Susan Lindauer |
Each of us has a personal limit as to what we are prepared to believe or not. Every religion, every news report and documentary and every conspiracy theory continually probes those limits of our capacity to believe.
The Theory of Conspiracy
The term, conspiracy theory, is nowadays used as a pejorative or dismissive term.
Without any further discussion, a State Department official or a reporter might say with a smirk, "Well, you know what conspiracy theorists are going to say..."
Because aren't people who believe in conspiracy theories unbalanced or gullible or just plain ignorant?
But the idea that there could be an alternative version of history is not something that strikes me as strictly incredible. Call it a conspiracy theory, if you will, but giving it that title doesn't make it any more or less invalid. As any scientist will tell you, not all theories are equal but then that's what makes them theories. Each of us has to weigh the evidence in our own minds, to measure it against our own personal sense of reality, and to accept or reject the unconventional hypothesis.
The fact that the term, conspiracy theory, is used in this way, some would see, is a sign of the closing down of rational thought or the triumph of orthodoxy and dogma. After all, conspiracies do exist and the only way to determine their veracity is, of course, to speculate upon them.