Whatever Happens, We Shall Remain Stupid

9/11 conspiracy theories are beginning to flourish, to enter the mainstream consciousness (here, for example) the way Kennedy assassination theories did 4 or 5 years after the event. It's inevitable, I suppose. This is just when this sort of thing happens.

But the thing is, a number of lefty bloggers seem prepared to entertain these theories. And I have to ask: why? Can anything good possibly come of embracing this? Is there anything to be gained from becoming more like the wingnuts' caricatures of ourselves?

For that matter, has anything good come of the relentless 40-year pursuit of Kennedy conspiracy theories?

Jon Carroll agrees with me, and makes the really essential point:

But the main question I have about the Sept. 11 conspiracy is -- why bother? We have a conspiracy to undermine the Constitution of the United States. It's in the papers; it requires no knowledge of engineering. We have a conspiracy to secretly spy on citizens of the United States. That's in the papers too. There was a conspiracy to steal the 2000 presidential election, a conspiracy that involved all three branches of government, and that's out there too.

We have plenty of conspiracies to worry about. We have a whole government that prefers to act in secret, that prefers to use conspiracy as its dominant tactical mode. These conspiracies have been pointed out, and distinguished men and women have risked their reputations to fight the imperial presidency, and so far: not much luck. The country seems to be catching on, but that may not matter, because the electoral process has been so badly jimmied around that the party in power may remain the party in power no matter what. Or, equally plausibly, politicians follow the money, so we are being governed by plutocrats not very well hidden behind the curtain, so which political party wins does not make a difference. Or maybe it's not that hopeless. Don't know. Might be worth spending a lot of time thinking about it, instead of, you know, the other thing.

I think we enjoy diverting ourselves. I think we want to avoid thinking about the hard problems. Medicare: hard problem. Influenza pandemic: hard problem. Poverty, infant mortality, global warming, decline of biodiversity, decline of education, dead forests, dead oceans, malaria, drought, the rise of China, the descent of Africa -- they're all bewildering and scary. We can't get a handle on them, and we're not sure that a handle even exists, and yet we know, we know, that someone ought to start paying attention.

In other words, keep your eyes on the ball, folks. Important things are at stake.

Go read the whole thing (and while you're at it, check out his archived columns; he's an excellent writer with interesting perspectives, and he's always worth reading¹).


¹Except the cat columns. Don't bother with those unless you really like reading about cats.

[That's all, folks]