Conspiracy Theories

Powerless idiots love conspiracy theories. They feel inadequate as unskilled/lonely/naive outcasts, and like knowing an open, secret truth that greater society cannot contemplate or consider. It gives them the illusion of courage and power.

"Intellectuals" responsible for creating these theories must rely on the power of the useful idiot to promote it because, without credentials, they are ignored by "the mainstream." The mainstream is hiding something, clearly, and the clues are only available for the low price of the book that the conspiracy theorist is selling. It is a symbiotic relationship.

The intellectual believes their own theory, but that is not the point of the promotion. The point of the promotion is to establish themselves as credible, by their own design, outside the constraints of the "corrupt" establishment. They are just as much a lonely/naive outcast as their useful idiots: these intellectuals want followers which in turn will give them money and power. Therefore, they cannot be trusted to do anything more than appeal to the powerless idiots for them to receive this money and power.

I am a powerless idiot. (Was. I've come a very long way from the day I watched the Kony video.) I have skimmed the surface of many conspiracy theories, and for a short time based my worldview on some inconvenient "facts" proposed by an "expert" with nice hair. It felt powerful to know these inconvenient "facts" from cool, underground and alternative sources. I could appear as cool, underground and alternative to those interested parties to whom I regurgitated facts about the given topic. It was but a stop on the journey to the truth.

To arrive at the truth, I had to be discerning, I had to know the tricks that conspiracy theorists employed, and I had to be receptive to ideas that I found troublesome to my current worldview. All in all, a conspiracy theory couldn't be taken so seriously that I became the most useful idiot of all: an activist. They should only be an alternative to entertainment, not history itself.

Infiltration by Taylor Marshall is a conspiracy theory. For the size of its claim the book is remarkably anorexic. I was ignorant of the historical information Marshall discussed, and found the book fascinating from that standpoint. (And can read a book by an actual historian to learn much, much more.) Marshall offers no evidence for his claims; only naming Bishops and calling them Freemasons simply because they wrote something he didn't like.

Meanwhile, Taylor Marshall is a convert to Catholicism from Protestantism, and is lucky enough to have a wife and a big family. The Bishops he criticizes have made many enormous sacrifices, and do not profit from it. Their spiritual calling should be respected and followed. On the other hand Taylor Marshall's agenda is to subvert Vatican II and sell books. He is nothing more than an expert with an opinion on more charitable, more learned experts.

The Church has its problems and always has, but the message of the Church remains the message of Christ. For me, I trust this establishment because it is God's. From this experience I have learned that  there are conspiracy theorists for e v e r y t h i n g and to always read the one-star reviews on Amazon.

For a genuinely curious person conspiracy theories serve as a gateway to reliable information. The unanswerable questions that conspiracy theories ultimately provoke are answered with the work of an actual historian. (For the sake of the present journalists are supposed to have standards. For the sake of the past historians are supposed to share those standards.)

Conspiracy theories are nothing more than opinions about the facts that are made public by honest journalists!Today there seems not much of a difference between activist, journalist and conspiracy theorist. It is all entertainment.