Hope of YesterdayMan

Hello all,

I'm so glad that a forum like this has become available. I'm looking forward to uncensored public discourse. Let me tell you why I’m here.

Several years ago, while having lunch with a friend, I shared something I had learned, which was very disturbing, and which I won’t go into right now. I will never forget his response, but I don’t think it was really very unique. I believe it was typical of the responses that are produced in people like him across this nation daily.

He started off quite startled. He asked me what my source was - where I had heard of this. I was happy to show him a reputable source for the information. He sat stunned and unsure how to process the information. I showed him another source, just as reputable, to reinforce the fact. His mind seemed unable to accept it. He sat down and did a Google search on the topic, where he found an article informing him again of the same story. He walk around the room saying how he just couldn’t believe it, and wondering out loud how such a thing could be true. Why, he asked, aren’t all the network news agencies talking about this? Why hasn’t the government stepped in to control this? Finally, as if grasping at straws, he sat down at the computer again and started skimming the Google results. Then he finally found what he needed. “Ah! Look at this!” he said as though given a new lease on life, “This says … is a conspiracy theory!” He chuckled with relief as he spoke. He acted like someone who had cheated death.

I was sort of stunned at his reaction and waited for him to weigh the facts against his new resource. I waited in vain. That moment never came. Instead, he looked over at me as though I was feeling the same relief as he; as though he had found a way to put both of our minds at ease. He thought I was just like him, ready to turn my back on the matter, forsake many resources for one that said it was all a hoax. He condescendingly tried to make lite of the whole situation as though to minimize the embarrassment that I must have been feeling. I could go on, but the point is, he was never convinced again of the truth of the matter. He only needed to hear from one source, what he wanted to hear - that the story was only a conspiracy theory.

As I stated above, I don’t think he’s unique. I believe what I witnessed in him is typical of the responses that are produced in people like him across this nation daily. What makes him and me so different? How was he, after seeing evidence for something so unsettling, able to allow himself to find instant peace without reason? Was it sheer will? Was it conditioning? Had he been hypnotized to disallow any facts that are connected with the phrase, conspiracy theory?

I believe that in the minds of millions, a conspiracy theory is not simply a theory about two or more people conspiring against others. No, this term has moved into the realm of magic! A conspiracy theory is one such, though often backed by voluminous evidence, and admitted to by the perpetrators and masterminds of the conspiracy themselves, still has the astonishing quality of being untrue.

For some time I believed that the distinguishing characteristic that divides the, “conspiracy theorists”, from the common thinker, is a person’s propensity for critical thinking. I thought that it was the nature of some not to question, and that it had become the habit of these people to believe what they were told by the talking heads on the T.V. After all, the information is easy to believe, it has the façade of legitimacy, and it produces no social turmoil or controversy, since the overwhelming majority of people are willing to simply believe it with you.

These days, although I still think that the willingness of a person to think critically is one of the key determining factors, I believe there is something else at work in the minds of many. I spoke recently with an extremely critical coworker of mine. He asked me, for the sake of small talk, if I knew anything interesting. In a typical conversation with this man, he seems to be more interested in putting the fine point on every notion in the conversation than he is in the conversation itself. Knowing his personality and tenacity for the facts, I gave him some real meat to chew on. After only a few minutes of conversation, being unable to refute the conclusions I had made from the evidence I had given him, he said, “Well, thank you for enlightening me to your conspiracy theory, but I’m afraid I remain unconvinced.” When I asked him how he could dismiss the evidence he told me, after a short pause, probably the most honest response I had ever gotten from their side. He said, “I don’t know, I guess I just choose not to believe it.”

I still enjoy talking with this man. He likes to kid me about my “conspiracy theories”. You know, those theories that will never be proven as fact, no matter how much evidence is amassed? But I also enjoy sharing and learning from people who are willing to go where the evidence leads them, and who won’t simply choose not to believe. I hope that this forum will provide such opportunities for me.

YesterdayMan