences as in the degree of destruction done and how much of that destruction is intended. Unfortunately much of what we see in the realms of power seeking entails destruction, whereas competition is less likely to have that objective, even though it might have that result.
So what is the problem associated with good old fashioned conspiracy theory? The potential for destruction; not only the competitive destruction of opponents, adversaries or competitors; but the destruction of confidence, trust and cooperation that ensues. At any level some of this exists as, as humans, that seems to be what we seek, but at the most serious level we face deterioration that leads to serious dysfunction of the our ability to get along, to function or to progress.
So why do we do it? It seems, sadly, to just be the way we are.
