Actually, snicker. I think it's awesome, and my hero, George Carlin, would be proud.
The course is about faulty reasoning, poor applications of the scientific method, glitches in peer-review, and so forth. Conspiracy theories fit right in there. One of the articles I like to assign is an old piece by Ted Goertzel-- "Belief in Conspiracy Theories," from Political Psychology (December 1994, Vol. 15, No. 4, pp. 731-742). I can't give you an un-gated link to it. Sorry.
Quick synopsis: most people believe in at least one conspiracy. Even beyond JFK conspiracy theories, which 69% of respondents were open to accepting, people are prone to accepting some fascinating conspiracy theories, although the theories Goertzel tested were somewhat dated. Education didn't even have the effect one might hope...
And let's be blunt about this. Conspiracy theories have gotten worse since 1994. Some conspiratorial ideas are partisan, like birtherism. Fuck you, Trump! Others are just weird and stupid, without being clearly partisan, like 9/11 conspiracy theories. In the 2012 American National Election Studies survey, we asked respondents whether they thought the government "definitely knew," "probably knew," "probably didn't know," or, "definitely didn't know" in advance about 9/11. 10.5% of Strong Democrats and 10.4% of Strong Republicans (the opposing poles on a 7-point scale) said that the government "definitely knew" in advance about 9/11. So, a tenth of each party's extremes were fuckwits about this in 2012. Symmetry. In contrast, 14.8% of Independents thought that the government "definitely knew" in advance. As is often the case, it is the Independents who are most likely to be the dumbasses-- in this case, 14.8% likely to have their heads completely up their fucking asses. Never believe the ridiculous myth that independents are the thoughtful, educated, informed citizenry, whereas the partisans are the dumbasses. Other way around, and political scientists have known this for a long, long time.
Anyway, as I was saying, belief in conspiracy theories is quite widespread. The basic problem with conspiracy theories, though, and the reason I don't tend to believe them, is that a conspiracy is only as strong as its weakest leak, I mean, link. Sorry, Freudian slip there, but that's my point. All it takes is one leak and the conspiracy comes apart. The bigger the conspiracy, the harder it is to keep it under wraps. "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." You have probably heard some version of that before. Tracing the origin of an aphorism is difficult, though, because of one of Polsby's Laws-- "famous sayings migrate into famous mouths."* Maybe Ben Franklin said it first. Maybe Twain, or... I don't know, and I don't care. Some folklorist can worry about it. It is Sunday morning, I haven't finished my coffee yet, and I'm on a rant again. The point is that any conspiracy of significant size will have a blabbermouth. Loose lips sink conspiratorial ships. If it ain't sunk, it wasn't a conspiratorial ship. How's that syllogism for ya'?
Example: this ridiculous notion that there is a conspiracy among climatologists to fake the data on climate change. Yeah, 'cuz that's how academia works. We get bought off to go with the flow and say what everyone else is saying. Have you read this fuckin' blog? Granted, I'm a nobody, but the point is that nothing happens to me for dissenting. Scratch that-- I was rewarded for dissenting. I made my career by dissenting. The whole fuckin' profession says "competitive elections are good and necessary for democracy." I write a bunch of stuff saying no. What happens? A bunch of journals, and then Oxford University Press publish my stuff, Public Choice gives me the Gordon Tullock Award, and a top-tier national university gives me tenure. Academia pushes back hard on dissent, just like every other human institution because humans are defective creatures. But, ultimately, it rewards dissent because it must reward dissent. That is how intellectual progress happens. Science!
Conspiracies are fucking bullshit. They don't work because someone's going to fucking blab. All it takes is one fucking Henry Hill and unless you have some serious mafia shit going on to scare everyone, it won't work. Totalitarianism has an uncertain future in places like North Korea, but here? No fucking way can you keep every member of a conspiracy in line. Someone will talk. Whether it is an incompetent person who just can't keep a secret (hi, Mr. President, you fucking idiot!), or someone... "unmutual"... someone will talk.
Adam Weishaupt, my ass.
Anyway, wasn't I going to write about those JFK documents? Yeah. Here goes. I'll read them, just to see. Will it be a "holy shit" day when those documents come out? Maybe. I may revisit this post! I've done that in the past. What would be really interesting is if Trump has his people look through some documents to try to find something that makes the FBI or CIA look like they did something shifty in the Kennedy assassination, and selectively releases those to discredit them because he is involved in a conflict with them over Russia, but...
Fuck! You see what I just did there? That's conspiratorial! And so is a shitload of the Russia stuff. The difference between Russia conspiracy ideas and JFK conspiracy theories? People have already talked on Russia. We know, for example, that Don Jr. met with a fuckin' Russian spy during the campaign with the intent of getting dirt on Clinton as part of Putin's desire to help elect Trump. That's not conspiracy theorizing. That's established fact act this point. Manafort is already facing an indictment, and Flynn is in deep shit.
Remember what I said about loose lips sinking conspiratorial ships? Once you see some ships goin' down, things start looking a little different.
Nevertheless, I will read those documents with interest. Of greater interest, though, will be the social reaction. Everything is about the show, for Trump. This is about spectacle. And probably distraction. Take a step back and focus on that.
Anyway, here's some bonus music. While Amorica, by The Black Crowes, was one of the best rock albums of the '90s, I'll use youtube to put up a live track for, um... reasons.
* Nelson Polsby was my grad school advisor, and I have, on occasion, tried to figure out whether or not Nelson Polsby stole this one from anyone else. As far as I can tell, it is a Nelson Polsby original, and outside of political science, Nelson ain't that famous anyway. So, I will keep attributing it to Nelson.
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