My review today in wsj of conspiracy theories
[{"sender": "Ed", "recipients": ["Epstein, Jeff [jeevacation@gmail.com]"], "timestamp": "12/19/2015 2:36:13 AM", "subject": "My review today in wsj of conspiracy theories", "body": "They're Not Really Out to Get You\n\nBy EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN\n\nDec. 18, 2015, wall Street Journal\n\n1\n\nConspiracy, a word derived from the Latin “to breathe together,” has been a salient part of the darker\nside of recorded history ever since some 60 conspirators in the Roman senate, including Brutus and\nCassius, plotted together to assassinate Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. Nowadays the “c” word does not always\nsit well with journalists, who commonly employ it in conjunction with “theory” to describe paranoid\ndistortions of reality.\n\nEven so, a criminal conspiracy is not a rare phenomenon. Not only was a foreign conspiracy responsible\nfor the monstrous 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center (as well as the previous attempt to blow it up in\n1993) but, according to the Center on Law and Security at Fordham University, over 90% of routine federal\nindictments for terrorist attacks since 9/11 contain at least one conspiracy charge. The government’s\npursuit of conspiracies is by no means limited to terrorism. Conspiracy charges are the rule rather than\nthe exception in cases brought against businessmen accused of fixing prices, evading environmental\nregulations, using insider information or laundering money.\n\nBut there are also pseudo-conspiracies that exist only in a delusionary or misinformed mind. And some of\nthem achieve a huge following. In Pakistan, according to public opinion polls, a majority of the\npopulation believes that the 9/11 attack was staged by President George W. Bush to launch a war on Islam.\nThe claim that the 1969 moon landing was faked is still around. Just two days ago a crew from a Russian\nTv channel rushed to my apartment to interview me about a viral post on YouTube in which the deceased\ndirector Stanley Kubrick supposedly made a deathbed confession to having filmed the landing in a\nHollywood studio-even though everything about the post, including a fake Kubrick, was untrue.\n\nwhy people believe in pseudo-conspiracies is the focus of Rob Brotherton’s fascinating book “Suspicious\nMinds.” Mr. Brotherton, an academic psychologist, advances the thesis that the belief in pseudo-\nconspiracies proceeds from the “quirks and foibles” in the way that the human brain, or at least some\nhuman brains, process evidence. He lucidly reviews studies showing common defects in the brain’s wiring,\nsuch as the bias that selects evidence to confirm rather than undermine a pre-adopted thesis. “we seek\nwhat we expect to find,” as Mr. Brotherton puts it. Relatedly, “biased assimilation” causes us to\n“interpret ambiguous events in light of what we already believe.”\n\nDiscussing Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” Mr. Brotherton\naccepts Hofstadter’s characterization of proponents of politically motivated conspiracy theories as\n“paranoid” and suffering from “a psychic phenomenon” that prevents them from seeing the absurdity of\ntheir position. But he disagrees with Hofstadter that this condition affects only a small number of\npeople on the fringes of society. For Mr. Brotherton, “conspiracy theories thrive in the mainstream.”\nUntil the controversy over the validity of warren Commission’s 1966 report on the Kennedy assassination,\nthe phrase “conspiracy theory” had a more neutral meaning, suggesting a plausible yet unproven claim\nabout multiple actors in a single event. Only in the aftermath of the Warren Commission did it become a\nderogatory term used to suggest theories that subvert conventional wisdom. To those who doubted the\ncommission’s finding that a single gunman killed Kennedy, Earl Warren became, Mr. Brotherton’s says, the\n“figurehead in a vast cover-up.”\n\nIt is not easy to find an objective criterion that distinguishes the inquiry into a real conspiracy from\none that chases a pseudo-conspiracy. Both types rely are the eyewitnesses, documents and forensic\nevidence. The best that Mr. Brotherton can offer on this score is to cite Stewart Potter’s famous comment\non pornography: “I know it when I see it.” In the context of suspicious minds, though, one person might\nsee a plausible case for a conspiracy and another only outlandish connections. The distinction is in the\nmind of the beholder.\n\nMr. Brotherton offers a sample list of conspiracy theories, including ones alleging that Abraham Lincoln\nwas assassinated on the orders of his vice president; that the moon landing was faked; that Area 51 in\nNew Mexico is home to extra-terrestrial technology under government auspices; that President Obama is “a\ncommunist Muslim from Kenya.” Such theories are meant to show that suspicious minds leap to absurd\n\nconclusions. These are chosen because there is no evidence to support them.\n\nThe picture changes, however, if we consider, for example, the theory claiming that Lincoln’s assassin,\nJohn wilkes Booth was part of a larger conspiracy backed by the Confederacy. On April 14, 1865, at about\nthe same time that Booth shot Lincoln, one of his associates stabbed Secretary of State william Seward\nand another stalked Vice President Andrew Johnson with a loaded gun. The military commission appointed by\nPresident Johnson, after hearing 371 witnesses testify and after examining Confederate bank transfers and\ncipher communications, concluded that the three attacks were part of a conspiracy sponsored by the\nConfederacy and convicted eight of Booth’s associates, four of whom were hanged. Here we have a\nconspiracy theory proceeding not from crackpots but from a government commission backed by the new\npresident and most members of Lincoln’s cabinet."}]