"What has become of critique when a book that claims that no
plane ever crashed into the Pentagon can be a bestseller? I am ashamed to
say that the author was French, too.6 Remember the good old days when
revisionism arrived very late, after the facts had been thoroughly established,
decades after bodies of evidence had accumulated? Now we have the
benefit of what can be called instant revisionism."
Latour brought up a very important point, instant revisionism. In our days, with all the technology we have, the instant revisionism starts seconds after an incident happens. I was watching the news once and they were covering a house fire that was still going on. Three possibilities of the reason behind the fire were listed while the fire was still going on. They were not based on facts, but rather predictions. The major problem "especially in the news"is that before the facts are out, specialists and analysis start filling the viewers mind with different types of information that are based on " it could be this, or that, or maybe this!"
Now, does believing in conspiracy theories make me stupid? I'm not sure. We find it easier to believe what the government wants us to believe. It is fed to us through the media, books and movies. Many "conspiracy theories" came out after 9/11. Do I believe all of them? No, but I'm sure that there is more to the story than a group of Muslim terrorists attacked the US because "they hate our freedom".
Jesse Ventura comes to my mind when we talk about 9/11 conspiracy theories. He worked on proving that 9/11 was an inside job and that the "facts given by the government" do not equal "science". Little he knows that facts do not equal science 90% of the time.
I found the point of instant revisionism to be interesting as I was reading Latours paper as well. I am not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing since we do like to get the story immediately and would not like to wait years to find out. I enjoyed your example of Jesse Ventura talking about how 9/11 was an inside job, I had no idea that he himself is a conspiracy theorist.
ReplyDeleteI think after 9/11 people began to believe more conspiracy theories because they had a reason to. Before, we didn't have much to worry about. Nothing "major" had happened in a while- life was good. But, then 9/11 happened and all of a sudden we were in a panic for explanation, and conspiracy theories were conveniently right there for people to believe. Right after it happened, people wanted to know what was going on, and wanted to know NOW. People scurried together some information, some "facts", some opinions into a great conspiracy they could propose to calm people down. To give them the information they wanted to hear and to decrease confusion. A sense of relief now that they know what is going on. Unfortunately (maybe?), this is done primarily by the government because they feel the need to control panic across the nation. I think conspiracy theories are really interesting because of their way to persuade people so quickly. I liked what you said about if believing in conspiracy theories makes us stupid. I don't think so, because if it did, there would be a lot of stupid people out there.
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