DONT RE-ELECT ANY POLITICIAN

Why Are People Attracted to Conspiracy Theories?

Wild and enormously complex conspiracy theories can’t teach us very much about the real world, but they can tell us a lot about the people who create them.

In part, conspiracy theories arise out of a sense of powerlessness and fear. The events of 9/11 revealed to the world how dangerous Islamic terrorism could be, and all Americans were shaken to their cores.

But instead of facing the terrible truth behind these attacks, the conspiracy theorists chose the path of denial and internal blame.

If one studies the methodology of these independent theorists, one quickly realizes that the conspiracies are designed to support these individuals’ pre-established fears, prejudices, personal hatreds, and/or delusions of grandeur.

As with paranoid schizophrenics, when something terrible happens, imagined enemies are always to blame. To the individual who has already made up his or her mind, there can be no other answer. No amount of evidence can sway ready-made conclusions.

In fact, this same process can be seen throughout the Middle East.

According to most surveys, the majority of Muslim Arabs around the world believe that the attacks were planned and executed by Israel. These Muslim conspiracy theorists believe that the Israelis used the 9/11 attacks so that the USA would intervene in the Middle East and fight their Arab neighbors for them.

What evidence is needed to support this theory? None. One simply has to state the belief.

No amount of logic or evidence can convince the Muslims that Zionist Jews were not responsible for 9/11. Nor can anyone convince American conspiracy theorists that Bush and Cheney were not responsible for 9/11.

But hatreds and prejudice can’t explain the attraction to conspiracy theories completely. We must also consider the delusions of grandeur that make these wild theories so attractive.

If you pay close attention to the rhetoric embraced by conspiracy-minded people, you will immediately notice how self-congratulatory and self-important they are.

They consider themselves the only ones "willing to think" in a country that has been fooled by the government, the media, and popular culture.

They believe that because they are so intelligent and so incredibly capable of independent thought, that everyone else must be too “stupid,” “brainwashed,” “paid-off,” “evil,” or “blind” to see the larger truth.

They take pride in the fact that the conspiracy is both readily apparent to them, and yet totally rejected by the majority. The rejection of their theories only goes to prove how “intelligent” and “independent” they are.

When people consider themselves critical and independent thinkers, they are prone to reject simple explanations. And in the face of catastrophic events like 9/11, these people cannot accept explanations that seem trivial or those that can be easily understood.

They search endlessly for deeper meaning and a wider conspiracy, even if it means creating inventions of pure fantasy. And because their minds have already been made up, all of the “evidence” they find points in the same direction: conspiracy.