Conspiracy Now!
I was in my mid-twenties when the 9/11 conspiracy documentary Loose Change was released to some mild Internet acclaim. I was in the demographic of people which was most inclined to subscribe to its theories (e.g. young, white men), so I had a few friends bring it to my attention. For those of you who don't know, 9/11 conspiracy theories essentially claim that the United States government was somehow complicit in the attacks.
I'll admit that, on the surface, it resonated with me. After the emotional impact of 9/11 had passed, there was a residual amount of healthy skepticism in our society. People asked questions at parties; George W. Bush had no sooner been elected and faced resistance from Congress to escalating military actions when suddenly, the U.S. is attacked. Or what about this? Or that?
In the end, after a fairly brief investigation of the attacks themselves and the documentary itself, I concluded that the United States was attacked by a terrorist organization. Perhaps the terrorists had reasons they felt justified the attacks based on things the U.S. had done in the past...but I don't see any evidence that, for example, Colin Powell handed al-Qaeda the keys to some planes and said, "Make it look good."
My own personal views on this particular conspiracy isn't the point I'm trying to make. I have been curious since then as to what extent a country possessed of a culture that fosters these kinds of conspiracy theories is healthy. 9/11 conspiracies haven't dissipated since Loose Change came out; if anything, they've become more numerous and pervasive. They come in all shapes and sizes, and details behind most of them put them at odds with one other. The one thing they all have in common is a mistrust of the official story that the government released.
Early in the 20th century, the citizens of the United States seemed to live by the motto: "Trust everything." Somewhere in the middle of that century, amidst the Watergate scandal, Vietnam, and the like, people seemed to leap to "Trust no one." If my reading of history can be trusted, we went from generally trusting authority, to calling messages from any authority immediately into question. We seem to have skipped the more healthy middle ground of "Trust, but verify." Or perhaps we've just entered an age in which there are so many disparate sources for verification that who we collectively trust has become fragmented. Pick the story you want to believe, and find the evidence to back it up, so to speak.
Studies of religion are limited, because scripture advocates that each individual should live a certain way. History tells us that there's never really been a time and place where every member of any free society all chose to be identical, and to follow scripture in the exact same way. The culture that arises in any given society is a system with emergent properties; the voice of dissidence seems to emerge consistently, as does the opposition to this dissidence. There's an old riddle from band: how do you tune two piccolos to be in harmony with each other? Shoot one of the players. How do you get two people to be in complete agreement? Homogeneity is a nice dream but impossible to achieve.
Lewis Hyde writes about culture, and he wrote a book about "tricksters" in various cultures throughout history. Tricksters are the people in society who have a playful inclination to defy the rules and eschew customs. Hyde writes of this in his book: "The origins, liveliness, and durability of cultures require that there be a space for figures whose function is to uncover and disrupt the very things that cultures are based on."
I'll admit that, on the surface, it resonated with me. After the emotional impact of 9/11 had passed, there was a residual amount of healthy skepticism in our society. People asked questions at parties; George W. Bush had no sooner been elected and faced resistance from Congress to escalating military actions when suddenly, the U.S. is attacked. Or what about this? Or that?
In the end, after a fairly brief investigation of the attacks themselves and the documentary itself, I concluded that the United States was attacked by a terrorist organization. Perhaps the terrorists had reasons they felt justified the attacks based on things the U.S. had done in the past...but I don't see any evidence that, for example, Colin Powell handed al-Qaeda the keys to some planes and said, "Make it look good."
My own personal views on this particular conspiracy isn't the point I'm trying to make. I have been curious since then as to what extent a country possessed of a culture that fosters these kinds of conspiracy theories is healthy. 9/11 conspiracies haven't dissipated since Loose Change came out; if anything, they've become more numerous and pervasive. They come in all shapes and sizes, and details behind most of them put them at odds with one other. The one thing they all have in common is a mistrust of the official story that the government released.
Early in the 20th century, the citizens of the United States seemed to live by the motto: "Trust everything." Somewhere in the middle of that century, amidst the Watergate scandal, Vietnam, and the like, people seemed to leap to "Trust no one." If my reading of history can be trusted, we went from generally trusting authority, to calling messages from any authority immediately into question. We seem to have skipped the more healthy middle ground of "Trust, but verify." Or perhaps we've just entered an age in which there are so many disparate sources for verification that who we collectively trust has become fragmented. Pick the story you want to believe, and find the evidence to back it up, so to speak.
Studies of religion are limited, because scripture advocates that each individual should live a certain way. History tells us that there's never really been a time and place where every member of any free society all chose to be identical, and to follow scripture in the exact same way. The culture that arises in any given society is a system with emergent properties; the voice of dissidence seems to emerge consistently, as does the opposition to this dissidence. There's an old riddle from band: how do you tune two piccolos to be in harmony with each other? Shoot one of the players. How do you get two people to be in complete agreement? Homogeneity is a nice dream but impossible to achieve.
Lewis Hyde writes about culture, and he wrote a book about "tricksters" in various cultures throughout history. Tricksters are the people in society who have a playful inclination to defy the rules and eschew customs. Hyde writes of this in his book: "The origins, liveliness, and durability of cultures require that there be a space for figures whose function is to uncover and disrupt the very things that cultures are based on."