Comments on: Breathtaking Inanity http://globalizati.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/breathtaking-inanity/ Tue, 29 Sep 2009 23:53:13 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: JH http://globalizati.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/breathtaking-inanity/#comment-3120 JH Mon, 31 Mar 2008 14:34:59 +0000 http://globalizati.wordpress.com/?p=358#comment-3120 Conspiracy theories are extremely common among insular peoples with low levels of education. In the case of American blacks, the belief about the engineering of AIDS and crack is not really that crazy in context. Two basic facts of life that black people in America absorb very early are "White society and its government are implacably opposed to us and will do anything to keep us down," and "White society and its government posses extraordinary technology." You put these two together and it's only a hop, skip, and a jump to the belief that the government invented AIDS. As for the 9/11 stuff, I have (white) friends I grew up with that are barely educated, have very low opinions of the US government, etc. They assumed before the towers even collapsed that the government was responsible for it. It was just their interpretive reflex. I'm willing to bet that if you somehow measured a group's alienation from society, it would correlate pretty strongly with their level of belief in conspiracy theories perpetrated by said society. Conspiracy theories are extremely common among insular peoples with low levels of education. In the case of American blacks, the belief about the engineering of AIDS and crack is not really that crazy in context. Two basic facts of life that black people in America absorb very early are “White society and its government are implacably opposed to us and will do anything to keep us down,” and “White society and its government posses extraordinary technology.” You put these two together and it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump to the belief that the government invented AIDS.

As for the 9/11 stuff, I have (white) friends I grew up with that are barely educated, have very low opinions of the US government, etc. They assumed before the towers even collapsed that the government was responsible for it. It was just their interpretive reflex. I’m willing to bet that if you somehow measured a group’s alienation from society, it would correlate pretty strongly with their level of belief in conspiracy theories perpetrated by said society.

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