Wednesday, November 03, 2004
A conspiracy theory (as popularly understood) generally has two features: It is fungible and irrefutable. Fungible, because it applies to all members of the "Conspiracy group" equally (the "Jews," the right-wingers of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" or even the ultimate fungible pronoun "they") and irrefutable because all evidence to the contrary is taken as evidence FOR the conspiracy ("that's what they want you to think!" or "They planted that evidence!").
Most of my professors and fellow graduate students pooh-pooh (nice technical term there) right wing conspiracy theories. I will often here in lecture the dismissal of such quaint conspiracy theories as "the commies are behind it all." They will even claim that the idea of "liberal media bias" is merely another conservative conspiracy theory.
But, of course, the liberal, left-wing conspiracy theories are often treated as undeniable facts about reality. Generally unnamed "big, rich corporations" are the evil groups responsible.
Today, after Bush has been declared the winner of the election, the conspiracy theories (oops - I mean "reasonable ways of viewing the outcome") are flying thick and fast.
Generally, they all boil down to this: Bush stole the election. He did not win an majority or a plurality of the votes. Instead, he and Karl Rove (a bogeyman for the liberals if there ever was one) worked some right-wing magical mojo and used computer hackers, faked absentee ballots and bribes to give himself more votes than he actually received.
I expect that the idea "Bush stole the election and is an illegitimate President" will be the status quo claim on campus for the next four years.
But any claim that CBS and Dan Rather lean left in their reporting is "beyond the pale" and an irresponsible argument.
I think I might just enjoy the next four years.
Most of my professors and fellow graduate students pooh-pooh (nice technical term there) right wing conspiracy theories. I will often here in lecture the dismissal of such quaint conspiracy theories as "the commies are behind it all." They will even claim that the idea of "liberal media bias" is merely another conservative conspiracy theory.
But, of course, the liberal, left-wing conspiracy theories are often treated as undeniable facts about reality. Generally unnamed "big, rich corporations" are the evil groups responsible.
Today, after Bush has been declared the winner of the election, the conspiracy theories (oops - I mean "reasonable ways of viewing the outcome") are flying thick and fast.
Generally, they all boil down to this: Bush stole the election. He did not win an majority or a plurality of the votes. Instead, he and Karl Rove (a bogeyman for the liberals if there ever was one) worked some right-wing magical mojo and used computer hackers, faked absentee ballots and bribes to give himself more votes than he actually received.
I expect that the idea "Bush stole the election and is an illegitimate President" will be the status quo claim on campus for the next four years.
But any claim that CBS and Dan Rather lean left in their reporting is "beyond the pale" and an irresponsible argument.
I think I might just enjoy the next four years.
