(07-05-2020 22:27 )babefan2012 Wrote: ...IMO conspiracy theories are all about simply explaining the often unexplainable to a degree, thats why so many are into them...
I couldn't agree more. It's a fascinating subject. And I've some expanded thoughts, if I may...
Our immediate worlds, particularly for those of us living in pampered western society, have become so regulated, knowable, ordered, sanitised, and largely de-dangered, that some of us have grown to regard the 'random' unknowns in life as something more than deeply disturbing. They have morphed into mental quandaries that must be 'solved' - as in detective or mystery fiction. To some people, nature's acts of freakish chance or the unpredictabilities derived from the constant interactions of the teaming millions among us (some of whom refuse to be pegged to societies neat and comforting norms) are now seen as things that must be rationalised; something that they must formulate definitive answers to, above and beyond 'in the wrong place at the wrong' time, in order to relieve the persistent sense of mental unease or foreboding they instill.
In particular conspiracy theorists can't conscience that celebrity, power and/or wealth can not protect any one, with absolute certainty, from that unfathomable randomness or actions of the weak or stubbornly dangerous outliers in this world. Thus they seek theories that create sense from the senseless in order to give meaning, purpose and significance to events that would otherwise feel too scary and unconscionably abrupt - particularly as regards what they mean for all of us... i.e. that, no matter what we do, we are always at the mercy of very unlikely, and unprotectable against, chance. Many theories go further still by bestowing the responsibility for random events back on the powerful thus maintaining a weird sense of status quo to the otherwise troublingly 'unresolved'.
As one we hate that feeling of ultimate vulnerability we sometimes get at witnessing catastrophic events. Conspiracy theories provide a way to expunge that feeling to some extent, securing for the individual something more rational, understandable and hopefully avoidable to blame. Better yet if the theory offers something immediately tangible to rail or act against - giving placating agency back to the self.
Like religion before them these theories function as a prop for the mind bestowing an easier sense and meaning to the essentially uncontrollable chaotic elements of life ... and death. As such it is no coincidence that several have come to the fore in the ongoing 'natural' crisis of unprecedented proportions.