Summary What Lurks Beneath Conspiracy Theories? | by Douglas Giles, PhD | Original Philosophy | Medium medium.com
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Conspiracy theories persist in human culture despite evidence disproving them, leading to real-world consequences.
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Key Points
- Conspiracy theories are part of human culture and cannot be dismissed.
- Ignoring or ridiculing conspiracy theories is dismissively arrogant.
- Understanding conspiracy theories is important to understand why people believe them and what lurks beneath them.
- Conspiracy theories have caused damage, including the deaths of people who believed in them.
- A definition of conspiracy theories is a claim that you have figured out a secret.
Summaries
31 word summary
Conspiracy theories are ingrained in human culture and cannot be ignored. Despite evidence disproving them, beliefs in theories like the moon landing being fake or election theft persist, with real-world consequences.
43 word summary
Conspiracy theories are a part of human culture and cannot be dismissed. Despite evidence to the contrary, some people believe in theories such as the moon landing being faked or the last election being stolen. These theories have real-world consequences, as seen with
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Lurks Beneath Conspiracy Theories? \| by Douglas Giles, PhD \| Original
Philosophy \| Medium
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Inserting Philosophy Into Real Life
What Lurks Beneath Conspiracy Theories?
Conspiracy theories are part of human culture, and we cannot just dismiss them.
Douglas Giles, PhD
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Original Philosophy
17 min read
May 28
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Some people, despite all proof to the contrary, believe the moon landings were faked. Some people, despite all proof to the contrary, believe the last election was stolen. And those are just two of the many conspiracy theories that are believed by untold numbers of people.
How can we understand the phenomena of conspiracy theories? Conspiracy theories conjure up stories about grassy knolls, UFO cover ups, the Illuminati, and other wild ideas that most people consider to be nonsense. The people who believe them arent all asylum inmates wearing tin foil hats in fear of government mind control. Conspiracy theories are part of human culture. We cannot just dismiss them, if for no other reason than we cant ignore the damage caused by conspiracy theories. We are seeing the deaths of thousands of people who believed conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic.
To ignore or ridicule beliefs in conspiracy theories is to be as dismissively arrogant as the conspiracy theory believers are about beliefs other than their own. We dont have to agree with the conspiracy theories, but we need to understand what they are, why some people believe them, and what lurks beneath them.
A Definition of Conspiracy Theories
What are conspiracy theories, and why are they so common? First, we need to define what we are analyzing.
A Definition:
Conspiracy Theory: A claim that you have figured out a secret
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Douglas Giles, PhD
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Philosopher by trade & temperament, professor for 21 years, bringing philosophy out of its ivory tower and into everyday life.
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