Conspiracy Theories
When I was 11, my Dad got me hugely into the world of the paranormal. We talked for hours upon hours about everything from Nostradamus, to Aliens, and the conversation always led back to government conspiracies. How could the government not know about all these things with so many signs out there?
It even got to a point that me and my Dad became convinced that one of Nostradamus’ predictions was going to happen, and all the interpreters pointed to it being the attack on New York City with an atom bomb in the seventh month of 1999. So in July of 1999, me and my Dad actually left the NYC area for the entire month. You know what happened? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
When a momentous event occurs, catastrophe or otherwise, people react in a variety of ways. One response is to seek out prophecies of the event — inspired predictions that foretold its coming, only we didn’t realize it until it was too late. These forecasts can be comforting because they suggest that the horrible incidents were inevitable, or that they happened as part of a larger plan. When September 11th reared its ugly head, e-mails started flooding everyone about Nostradamus’ prophecies that predicted the twin towers fall. The “paranormal experts” managed to forget about the prophesized nuclear attack in 1999.
Another response is to blame the terrible events on a massive conspiracy involving governments, banks, the wealthy elite, the military-industrial complex, and any other usual suspects that can be rounded up. For examples of these, just look to documentaries like “Loose Change”. When really, all these conspiracy theories are part of the abstraction of the mind. The same part of the brain that deals with mathematics, art, and even religion, also deals with these paranormal phenomenon, and conspiracy theories. They are all forms for us to look outside of our immediate vicinity, and extrapolate our views upon the rest of the universe.
Unfortunately, with a rising trend of childhood abuse, a rising trend in paranoia shortly follows.
In a recent book talk given by Dr. Drew Pinsky, he paraphrased and said, “In order for democracy to work, people need to be able to trust each other and spontaneously come together to form groups and parties. When people don’t trust each other, this is limited and democracy is directly inhibited.”
There’s been a very long debate about whether people are inherently good or inherently evil. My answer is, NEITHER. People are inherently afraid. They’re afraid of the lightning bolt in the sky. They’re afraid of the new technologies that may take their jobs. They’re afraid of the dangerous boogiemen from overseas who will rob their land, rape their women, and blow up their playstation. PEOPLE are inherently afraid and will turn to either good or evil to soothe their fears, depending on how they were raised. It’s our job as responsible people, to do good, in the heart of fear.
I watched a recent documentary called the Obama Deception, which I hope to do future blog episodes on, debunking all these conspiracy theories, but for now all I’ll say is that this kind of fear-mongering is not what we need. What we need are heroes?
