Russian Collusion

The extreme American neofascist corporate oligarchic movement — hypericin

What if you're on the Left and see the above as a conspiracy that is already realized and ongoing.

The role of education was to make our democratic republic strong and united and to manifest the hopes of the Enlightenment of improving life on earth. Without that education, it all falls apart, and the good intentions of those who believe a military-industrial complex and leaving moral training to the church is best, have destroyed the education and culture we did have. Without that education, we do not have the culture and we are not united and we are not strong. Is that a truthful statement or conspiracy theory?

It is probably true that declining quality of education increased the vulnerability of the population to conspiracies. A true conspiracy theory can only be believed when there are massive gaps in the believer's model of the world. I would contend that the balkanization of the media, taken to the extreme on social media, is a far more salient factor.


Great reply, very thoughtful, but not a conspiracy.


Great reply, very thoughtful, but not a conspiracy.

It is true that conspiracy theories are the sardines and hard tack of campaigns hell bent upon winning an "idea" vote for permission to do things. But it is not the case that conspiracy thinking began when that use of it did. One of the reasons systems of justice appeared is that rumor and poor understanding of what was actually happening made for really bad decisions.

Developing trust in certain kinds of witnesses involves skepticism. That is a lot more strenuous than being free of massive cognitive dissonance.

It is probably true that declining quality of education increased the vulnerability of the population to conspiracies. A true conspiracy theory can only be believed when there are massive gaps in the believer's model of the world. I would contend that the balkanization of the media, taken to the extreme on social media, is a far more salient factor. — hypericin

Do you remember when journalism was consider essential to defending our democracy? Our local newspaper was named Register Guard and journalist took pride in keeping us well informed and in avoiding bias. Education promoted this understanding of journalism and democracy before our consumer economy took over and the only value we share is the value of money. That is, since Thomas Jefferson education was about making liberty possible and manifesting a strong and united republic based on democratic principles. That ended in 1958 with the National Defense Education Act and specialization for a high tech society with unknown values.

I believe Eisenhower was a man of integrity but he had a military education, not a liberal education and there were some things he just didn't understand, like what liberal education has to do with being independent thinkers and manifesting a culture for democracy that is cooperative and progressive because it comes out of enlightenment thinking. He asked congress for the education act and it had a time limit of 4 years! Some may say changing the purpose of education is just conspiracy theory, but the National Defense Education Act changes in education did not end in 4 years, but instead the federal government has taken more and more control of public education.

At the same time, Eisenhower, changed the relationship with government and research, and he the relationship of government and the media. This opened the door for Reagan's administration to use government funded research to uncover welfare fraud and scapegoat the poor for our bad economy when the oil embargo had us in a serious recession. Using the media to scapegoat the poor as Germany scapegoated the Jews, Reagan was able to slash domestic spending and pour money into military spending, and companies like Cheney's Halliburton were born to exploit the government for personal wealth.

What is the best way to cover this up? Declare such talk is conspiracy theory and add to it totally ridiculous and unfounded conspiracy statements. And people educated to depend on authority since 1958, and prepared for "group-think" rather than independent thinking, will follow the most popular belief and will not both to look for facts. We don't even know where to begin looking for facts and the University of Oregon removed the books of governments from the shelves, so we can not open a book and find these facts. The U of O had a space problem and turned to technology to resolve it microfilming the books and not realizing the importance of being able to read books not knowing what is in them.

Now I don't know if what I said is right or left. I just know what I discovered in a college library and the consequence of what Eisenhower did and for 20 years people respond to this information emotionally, without checking facts.

The extreme American neofascist corporate oligarchic movement — hypericin

What if you're on the Left and see the above as a conspiracy that is already realized and ongoing. — deletedusercb

Well, knowing the history of Germany would help immensely, but I have already set myself up to be the target of emotional people, and I don't think I should I go any further before I know if people are going to throw stones or think about what I am saying and ask questions. Just consider this, the Bush family was very proud of leading the New World Order and they were well connected with Germany at the time of WWII. Eisenhower's term for that is Military Industrial Complex and Prussia gave us the model for this. The US adopted the German model of bureaucracy that shifts power to centralized government and the US adopted the German model of education that compliments the bureaucratic order.

What if you're on the Left and see the above as a conspiracy that is already realized and ongoing. — deletedusercb

What if, left or right, the you were to start to think with their brains instead of their one deformed testicle. I have attempted conversation with some of them - not possible. It makes me think that for some, stupidity is a kind of lubricant that (they believe) makes their lives easier, and they can't, won't or both give it up. It's the lesson of history that the stupid, when in groups above a critical mass, can only be waited out - until they die. And education the vaccine to prevent infection.

But conspiracy theories offer magical hope for this dilemma! "Ah, I knew it all along, I was right, my side was right after all!". The trash details arriving at this conclusion are irrelevant, only the conclusion itself matters. It is therefore the antithesis of science. — hypericin

This doesn't add up. A conspiracy theorist is vindicated precisely when the evidence that fae depends on and the conclusion that fae draws from it hangs together. Last I checked, conspiracy theory proponents do go to great lengths to prove their case whatever that may be and that's just another way of saying that conspiracy theories aren't just about conclusions.

Great reply, very thoughtful, but not a conspiracy. — hypericin

hypericin
what lofty aspiration does one have to reach to be a conspiracy
or are you saying that it was a blatant lie

True, I misspoke:
Russian collision was a conspiracy, to assist a hostile power to illegally affect the election. One can theorize about such conspiracies, without engaging in a conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy theory is something more than its name suggests: It is typically the work of amateurs, seeking to overturn expert opinion in favor of an outlandish alternative. Such "theories" require the complicity of the entire body of subject experts to cover up the truth the theory purports to expose. I think this is ultimately the "conspiracy" referred to. Facts and sound reason fall by the wayside, as every sophistic trick and duplicity possible is employed by the conspiracist to arrive at the desired conclusion.

BTW, Collusion happened, so it almost by definition is not a conspiracy theory. I wonder what conspiracy theory you employ to discount the findings of the republican controlled Senate Intelligence Committee?

Sure they will cite evidence until the cows come home. They show infinite creativity here.
But, the conclusion is what is all important. The "evidence" is just means to that end. Typically this "evidence" is easily dismissed, by experts. But conspiracy theories operate outside the domain of experts (otherwise I guess they would be "fringe theories"). Their audience is the lay public, and the quality of evidence must only be good enough to fool them.

Well, with the previous Republican President (Bush the younger), there was one of the greatest conspiracy theories AGAINST the Republicans. And of course conspiracy theories have been part of American political culture since the JFK assassination, at least.

I think now the reason is simply that you have a POTUS that himself is promoting wild conspiracy theories. And conspiracy buffs like Alex Jones were part of his base. Nothing gets better I guess for conspiracy buffs. Just think of from that point of view: "Well if the President of the US of A himself believes..."

(And without giving any thought just who this President is.)

Sure they will cite evidence until the cows come home. They show infinite creativity here.
But, the conclusion is what is all important. The "evidence" is just means to that end. Typically this "evidence" is easily dismissed, by experts. But conspiracy theories operate outside the domain of experts (otherwise I guess they would be "fringe theories"). Their audience is the lay public, and the quality of evidence must only be good enough to fool them. — hypericin

A few points to consider:

1. Fact is stranger than fiction (Many times, reality has outdone our wildest imaginations. This is as clear as crystal from media headlines that more often than not use words like "shocking", "surprising", etc.. Even correcting for the media's penchant for sensationalism, such descriptors appear at an unusually high frequency)

2. Improbable doesn't mean impossible (Even if we agree that conspiracy theories are improbable, that doesn't, in any way, imply their impossibility. Think lotteries...highly improbable for an individual to win the jackpot but someone does win)

3. Simulation Hypothesis (Nick Bostrom's argued that it's likelier that we're living in a (computer-generated) simulation than not and that's a point in favor of conspiracy theorists - after all, who knows what plans the creators of our simulated reality have for us or, in true conspiracy theory spirit, what plans have they hatched against us?

4. Descartes' Deus Deceptor (This remains an unsolved problem in philosophy but it's just an older version of 3. Simulation Hypothesis and also let's not forget another gem of skepticism at its best - brain in a vat thought experiment)

What's odd is that conspiracy theories emerge from doubt/refusing to believe/accept the "official story". Being skeptical, critical thinking experts say, is a very healthy habit - to be cultivated until it becomes second nature to us - and yet when people are skeptical, they're frowned up as conspiracy theorists with nothing better to do than spin a yarn around what are supposedly plain, obvious, and simple events. If there's a fault in conspiracy theories, it's not the skepticism from which they emerge but in the alternatives to what's accepted as truth that they offer. It's one thing to doubt a claim but another to come up with an even more improbable alternative.

BTW, Collusion happened, so it almost by definition is not a conspiracy theory. — hypericin

The party that purchased the Russian disinformation (Steele dossier) colluded with Russia.
at least 74 million voters agree

It's one thing to doubt a claim but another to come up with an even more improbable alternative. — TheMadFool

Right. Conspiracists are not skeptics, they are the exact opposite: True Believers.
Doubting established wisdom is one thing. But then giving full credulity to a far less likely theory is where skepticism ends.

Hmmm.

There's nothing about conspiracy theories that renders them automatically wrong.

... just as there is nothing about predictions made by casting bones that renders them automatically wrong.

Well, no. There is no link between the bones and the future. But a conspiracy does link to the future in a causal fashion.

There is one aspect of some conspiracy theories that is worth noting. Watkin's all-and-some propositions... hence they can neither be verified nor falsified.

An article worth reading: Confirmable and influential metaphysics.

...new thread, methinks.

I would argue that conspiracy theories are vastly worse than reading bones.

Reading bones is basically guessing about the future. As long as the divinator interprets the bones so as to make reasonable guesses, this is about as good as you can predict the future anyway (apart from the limited subset of cases we understand and can predict accurately). You would therefore expect reading bones to be at least a middling prognosticating tool.

Conspiracy theories don't predict, they interpret events. The basic methodology is to substitute the best interpretations of experts with amateur, sloppy, often politically motivated, usually batshit crazy interpretations. Their accuracy is therefore terrible, and ranks far lower as an interpretive technique than reading bones ranks as a prognosticating technique.

Then the problem is not the conspiracy so much as the amateur, sloppy, often politically motivated, usually batshit crazy interpretations.

In other words, the problem is not the conspiracy so much as conspiracy theories.

The problem is not the conspiracy so much as conspiracy theorist.

The problems I mentioned are not features of individual conspiracy theorists, they are features, as I see it, of this genre of interpretation.

With regard to the influence of education here, that is why I think that it is important to have public educators going out and contesting falsehoods in the public discourse, making sure there is an argument about them and they don't just go unchallenged, even as dangerously close to authoritarianism as that might veer, because freethought is by its very anti-authoritarian nature paradoxically vulnerable to small pockets of epistemic authority arising out of the power vacuum, and if that instability goes completely unchecked, it can easily threaten to destroy the freethinking discourse entirely and collapse it into a new, epistemically authoritarian regime; a religion in effect, even if not in name.

In the absence of good education of the general populace, all manner of little "cults", for lack of a better word, easily spring up. By that I mean small groups of kooks and cranks and quacks each with their own strange dogmas, their own quirky views on what they find to be profound hidden truths that they think everyone else is either just too stupid to wise up to, or else are being actively suppressed by those who want to hide those truths from the public.

Like all these conspiracy theorists.

Meanwhile, those with greater knowledge see those supposed truths for the falsehoods that they are, and can show them to be such, if only the others could be engaged in a legitimately rational discourse. But instead, these groups use irrational means of persuasion to to ensnare others who do not know better into their little cults; and left unchecked, these can easily become actual full-blown religions, their quirky little forms of ignorance becoming widespread, socially-acceptable ignorance, that can appropriate the veneer of epistemic authority and force their ignorance on others under the guise of knowledge.

Checking the spread of such ignorance by challenging it in the public discourse is the role of the public educator. The need for that role would be lessened if more people would actively seek out education, but not everyone will seek out their own education and so some people will continue to spread ignorance – and even those who do seek out their own education may still accidentally spread ignorance – and in that event, there need to be public educators to stand against that.

But that then veers awfully close to proposing effectively another "religion" to counter the growth of others.

I think there is perhaps an irresolvable paradox here, in that a public discourse abhors a power vacuum and so the only way to keep religions, institutions claiming epistemic authority, at bay, is in effect to have one strong enough to do so already in place. But I think there is still hope for freedom of thought, in that not all religions are equally authoritarian: even within religions as more normally and narrowly characterized, some have their dogma handed down through strict decisions and hierarchies, while others more democratically decide what they as a community believe. I think that the best that we can hope for, something that we have perhaps come remarkably close to realizing in the educational systems of some contemporary societies, is a "religion", or rather an academic system, that enshrines the principles of freethought, and is structured in a way consistent with those principles.

What semblance of that we may have once had in America sure seems to be failing nowadays, at least.

I would argue that conspiracy theories are vastly worse than reading bones. — hypericin

A conspiracy theory is a theory that there is a conspiracy.

A conspiracy is a group of people secretly agreeing to do something wrong.

A theory can be true or false.

Plenty of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true. See here for a list : https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/wiki/lopc

It is meaningless to say that conspiracy theories as a whole are worse than reading bones. There are conspiracy theories that are an accurate description of what is really happening, and others that are an inaccurate description.

The conspiracy theories that are correct correctly describe what has happened or what happens.

There is the widespread misconception that a conspiracy theory equates a false or far-fetched idea. That’s a misconception. And sometimes, conspiracy theories that appear far-fetched do turn out to be true.

People conspire. Powerful people conspire. How they conspire is the question that conspiracy theorists attempt to answer. There are some very intelligent people among conspiracy theorists, contrary to popular belief. And some not-so reasonable people, as everywhere.

With words there is a fine line between "common misconception" and "common usage". No one is going around thinking there is no such thing as conspiracies. "Conspiracy theories" are not merely theories about conspiracies. The term picks out a particular, paranoid style of reasoning. One which is totally out of control in the right wing. I'm presuming you are all familiar with the usage.

I see the role of these fringe ideologies as emerging from the confluence of two social factors.

1. The myth of the "Real American". It is arguably the basis of the Tea Party movement and the distinction between "working" and "not working" people which fueled Trumps populism (Source, Source). In fact, this myth has been invoked multiple times throughout the history of both America and Europe. The short-lived period of success of Fascist Vichy France, along with its reactionary politics, was based on a myth which has chilling parallels to what many Right-Wing Americans espouse today. The form of the myth is that the "real people of the nation" are the ones living outside of the cities, doing the real work and leading hard and pious lives. In contrast, those in the cities are the Jews, Socialists, Communists, Blacks, Foreigners, and their collaborators, who do not really serve any function are are living off of the surplus (Marxist term used ironically) that is produced by the real people. This ideology led to policies which went beyond what the Nazis demanded. Source.

2. The diminishing importance of social roles in our concept of ethics. The Ethics which underlies the "Real American" is essentially Aristotelian. Nichomachean Ethics argues that the best life a man can live (Au Zen, "living well") consists in him effectively performing all of his social roles. These roles were determined by the various social relations a person had, as a friend, a juror, a soldier, a member of a household, etc. I am not here suggesting that Aristotle would be a Republican if he were alive today. Instead, I simply wish to emphasize the parallel between this role based "Virtue" Ethics and the thinking of conservatives. This way of thinking has its greatest champion in the Church, with the Catholic Church being the most prominent in its intellectual contributions to this body of thought. However, it is not the Ethics of the Enlightenment and as such has been challenged and is in decline as the relevant Ethics of public policy today. Nevertheless, conservative society is still marked by these essentially Aristotelian attitudes, which proscribe roles for everyone based on identities which must be externally obvious and at the same time relatively unchanging in order for everyone to know everyone's role and therefore collectively enforce the dominant ethic. Evidence that conservatives do think this way is almost unnecessary -- such attitudes are written into the definition of conservatism (unfortunately I'm unable to provide actual evidence at this time).

As the power of the Church has declined over the years, so has the influence of this way of thinking. It contrasts especially with the ethics of the market, "Marketism" (Or Marxism?), in which value is not guaranteed and instead is only what others are willing to pay. Americans who engage in market competition, either as poor workers or as business owners therefore encounter this ideology. The proponents of this sort of Ethic often champion freedom in one form or another -- we can count among them Ayn Rand, Robert Nozick, and Karl Marx to name a few.

Virtue ethics also contrast with Enlightenment theories like Utilitarianism and theories of rights. These are what are taught in school and the basis of modern jurisprudence as well as the tools which are used in public discourse on current events and public policy. I'm intentionally omitting Kantian ethics from this list since nobody knows what he is really arguing and attempts like that of Rawls essentially lead to similar policies as utilitarianism. There are so many authors writing in these traditions that I can hardly list them, and because I haven't researched it, I don't actually know which are the most relevant.

Thus, there are four Ethical theories in competition today: Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism, Rights systems, and Marketism.

Now, it is possible to argue effectively and cogently for a complete right-wing agenda from the point of view of only Virtue Ethics. Because this Ethic does not presuppose a universal foundation, it is easily interpreted to support whatever traditional values already exists in the society, and it is difficult (or maybe impossible) to critique those values from within virtue ethics. If we divide the right-wing agenda into two parts, one being social conservatism and the other being laissez-faire economics, we find that Rights systems and Marketism conflict with the first and utilitarianism conflicts with the latter.

Right-Wing politics requires a coalition, so they will naturally bring in people believing in ideologies founded on one or more of these bases. But the pundits and spin doctors that wish to create messages that appeal to the entire base therefore have a problem: How to message in a way which appeals to people who ascribe to such starkly conflicting ideologies. The answer, of course, is to simply avoid any logical discussion at all. Instead, craft arguments based on all of the natural flaws in human psychology. Because 50% of the population has an IQ below 100, it turns out that this strategy works surprisingly well!

Messaging can't be based on virtue ethics simply because nobody learns virtue ethics anymore. But its influences still exist in conservative thinking in a half-formed and sophomoric way. Thus, Right-wingers are susceptible to messages that lead them toward thinking along the lines of how they are fulfilling their roles for society while others are not doing so or actively working to undermine America. This is already very conspiratorial, but it is not itself based on a flawed framework except insofar as Aristotle is flawed. But it doesn't draw out any real contradictions in Aristotle because it is an extremely abstract and weak understanding of the relevant ethics. Instead, it is just a form of nationalism which has the potential to erupt into populism and even Fascism. The sparks that bring about these eruptions are the conspiracy theories which right-wingers are unable to properly think through precisely because they are unaware of the nature of their own ethics.

Much of my thinking in this post was inspired by the book After Virtue by MacIntyre and the Psychological research of Jonathan Haidt.

Thus, there are four Ethical theories in competition today: Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism, Rights systems, and Marketism. — Garth

I don’t see how your “marketism” stands apart as its own thing, especially if you lump Rand and Marx both together under it. Market evaluation is a function of either (or both) a utilitarian evaluation (whatever most people want the most is most valuable) or(/and) a rights-based system (whoever owns a thing, whoever has a right to it, gets to decide what it’s worth to them, and so what they would sell it for).

Also, both Kantian ethics and rights-based ethics are part of the same category of deontological ethics. Kant is all about duties, and rights are analyzable in terms of duties. Nozick is also firmly in that camp, too.

I do think you are on the right track about there being four kinds of ethical system, though. The usual three taught in ethics classes are aretaic (virtue-based, like Aristotle), deontological (duty-based, like Kant and rights theories), and consequentialist or teleological (outcome-based, like utilitarianism). I think the fourth, that doesn't usually get studied per se but is visible in effect around the world and across history, is political, as in, what is good is to comply with the commands of the correct authorities, be that in Christian divine command theory or Chinese legalism, or others.

I also think that rather than competing methods of answering the same question, these are all better seen (and reconciled with each other) as concerning different questions entirely: what is the nature of functional moral judgement, or will (the aretaic question), what are the proper methods by which to exercise that (the deontological question), what are the ends to aim for with such methods (the teleological question), and who are to conduct and oversee this process (the political question).

I see these as analogous to four other philosophical questions more concerned with reality than morality: questions about the nature of the mind and consciousness (analogous to the will-focused aretaic questions), epistemological questions (analogous to deontological ones), ontological questions (analogous to teleological ones), and questions about academics, as in who is to conduct and oversee this process (analogous to political questions).

I don’t see how your “marketism” stands apart as its own thing — Pfhorrest

I see theories of rights as arising from preexisting rights as defined in law and jurisprudence that go back into history. Philosophical rights are attempts to find generalities or unifying principles to justify various existing legal rights. From this, the consequence of the principle either strikes the philosophical community as absurd, in which case the principle is revised or scrapped, or it is used as the basis of argument for changes to existing law. One example of this expansion is the notion of human rights as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The thing that groups these theories of rights together in my mind is how they arise and can be integrated meaningfully into debates on public policy. Because they are based on existing law and jurisprudence they are typically pertinent and meaningful in debate. The average person can recognize and even has basic notions of fairness based on rights. For instance, many people are stunned to find that, in many US states, they can lose their job for something like participating in a political rally. They exclaim "I thought I had the freedom of speech!"

Now, extreme ideologies which might use the term "rights" can't fit into this debate. If a libertarian starts screaming "taxation is theft!" or a Marxist describes labor in terms of theft of surplus value, they aren't so much as weighing in on policy options but calling for a radically different system than the one we have. Because their point of view is so different, and because they propose such huge changes to the system, there is no way for even the best academic, let alone the typical voter, to imagine how the world would be if these changes were made (spoiler: it would suck).

A debate about policy can't exist under such conditions because in order for a debate to actually be about the policy, the debaters must agree about many things in the status quo. Two libertarians wouldn't debate about whether a public option should be included in the healthcare bill, because they already agree that there shouldn't be a healthcare bill in the first place. Similarly, if Bernie Sanders was debating that libertarian, the reasons the libertarian provides wouldn't be specific to that public option's merits but rather deal with the more general question of whether Government should provide healthcare regulation at all. Thus the debate would never even reach the policy in question. The same is true for Marxists and the like. They will not debate the issue, but rather repeatedly call into question various prior principles.

Indeed, the reason why I must separate them from traditional conceptions of rights is that they cannot be analyzed according to the criterion of absurdity, because if judged according to conventional sentiments they immediately suggest many absurd things. They also reject the notion of steady improvement to existing institutions in favor of rebuilding institutions from scratch, meaning that some essential groups among existing experts in law, bureaucrats, managers, etc. are treated as useless by these theories. Thus if libertarians ever seized power anywhere (and actually went through with the policy changes their ideology demands) it would be a disaster, although admittedly not as bad as communism was, because libertarian dysfunction develops over time while communists create their dysfunction at the beginning.

The reason I lump all these theories together as marketism is because of these concerns. But it isn't really important to my argument, so grant your point. We can consider them functionally to be various rights theories, just not ones that generate meaningful public policy debates.

Also, both Kantian ethics and rights-based ethics are part of the same category of deontological ethics. — Pfhorrest

The Categorical Imperative, in its "universal law" formulation is extremely ambiguous as to what it really defines as Ethical as Kant envisioned it. Zizek has attacked it as being as much a principle of good as of evil since you could also formulate universal evil rules. MacIntyre argues that Kant has left something important out of this formulation, citing maxims like "Always persecute those who hold false religious beliefs". It is not what Kant meant. Kant's alternative formulation to treat people as ends rather than means is much stronger, but perhaps too strong. If I pay a person money to do something for me, I'm certainly using him as a means. All I can do according to Kant is to try to convince him to help me by outlining the merits of my business. In this sense, Kantian philosophy is essentially anarchistic.

This is why I follow the "veil of ignorance" approach which Rawls uses to resolve the problems with Kantian ethics. But that results in a form of maximin utilitarianism. Thus, for practical purposes related to American Politics, I would prefer to exclude Kant, and if he is included, treat him as a maximin utilitarian.