Thursday, October 23, 2003
Via Mike in the comments:
The following is a spell-binding tale of conspiracy-threory and narrow escape.
Blackfive - The Paratrooper of Love: Me and My Muslim Friends Neighbors
Me: "Come on. Do they control your family's restaurant? Do they control your alderman? Mayor Daley?"
Masood's older brother: "They want nothing to do but destroy us. My restaurant does well inspite of their attempts with the Mayor and lobbying the Congress to discriminate against Muslims. You Christians just never see it."
Masood, surprising the hell out of me, was nodding his head in agreement: "Just like 9-11."
Me: "What?"
Masood: "Just like 9-11 where the Mossad flew planes into buildings."
WTF?!...
Read the whole thing. "BlackFive's" friend isn't an ignorant guy - quite the opposite. He's highly educated and intelligent, but he believes in the craziest conspiracy-theories out there, and he's surrounded by those who believe the same.
Conspiracy theory and other odd belief (of which a certain form of anti-Semitism is a sub-set), is not the exclusive domain of the uneducated. There's a certain wishful-thinking that it's only ignorance that breeds odd beliefs that seem to fly in the face of objective evidence, but the above link will give one a shining example of the incorrectness of that hope.
BlackFive's friend is a highly-educated and intelligent guy, yet he's right in lock-step with all those around him who believe the weirdest anti-Semitic theories - from the Jews control City Hall to the Mossad knocked down the World Trade Center. Hell, even some of the smartest people believe the craziest things. Conspiracy-theory epidemics are known to spread like wild-fire in soil made fertile for them by cultural conditions conducive to their spread. Witness the spread of urban legends in the inner-city.
So how do you stop the spread of crazy ideas? Education and reasonable engagement alone won't work. You've got to undertake a long-term project of changing the underlying conditions that spread crazy beliefs. The liberation of Iraq is just the very, very start of that work for change.
In the case of anti-Semitism, I'm not optimistic. It is the world's oldest hatred, after all. And besides, how do you fit a couple billion people on the psychiatrist's couch?
