From the Archive ~ Conspiracy Theory

From the Archive

19 May 2020 - 28 January 2021

The 20th Century entertained countless conspiracy theories. The Trump presidency took conspiracy theory to a new level, permeating every aspect of international society, and, for Trump, an unkempt bewildered peculiar finger-wandering man, being catapulted upon us by the internet, ably assisted by the current Covid Pandemic.

28 January 2021

Like the Waves of the Sea

EVERY GENERATION has to deal with crises on a national and international scale.

Wars, insurrection, famine, natural disasters, and in the past, regional epidemics … I speak only of the last 75 years. If I stretch it to 1920, then I stare wide-eyed at the Spanish Influenza pandemic that started in 1918 - before the end of the Great War (World War I) - and which, within two years, had claimed fifty million lives, globally.

Humankind is a survivor. Always, with great sacrifice.

Sitting on the seashore, I see the pattern and rhythm of the tides, the gravitational pull between the earth and the moon. It is an entirely natural and scientific thing. Slowly we cast off superstition, supposition and crazy explanations of gods and demons, kingdoms below the earth, kingdoms in the heavens above the stars. Not everywhere. Superstition in some societies remains.

As they have always done, the waves come in a prescribed, pre-ordained order. We see the waves crashing on the seashore and we are caught up in the excitement of the spray, the noise and wonder.

Then we notice that a wave comes in, separate and distinct.

It seems to move without breaking, and it passes through the crashing waves, surf and detritus, unfolding itself upon the beach with such a crashing roar and explosion, chasing our very hasty, unplanned fall-back. Then we see another wave, doing exactly the same. Then another. And by this time we are definitely retreating towards the sand dunes, higher ground, or rock.

And we notice that they come in groups of three, quite separate and distinct from the other waves. On some days they come in groups of five, other days six, and on yet another day seven. Sometimes they are barely noticeable. Yet they are there. The higher the number the greater the activity on shore, not to mention the boats and surfers.

It is Nature, nothing less. Another dimension to ponder.

If I concentrate only on a single wave, I quickly lose my perspective of what is going on along the coastline, and all around me. Liverpool Crosby Beach is vast when the tide is out. When in, the strip of sand is often beneath the water, a meter or so. (and for us older ones the more friendly and measurable three feet or so).

Its vastness causes walkers to wander further out, and further still, not realising that when the tide turns it returns in a pincer movement. That is when we are grateful for the lifeguards and the four-by-fours they drive across endless sands to retrieve.

Challenged

Every generation is challenged in some way.

Why is it, that when people feel that they are losing control, they become privy to being “tossed to and fro by the waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes”? [1]

Is conspiracy theory a modern phenomenon? No.

We see it right there in the words dictated by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians [i] at Ephesus (the western shores of modern-day Turkey). In other words, the man was asking the Ephesians, …

for goodness sake, all of you!
What is it with you all,
that you take on every conspiracy theory?

That is my layman’s paraphrase. That is not scripture. I will probe and question. I will not blandly sit there and accept.

Fable becomes ‘gospel’

Why do people of sound mind and rationale, entertain and accept as gospel outrageous claims and statements? I ask this on the basis that I too have fallen into this trap.

We know what happens if this is not checked. A sinister mood takes hold, people become spiteful, “witch-hunters”; innocent people become targets, then scapegoats, of whom “witch-hunters” have one aim - to eliminate.

Eliminate seems innocuous on its own. Not so, when one considers the origin of that quaint term scapegoat.

We’ve all heard the expression that goes something like …

Yeah, I know. Such a shame.
He was made the scapegoat.
She was the scapegoat for their own misdoings. ‘
ere luv, get me another coffee will yer?

Any virus has a starting point. That’s not rocket science. When innocent people in the area of that starting point are made the scapegoat … it is very sinister when such scapegoating of nations is propagated by people in high places.

Beware the lion prowling around, seeking whom he may devour …

is how people in former times had this problem explained to them. [ii] That verse speaks of the devil. Older versions speak of Satan or Beelzebub. I simply replace these with the simple noun Evil.

‘…theory'

Why do some do this? Imagine that one is losing control of one’s own personal environment; then imagine revelations in one’s own private world that are simply not there and, then try to convince everyone to accept that they are there … And a new ‘theory’ is born.

Why do people deny that which exists, and demand that that which does not exist be accepted as existing? Such people become reeds in the wind, tossed to and fro, every which way, taking on every which way [iii] and, any, conspiracy theory. Fear!

Fear

Fear of loss of control, along with the idea that the status quo demands that they be listened to and obeyed.

Worse still, they insist that this is decreed by their god or gods - however many gods their religion demands; a whole army of gods and goddesses. It would be better if such silliness is put to more productive use … write a new Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones… simply for the enjoyment of fiction and storytelling.

Exercise responsibility. Return to the real world. Treat fiction as fiction.

Do not treat fiction as fact!

What is normal?

We have a pandemic, a virus that, like all viruses, comes in waves, or regular intervals; a pattern. Accept the fact that life is not going to return to what we regarded as “normal”. Normalcy is subjective.

What is abnormal and abhorrent to us, was normal and acceptable, and desired, in Nazi Germany, in the Khmer Rouge killing fields of Cambodia, in Syria right now, and in the minuscule caliphate of Daesh, again, right now.

(Author: This being written on 19 May 2020, to this litany of death and destruction we add the War in Ukraine now in its second year and all because of one man in the Kremlin.)

All thrived on conspiracy theories.

It was a conspiracy theory that brought about the Holocaust from 1933-1945, and it is a conspiracy theory that now has the affront to deny that the Holocaust ever took place!

It is a conspiracy theory that has normally sensible people talking about the Four Horses of the Apocalypse, that these are the end times, and that the world is about to end. They argue it in 2020, as they have done in every century going back 3,000-4000 and 5,000 years, and beyond!

When the Apostle John wrote his Revelation at the end of his life - a dream or vision - it was written down as the incontrovertible word of God i.e. not to be denied or disputed. So, every generation from around 96 CE (96 AD) has presumed that its generation will see the apocalyptic end-time events i.e. the writings were believed and accepted as describing or prophesying the complete destruction of the world.

It is a conspiracy theory that always seeks to find someone to blame. The blame game has already started.

People have told me - friends, mark you - that America engineered 9/11 … I’ve even had someone write to tell me that if I watch a film, I’ll see bombs being detonated on each tower to make two towers come down!

Another friend tells me that a theory has proven that the First Lady to the US Forty-Forth President is a man! It beggars the belief that intelligent people who run businesses can actually even think to read these things, let alone accept them.

A good Christian friend has somehow been persuaded that the former First Lady is a man really! What on earth are you talking about? The reply with conviction: look it up on the internet! It’s clear. You can see the male bone structure.

So, remember that Conspiracy Theory is propelled by the internet.

Fiction

Hollywood is fiction. A novel is a fiction. A novel adapted for film by Hollywood is still fiction. What is fiction?

The Oxford Dictionary defines fiction

“as an invented idea or statement or narrative, an imaginary thing; a conventionally accepted falsehood; the act or process of inventing imaginary things.”

— Oxford Dictionary

Inventing imaginary things! Managed properly, it is creative. Children’s fairy tales are creative, sometimes too scary for the good that they do. But we get the gist. Good fiction is informative and teaches us how to lead better lives. Arguably, that is the intent of the writers of most TV Soap.

But when fiction flays like the dropped fire hose mid-flow, serious damage follows. In a word, conspiracy theory is false. It is a lie.

Lies

We saw last week President Jair Bolsonaro [iv] ignoring social distancing, doing a mass rally walk-about handshake session at a stadium. Of greater alarm is his comment that Covid 19 is exaggerated and nothing more than a common cold. Not every Brazilian agrees. A week on, we learn that the people of Sao Paulo take a very different view and that the city’s health services are close to being overwhelmed.

Consequence

In America, we have another president who seems to be on a trajectory all of his own. No matter how I try, no matter how many articles I read in his support that people send me, I still can’t fathom the chap out - his greatness, his being so close to the nation’s heartbeat. What I can fathom is that under this 45th Term, America slipped below the waves, something I never thought I would see in my lifetime. Remember the good old days of The West Wing that ran into seven series, and attained a host of Emmy and Golden Globe awards respectively? Rightly so.

Will we ever see the calmness - yes, I use that deliberately - of the two Obama Administrations? Of the Roosevelt Era? Or will history present the 44th Term as America’s swansong?

That period of measured calm and reasonable international diplomacy before it suddenly crashed onto the world stage in a shower of staged clouds, a big and unfit man walking out of stage clouds, and telling them and the world that it’s “Make America Great Again” time, it’s “America First”.

Will sound judgment return or will America will become a land of broken, independent states?
In Central Asia - Turkmenistan - it is reported outside that country, that if a citizen talks openly about the virus, then arrest will follow. If a citizen wears a face mask in public, an arrest will follow.

In this flip-side goose-stepping throwback to Nazi Germany - flip-side because it is a one-party state whose head of state and head of government is the same person when no checks and balances are in place to keep tabs on that individual - its regime survives by creating conspiracy theory.

It maintains that it is a secular Muslim country of 5.6 million people, and it bans all forms of alcohol in public, on trains, aeroplanes and ferries, sports facilities and sales of alcohol on national holidays. I understand that. I also look at American Prohibition in the 1920s. When religion holds the tiller, all hell will break loose. I have only to look at my own country to see that in action in its history.

“When religion holds the tiller, all hell will break loose.”

— Kenneth Thomas Webb

Discernment

Without conspiracy theories, people quickly obtain their own minds and rationale and discern truth from lies. In 2023 Russia’s closed society this freedom is impossible.

A closed society exists only by means of conspiracy theories about the world beyond its borders. Look at any of the closed societies currently today. There are many.

For any dictatorship, discernment of truth and lie is its death knell, so brutal measures are taken to prevent the truth from leaking out about a country’s true state of affairs, and segments of the population will be carved out, made the scapegoats and subjected to terror.

The state will also set up camps for the purpose of ‘re-education.’ These are not schools. They are not higher educational institutions. These are tools of the state to victimise, crush and wipe out. Various shock treatments are employed to accelerate the reeducation. In short, to remove the ability or even desire to discern truth from lie.

The infamous Nazi Nuremberg laws made it an offence for Jewish people to enter parks, walk on pavements (sidewalks) and so forth. That was bad enough but was not seen even by the German Jewish population as a portent of the unmitigated horror that was about to be unleashed.

Yet forty years on, at NASA, in America, segregation was in place and mirrored the Nuremberg laws with regard to black and coloured Americans. God forbid a black or coloured person use the ‘whites only’ bathroom facilities! God forbid, that they dared to take a coffee from a ‘whites only’ urn, or even had the afront to presume the kettle is for use by everyone. Get your own kettle.

In Britain in the 1960s we had that same white race supremacy in parts of the country, often running deep within communities that saw themselves as liberal. I saw this first-hand. I saw too how my parents dealt with that … I know this. It took them a great deal of nerve to withstand the prejudice.

A good Christian friend has somehow been persuaded that the former First Lady is a man really! What on earth are you talking about? The reply with conviction: look it up on the internet! It’s clear. You can see the male bone structure. So, remember": Conspiracy Theory is propelled by the internet.

Now fast-forward to 2018-2019 and the brutality meted out to the Rohingya People of Myanmar (former Burma) and show us the true colours of a woman who was once seen as a shining light of freedom and democracy, refusing to be cowed by house arrest - Aung San Suu Kyi.

No longer an example of enlightenment, so allow this elderly lady to sit down on the park bench and enjoy the cool of the evening breeze.

What is the way forward?

I’m not entirely sure. We have entered a new phase in world history. And also, in this country’s history. Black Lives Matter. Most assuredly, Black lives Matter. As we examine our history, we need to understand that we are an island of many peoples, and all of us are British regardless of our colour and origin. And what’s more … we know that this was the case even in Roman Britain.

I end by referring to an article published in the UK’s The Guardian newspaper on 13 May 2020 by journalists Anushka Asthana and Larry Elliott.

- this may be the UK’s biggest economic downturn in 300 years
- easing restrictions is exposing the economic damage
- for many, once-thriving businesses the future is bleak
- many businesses have been forced to make staff redundant as customers fall off

A Silver Lining?

Elliott and Asthana, do however, hint at a silver lining, in that this pause in our normal way of life has led businesses to re-evaluate working from home and alternative ways of working. And I really do like it when they say that any recovery might include ‘elements of a “green new deal” targeting growth through cleaner technologies.

I’m not a Guardian man even though I pay a monthly subscription. I do watch all the newspapers closely, and I can certainly see merit in these points. I sit on the centre ground of politics. The extremes of left and right are not good. They leave me cold. But consensus does enable us to meet in the middle. And true to the excellent teaching by my history teacher Miss Megan Martin, I remain a floating voter.

[i] Ephesians 4 v 14
[ii] 1 Peter 5 v 8
[iii] Luke 7 v 24
[iv] Bolsonara lost the General Election on 2 October 2022

4 March 2023
All Rights Reserved

© 2023 Conspiracy Theory ~ Kenneth Thomas Webb

First written on 19 May 2020

“Exercise responsibility. Return to the real world. Treat fiction as fiction. Do not treat fiction as fact!”

— Kenneth Thomas Webb

Main Article Image is Courtesy of Marius Teodorescu via Unsplash