New studies: ‘Conspiracy theorists’ sane; government dupes crazy, hostile

Well what do you know? We are the sane ones!! I always knew I was sane on the subject of 911. I mean, as this article says, I've never tried to prove what really did happen that day, but I sure knew with every common sensicle bone in my body that the theory portrayed to the public was just unbelievable.

Here we have a couple of psychologists conducting a study that says just that.

The most recent study was published on July 8th by psychologists Michael J. Wood and Karen M. Douglas of the University of Kent (UK). Entitled “What about Building 7? A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories,” the study compared “conspiracist” (pro-conspiracy theory) and “conventionalist” (anti-conspiracy) comments at news websites.

The authors were surprised to discover that it is now more conventional to leave so-called conspiracist comments than conventionalist ones: “Of the 2174 comments collected, 1459 were coded as conspiracist and 715 as conventionalist.” In other words, among people who comment on news articles, those who disbelieve government accounts of such events as 9/11 and the JFK assassination outnumber believers by more than two to one. That means it is the pro-conspiracy commenters who are expressing what is now the conventional wisdom, while the anti-conspiracy commenters are becoming a small, beleaguered minority.

Read the article. It really does add some importance to what we discuss here, and the people that we are and are not.

I also like this:

Both of these findings are amplified in the new book Conspiracy Theory in America by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, published earlier this year by the University of Texas Press. Professor deHaven-Smith explains why people don’t like being called “conspiracy theorists”: The term was invented and put into wide circulation by the CIA to smear and defame people questioning the JFK assassination! “The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.”

In other words, people who use the terms “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” as an insult are doing so as the result of a well-documented, undisputed, historically-real conspiracy by the CIA to cover up the JFK assassination. That campaign, by the way, was completely illegal, and the CIA officers involved were criminals; the CIA is barred from all domestic activities, yet routinely breaks the law to conduct domestic operations ranging from propaganda to assassinations

Honestly the best part I take from this, and something I have done lately, is to not call ourselves conspriracy theorists. We are just seekers of truth, studying the given evidence and not accepting seemingly manipulated storylines as truth without at least a discussion otherwise.


therebel.org...:new-studies-conspiracy-theorists-sane-government-dupes-crazy-hostile&catid=83: resistance&Itemid=1198

reply to post by SunnyDee


I liked the study and thanks for posting it, but there are still members of ATS I wouldn't trust with eating utensils.

reply to post by SunnyDee


The US government itself does believe in conspiracy theories as attested by the following headline How Apple led an e-book price conspiracy—in the judge’s words Bush senior and junior sure bandied the term around a lot.

reply to post by Carreau


Seriously? Are there some members here that eat utensils? JK, I get ya. Just like any family.....there's always a few members you'd rather not admit you're related to.

I am surprised there aren't a few more comments here. It sure would be nice if truth seekers would share a thought. There are no comments yet from OS'rs so maybe they figure if they don't comment this thread will die. I don't think this article bodes well for those that like to knock 911 truthers.

There are PLENTY of seeker who want to know the facts,the unknown and seek fairness in life.But somehow something works against us.
They are CRAZY and we are sane...I knew that.

reply to post by SunnyDee


If I could just get my husband to read this article...
He gets so worked up about all these conspiracy theories!

I read someplace tin foil hat was another CIA sponsored attitude. Propaganda and words...The pen is mightier than the sword...someone must have gotten the message? S&F

Originally posted by SunnyDee
Well what do you know? We are the sane ones!!

A couple of points.
1. The source of the online article is actually press.tv. Your source just ripped them off.
2. Neither the online article nor the journal article uses the word "sane".
3. It was only editorial spin by press.tv that slants the findings the way you've read.
4. Fundamentally, its a self selecting survey, in that "conspiracy theorists" are simply more likely to put comments in online articles about events that have conspiracy theories attached to them.
You'd find the same thing with comments about any other topic. eg. online articles about dogs would find a large number of people placing comments would be dog owners.
5. The original journal article can be found here and here.

Originally posted by SunnyDee
I also like this:

Both of these findings are amplified in the new book Conspiracy Theory in America by political scientist Lance deHaven-Smith, published earlier this year by the University of Texas Press. Professor deHaven-Smith explains why people don’t like being called “conspiracy theorists”:
The term was invented and put into wide circulation by the CIA to smear and defame people questioning the JFK assassination! “The CIA’s campaign to popularize the term ‘conspiracy theory’ and make conspiracy belief a target of ridicule and hostility must be credited, unfortunately, with being one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.”

Nice story, but its simply not true, and its just a bit of crap that press.tv added to the story to spin it.
The original journal article doesnt mention this story.

If you take the time go go back through online newspapers, you can find that the term "conspiracy theory" actually goes back into the 1800's.

As I have mentioned before,

A search of old newspapers finds numerous references (and in titles of books) going back all the wat to the 19th century. Here, for example, is one from 1868 (talking about Queen Victoria)...
She may seem to award to her present Premier a degree of favour which, considering how direct and plain her dealings have ever been, appears to denote her sympathy with his policy, but she surely comprehends that his conspiracy theory is a mere party battle-horse for which she need not find stable room.

Both Lance deHaven-Smith and press.tv are talking bollocks.

In short, the new study by Wood and Douglas suggests that the negative stereotype of the conspiracy theorist - a hostile fanatic wedded to the truth of his own fringe theory - accurately describes the people who defend the official account of 9/11, not those who dispute it. - See more at: therebel.org...

I believe this holds true here on ATS for the most part. Those defending the 911 Commission Report tend to get hostile and often resort to insults rather than facts.

Both sources contain the paragraph about "Conspiracy Theorist" being a CIA meme yet I'd like to know what their source was for that. Personally, I didn't hear the term in common use until well after 9/11. Not that I disbelieve it, Operation Mockingbird placed CIA assets throughout the media so they certainly had not only the means but the motive to do so.

Interesting article.

The events transpiring today proves now, more than ever, that anyone who believes what the government tells them has really poor judgement.

If there's one thing that's as certain as death and taxes, its that the government will lie to you at every opportunity. Those who believe in those lies and base their lives around them really need to wake up and smell the reality.

Originally posted by Carreau
reply to post by SunnyDee

 

I liked the study and thanks for posting it, but there are still members of ATS I wouldn't trust with eating utensils.

Please excuse but this reminded me of Ruprecht the monkey boy from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels!

I agree on your thoughts about certain members in ATS from Masons engaging in recruitment threads to New Agers telling you you can become a god by buying a few books. At least ATS is a place I can get interesting information, I haven't turned on a TV in many years.

reply to post by Emeraldous


That was the picture I had in mind when I posted that comment, but it wasn't the Masons I was referring to as Ruprect, it was the anti-Mason nutters I wouldn't give a fork to and others.

reply to post by alfa1


Correct. The original journal article makes none of the assessments that the press.tv or rebel make off of the same material. What the two opinion pieces do is place a lot of emphasis on the one of the actual findings of the psychological study, which were that conventionalists tended to be more hostile than conspiracy theorists. Parallels to fanaticism are entirely absent from the original journal article.

From the actual journal article:

The observed tendency of conspiracy theory advocates to argue against conventional narratives rather than in favor of particular alternatives closely resembles this description of anomaly hunting, and also parallels Keeley’s(1999) observation that conspiracy theories rely heavily on “errant data” rather than on crafting coherent alternative explanations(p.117). We argue that in fact, anomaly hunting, or a fixation on errant data, is a manifestation of the way conspiracism is structured as a worldview.

www.readcube.com...

Another paper by the same authors: academia.edu...

In that one, the authors state:

In any case, the evidence we have gathered in the present study supports the idea that conspiracism constitutes a monological belief system, drawing its coherence from central beliefs such as the conviction that authorities and officials engage in massive deception of the public to achieve their malevolent goals.

They also repeatedly compare it to Anti-Semitic beliefs in both articles (a bit of reductio ad Hitlerum there). No where does it make any statement of sanity. They just basically say that conspiracism is an ideology/belief system. One of the unexamined presuppositions that the authors make is that "believing in the official story" is as much of a dogmatic worldview as not believing.

Thanks all for contributing to this thread. I personally think it important, no matter if the article I posted is second-hand or somewhat sensationalized.

It's important in that "truthers" (another term that has become as ugly as "conspiracy theorist") realize they are generally less fanatical about the subject of 911 than the people that back the official story. Less fanatical in conversation. I'd have to admit that truth seekers may bring the subject of 911 up more than someone that just agrees with the official story, but when seeking truth, ignoring an issue hardly would get to the bottom of it.

To the person that found my "sane" comment incorrect. I took the word straight from the headline, and if you could not tell, I was having a little fun. The exclamation point gave it away.

Truth seekers are just that. I don't think most of us claim to ever know the real truth, we just recognize falsehoods and lies without fear.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Maybe because I am who I am, but that study, which I only read the abstract and a couple pages more, seems pretty off.

Take this paragragh for instance from the Abstract to their study:

In Study 1 the more participants believed that Princess Diana faked her own death, the more they believed that she was murdered. In Study 2 the more participants believed that OsamaBin Laden was already dead when U.S. special forces raided his compound in Pakistan, the more they believed he is still alive(

Do any of you here think this way? I don't. That does sound like the thinking of a less sane person.

I say we just trust our instincts and not refer to this study.

This is the fact, the more that we the people discover our governments are lying to us and continue to lie to us to further their own agendas and maintain their positions of power, the more of us are going to wake up to these facts and show dissent and then be labelled a conspiracy theorist.
I wear that as a badge of honour, if you dont question you can never learn. If you blindly believe what you are told
without researching facts then you will become the sheeple the overlords want you to become.
We all have a choice to go with the flow and dismiss any notions that we are being duped in so many ways or question the authorities and try to keep them honest, although that seems impossible to do.
That is my choice so I guess I am a conspiracy theorist and proud to be so.

Wow. The CIA actually created the term "conspiracy theorist" or "theory" as a derogatory term to alienate people and essentially make them look ignorant and irrational. The main question on my mind is this: WHY would the CIA wish to do this, unless of course they did not want people to realize the truth? And considering THEY created it to detract from those who were saying the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy, this event has even more credibility as being a true conspiracy. The evidence always pointed to that fact, and one who thinks they are familiar with the subject may be surprised to learn that they don't even know everything. Very few people actually know of all of the behind the scenes things that took place, all of the murders that were made to look like suicides, of people who knew too much or were about to tell what they knew.

This stuff is fact, and it all points to the assassination being a conspiracy. This is important because it it was a conspiracy, this solidifies the argument that the CIA was involved, considering they created and distributed the derogatory term conspiracy theory to throw people off their trail.

Building 7, and other aspects of that day hold the same truths. It was a conspiracy of some sort. The fact that "exercises" were going on that day which simulated hijacked aircraft points to involvement by some aspect of the government. Look at the Boston bombing recently...Remember people were pointing out that there were military like individuals with huge backpacks walking around before the blast, and how we captured them in many pictures? Nobody knew what they were doing there, until the government came out and said that they were running "exercises" that day to simulate a bombing attack. I mean even disregarding all the other evidence, can anyone actually dismiss that simple fact as being coincidence, in both cases? It is utterly suspicious, and when coupled with the other evidence, almost obvious as to what is going on here.

reply to post by SunnyDee


I am most interested in the quote stating the term conspiracy theorist was invented by the CIA to defame persons questioning the JFK assassination. I would like to see more information about this and determine if it is a fact.

Have we got anyone born before say, 1955 who can weigh in? I'd call my parents but it's midnight!

reply to post by SunnyDee


Well Golly,

Real Live People!

S&F