Mythical Wednesday: Conspiracies and Secret Societies
October 3, 2012 2 Comments
Whoa! Two posts from me in the same day! Heh, 
Everyone has an opinion on this subject. Whether you believe in them or not, you have to admit, they are interesting and great for starting a conversation. Conspiracy theories have been around since the early twentieth century and have quickly become part of the cultural landscape and is used to claim that secret military, banking, or political actions are aimed at “stealing” power, money, or freedom, from the population. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know, but in researching this topic, I learned that according to Justin Fox of Time Magazine, the most conspiracy-minded group of people happen to be Wall Street traders.
Go figure.
According to Wikipedia there are three types of conspiriceies:
- Event conspiracy theories. The conspiracy is held to be responsible for a limited, discrete event or set of events. The conspiratorial forces are alleged to have focused their energies on a limited, well-defined objective. The best-known example in the recent past is the Kennedy assassination conspiracy literature, though similar material exists concerning the September 11 attacks, the crash of TWA Flight 800, and the spread of AIDS in the black community.[8]
- Systemic conspiracy theories. The conspiracy is believed to have broad goals, usually conceived as securing control of a country, a region, or even the entire world. While the goals are sweeping, the conspiratorial machinery is generally simple: a single, evil organization implements a plan to infiltrate and subvert existing institutions. This is a common scenario in conspiracy theories that focus on the alleged machinations of Jews, Freemasons, or the Catholic Church, as well as theories centered on Communism or international capitalists.[8]
- Superconspiracy theories. Conspiratorial constructs in which multiple conspiracies are believed to be linked together hierarchically. Event and systemic are joined in complex ways, so that conspiracies come to be nested together. At the summit of the conspiratorial hierarchy is a distant but powerful force manipulating lesser conspiratorial factors. Superconspiracy theories have enjoyed particular growth since the 1980s, in the work of authors such as David Icke and Milton William Cooper.[8]
-original link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory
I don’t know about you, but the last one smacks of paranoia.
Whether you believe in them or not, conspiracy theories are a part of everyday life. They are so ingrained into our culture that to not believe in at least one rare.
So what do you think? Is there something to conspiracy theories, or is it a bunch of bullshit?
About Darke Conteur
As a writer, I love conspiracy theories. It gives me so much fodder to work with.
I don’t care whether they’re true or not. I still enjoy them like I do folk tales.
Most of them don’t bother me, but sometimes I hear one that freaks me out.