With millions sitting at home with not much more than the internet and their own imaginations to entertain themselves, it’s no wonder that there are plenty of conspiracy theories doing the rounds. David Icke has even made it back into the news! I must admit that I like a good conspiracy theory myself, but there are some very important things to remember about them before you go tumbling down a particular rabbit hole. Not every conspiracy theory is true, and not all of them are false. And let’s be honest not everything in the mainstream media is true either. This is why you need to consume information through the filter of some good critical thinking.
These days the term ‘Conspiracy Theory’ is used in a pejorative manner to dismiss ideas which set themselves against the mainstream view. Some writers have even suggested that the CIA was responsible for this, which is of course a conspiracy theory all by itself! It first emerged in this way after the publication of the official government Warren Commission report into the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. This, supposedly, was as a way of pouring scorn on people who didn’t buy the lone gunman theory, which was promulgated as the official version of events. But of course a conspiracy is simply a bunch of people planning to do something unlawful. And there have been real conspiracies anyway, Watergate and Iran Contra spring to mind straight away. They don’t get talked about as conspiracies, but that’s what they were until they came to light.
So what has been doing the rounds this time? One theory is that its 5G technology that is causing this virus to emerge in humanity. Another is that the virus leaked out of a Chinese bio-weapons factory in Wuhan. Or that the Chinese have deliberately released it on their own population, to stifle anti-government protests. Or that the Americans released it deliberately on the Chinese to damage their economy. Or that the New World Order released it on the world so that they could deliberately crash the world economy. Thereby foisting their nefarious agenda on a ‘willing’ populous. The action, reaction stuff that David Icke is so keen on.
When shocking, apparently random events happen, our minds need for structure and order kicks in. And when trust in government is low, what they say isn’t always fully believed. All of this creates fertile ground for a conspiracy theory to grow. Also any good conspiracy theory needs to have some basis in truth, or a reasonable amount of plausibility to get traction. The reason that the JFK assassination has been such fruitful ground for conspiracy theories over the years is that the official version of events doesn’t stand up to close scrutiny. Before this virus outbreak there was already a lot of chatter about 5G not actually being safe, and it may not be. But that doesn’t mean that it caused coronavirus. Our economic system wasn’t fixed after the 2008 financial crisis. The can was forcibly kicked down the road, but nothing much really changed in how our financial system works. Global finance and economics is a difficult subject for people to get their heads around, and is opaque when casually viewed from the outside. But if you have seen the film the Big Short, then you can get a sense about how our economic system is unstable and likely to collapse again anyway. It is probable that we will have an economic slowdown because of the response to coronavirus. Therefore people assume that it was done on purpose to deliberately crash a broken system, without those who broke the system getting the blame.
So what is a sensible response in the face of all this information overload? You could just ignore it all, and get on with your life. An acceptable response for sure. But personally I like to have some idea about what is going on in the world I live in. So what I do is gather information from various different sources. I listen to the mainstream view and the conspiracy theories, and will read books on important subjects to get a better sense of what is probably true and what isn’t. Doing this taught me some very important lessons. One is that I do think that the mainstream view on some very important subjects is wrong. And that there are small groups of old white men conspiring together to manipulate the world to their own ends. Today our western way of living makes some people rich and powerful. And rich powerful people like to be rich and powerful. So we shouldn’t be surprised that they act in a manner that maintains that status for them. But fundamentally they have no power over you unless you give them that power. They are like the Wizard of Oz, making loud noises and generating smoke to create the illusion of great power. But when you pull back the curtain all that you see is a small frightened old man.
You are the one who creates your reality, based upon what you believe and what you do. By all means listen to the mainstream and the conspiracy theories. Just don’t buy into either of them completely, think for yourself. The place to put your trust and belief is in yourself and your ability to create a reality that works for you. The more collective and positive you become the more that the light of your positivity will shine into the dark recesses of the world and the truth, whatever it is, will come out.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” Arthur Conan Doyle
