Conspiracy

I am an amateur admirer of conspiracy. I frequently listen to conspiracy radio and watch conspiracy movies. My interest began when I was an overnight baker (11 pm-7 am) from 2008-09. I'd listen to a show called Coast to Coast AM in the afternoon to help me get to sleep in spite of the sun pouring in under door frames and through the cracks in the blinds. Then in 2010, Ancient Aliens appeared on the History Channel. Many episodes taut the idea that the gov't is in league with alien races. In 2011, Gov. Ventura got a show called *Conspiracy Theory* where Ventura chases down conspiracies with the help of people like Alex Jones, a hyper-paranoid radio personality with really creative conspiracies. In 2012, National Geographic began to air a show called *Doomsday Preppers*, a show that depicts people preparing for apocalyptic scenarios that are either started or made worse by the gov't. The show is reportedly sponsored by Wise Food Storage. Those are just a few examples of outlets for conspiracy theorists to voice their ideas.

I think that conspiracy is worth looking at for a couple of reasons. First, I've noticed conspiracists (I will not call them theorists) are getting more distribution beyond the typical newletters and badly designed websites. They are getting their ideas to the public through interview-based films, cable, the radio, and YouTube (UFO TV). Second, I've noticed that the conspiracist mindset is materializing in places that are supposed to be a little more rigid (the 24/7 news outlets to name one).

Conspiracists make connections. Their stock and trade is a web of connections that suggest a version of reality. To make their connections, conspiracists draw from a few bodies of information. The first kind of information is typically the starting point for a good conspiracy -- something that is commonly thought to be true. JFK begins with the Warren report's less-than-certain account of the circumstances surrounding Kennedy's death. Area 51 begins with the contradiction between the Roswell Daily Record story on July 8, 1947 and July 9. Ancient alien theories begin with the engineering problems that arise when somebody uses megalith to build stuff and the gaps in what we know about prehistorical cultures and their mythologies. Secret society conspiracies begin with the founding fathers' affiliations with masonic lodges.

After there's a starting point, conspiracists start to reach into other bodies of information. They might draw from eye witnesses. They might draw from mythologies. They might draw from other histories. So all together, the typical UFO narrative is something like:  there is a relationship between humans and aliens and an effort to cover-up that relationship. This is known because of sightings X, event Y as it is depicted by reliable source Z. Therefore, we can say that ABCDEFG is highly probable. That line of stuff, the therefore, is the various details of the conspiracy. Those details often reach across the boundaries into other conspiracies, making more connections available to the conspiracist. And in that kind of environment, the more connections there are, the better the conspiracy is. The fuller version of the UFO conspiracy is that there is not only a relationship between aliens and humans, but aliens have had a hand in our technological, culturual, and biological development and continue to have a hand in our development. Conspiracists get there by looking at ancient artifacts and mythologies, drawing from ideas by key figures, and using the reality of compartmentalization and specialization to deal very loosely with probabilities in order to suggest likelihood or even certainty. 

An "ancient astronaut"

This is Bob Lazar, a frequently cited and rhetorically discredited figure in ufology. He claims to have been an Area 51 employee with significant clearance. He reports to have  worked as a physicist that worked on reverse engineering a UFO.

To be convincing, to make myth or fiction seem probable, conspiracists use a few strategies. 

Begin in the Dictionary/with the Literal

Some of the people who talk conspiracy like to begin with a dictionary definition, and they use that definition to make their case seem like it's as closely aligned with the truth as the definition. It is a common arrangement strategy. This one is frequently used by people who like to talk about aliens. Somebody might say something like -- Well, a UFO is an unidentified flying object, and that's what it was. It was an object in the air that cannot be identified. Then, they make the leap to alien controlled craft or human-controlled alien craft, and they base that leap on the connotation that "UFO" suggests. But because they began with a literal definition, their case seems a little more probable.  Some of the people who argue for the presence of a secret or shadow gov't also use this strategy. They'll borrow a definition of conspiracy that someone developed to talk about Caesar (the person or play) to suggest that a global conspiracy is likely.

Treating Conspiracy like a Field of Study

People who create, explore, and talk about conspiracies often treat conspiracy as an area of study. They refer to popular methods, key figures, key events, popular narratives, and sets of data. The way that conspiracists reference, use, and misuse these various elements is pretty interesting. To add something to the body of conspiracies circulating around in the community, a conspiracist will discredit a person's opinion or a popular narrative to supplant a popular narrative. They will make connections between two narratives, mixing the methods of gathering data. The fuller version of the UFO conspiracy will make use of eye witness accounts by civilians, reports filed by government personnel that contain measurements, coordinates, and Geiger counter readings. They will use images. They will draw from history and historical accounts. When making connections, conspiracists will draw from different conspiracies, treating them as stable bodies of knowledge in order to make a tighter web of connections between people, ideas, events, and data sets. This is the work of conspiracy.

Nodding to Subjectivity/Mixing Belief and Fact

Conspiracy theorists will often acknowledge that they sound crazy at the end of their speech, work, or interview. To get past this, they will suggest that conspiracies or the phenomenon that they are talking about can and almost must be experienced in some way first hand. "If you've seen what I've seen, then..." They will also state that they had not believed prior to experiencing or learning something or being proven right by an event that came to pass after they began hatching their ideas. In these moments, they deviate from the area of study model, a model that suggest rigor and objectivity, to suggest that conspiracies must be believed rather than proven. This works in the conspiracist's favor, because when deferring to their definition of conspiracy, they have the framework to say that these events cannot be known, only knowable. 

Conspiracy as Rhetorical

The conspiracy could be a fairly useful ground for the study of rhetoric. Conspiracies often have a general shape (beginning with fact and moving out from that fact by using connections between mythologies, other conspiracies, and facts using probabilities and reason that could be invalid and/or valid). Depending on the medium through which the conspiracy is being communicated, there may be some conventions that suggest the presence of genre. For example, movies will use reenactments, interview, a host, archival footage, creepy music, and visual argument. Books rely heavily on style and appeals.

Conspiracy also serves as a nice illustration of the slippery nature of knowledge. Conspiracists taut their ideas as something like knowledge, but they admit that what they study cannot be known. Still, they also make the case conspiracy is knowable. The debate between true/false rhetoric is interesting in the case of conspiracy. For most people, conspiracies are not true, but for these people conspiracies are true. And conspiracists are not trying to make the lesser argument the stronger. They are trying to convince the public that there is an urgent need to believe in a specific conspiracy, because disbelief has dire implications. Usually, the implication is doom for humanity. So for these people, the conspiracy is political and public, because it is the result of politics and effects the public.

Because there is a common set of data, narratives, figures, and ideas, I see those as something like the topoi that a conspiracist might use to make the connections that will allow the conspiracist to situate his/her conspiracy within the community for vetting, clarification, and circulation. Because conspiracists typically believe themselves (it would seem), I would not say that they are generating arguments as they are seeking to situate their argument. Because there are some common strategies and common starting points, there are some arrangement patterns (I think). 

Conspiracies have began to materialize in the public in a couple of interesting ways. First, there seems to be an idea that secrets are being kept from the people that they effect most. Those secrets include agendas, ideologies, and plans. For example, in 2010, a large group of people seemed to think that the gov't had a communist agenda that it was working to see come to pass. Second, there seems to be a feeling of general suspicion in the air, a paranoia or a fear that something is coming. At the end of the day, that is the tone of the conspiracy. Conspiracies are efforts made to better explain the present and the future in order to preserve our humanity.