Morphology
This is revisiting the same subject as last post, creating a hierarchy.
Barkun gives us a pretty bare bones but essential categorization of CTs. His hierarchy lists three different categories: Event, Systemic, and Super. Each category builds off of the previous one. An event CT revolves around a singular event and is roughly encapsulated within that event. If a person thinks that a shooting was really a false flag and ends it there, it's an event CT.
A systemic CT is one that links different events, involves a conspirator(s) with an involved plan, and a goal that necessitates the events in question. To link it with our previous example: if that person then continued on by saying that all mass shootings are false flags in some poorly thought out plan to reduce gun ownership we would have a systemic CT.
The super CT is global. It involves a group that controls world events, has a dedicated hierarchy and a some kind of plan that would likely be to strengthen its world domination scheme. Usually these kinds of CTs involve a list of secret societies whose usual suspects include: the Illuminati, Deep State, Freemasons, Rothchilds, Tri-Lateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, International Bankers, or some kind of anti-Semitic Jewish Conspiracy. To continue our example, if a person then describes all mass shootings as false flags by the Illuminati so that they can attain their New World Order plan then we are definitely dealing with a Super CT.
Barkun's categories I think are lacking in one category, that which I've termed "Meta-CT." The Meta-CT is the CT in which nothing is actually real, as far as we know. These would upend not only our explanations of history and science, but are very notions of reality as well. Our examples here would include the Flat Earth explanations of what the world really is (that we either live in a dome with the sky projected on it or that the disk of the Earth is careening through the Cosmos), David Icke's version of "reality" where 4th dimensional lizard people (not time but a different fourth dimension) control the fate of the world in order to steal our mono-atomic gold, and Time Cube, which I can't even begin to understand. In our test case, we would then have the Conspiracist claim that the shootings didn't happen, they happened in our perspective but only because reality was being manipulated by the real power in the world. It's hard to even explain the example because I feel like I'm just "taking the piss" but I've read and heard enough of this stuff to know that there's largely no discernible difference between making fun of some of these theories and actually repeating them. (my students laugh when I explain the flat earth but I tell them that I'm being serious)
The issue at stake here is, at what point do we get to stop listening to the theorist? For Dentith's particularist position it's unclear and I think that is a problem. His claim (from a few posts ago) is that we have an obligation, in the interest of intellectual honesty, to listen to any theory that someone proposes before we can reject it on merit. So let's take a real conspiracy example: The Titanic.
The Titanic was famously the largest maritime disaster in history. The ship itself was one of three that were all described as unsinkable. In fact, its sister ship the Olympic collided with the HMS Hawke, a "protected cruiser," which means that its bow was armored for the specific point of colliding with enemy ships; and the Olympic suffered damage but it didn't sink.
There are two theories regarding the sinking of the Titanic, one is that it never happened. The second was sabotage in order to collect insurance money. This theory is that the Titanic was switched with the still damaged Olympic, the Olympic actually sunk and JP Morgan (a part owner of the White Star Line) collected the money. If someone proposed this to you it would be an Event CT. You could make a couple arguments against this: that the insurance settlement wouldn't have been enough, too many people would have to be involved, the financial motive collapses when you factor in the damage to reputation of the shipping line would cause a loss of future customers; and that's before getting into the specific forensic problem of the two ships not looking alike.
The Particularist might deem the theory explained enough to be able to dismiss it here, and I would like that to be the case. However, the logical extension of their theory means that they would need to continue listening as the theory moves beyond Event and into Systemic wherein the theorist argues that the ship was sunk also to kill the three men planning on voting against the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank. With the death of Benjamin Guggenheim, Isa Strauss, and Jacob Astor; the Fed was created and now functions as a money machine (not at all but this is the theory) for the elite.
Done yet? No, because the theorist continues explaining how the elites run the world and that American economic policy is under control of these elites which effectively controls the world markets and probably the world bank, the IMF, and whatever else they can throw out there. This would then blend seamlessly into Icke's theory since he's all about the gold for some reason and has a real bone to pick with how banking works.
My contention is that we ought to be able to cut this person's claims out at the foundation by only considering the event that the rest of the theory is built on. Yet because the explanation continues. If our obligation is to consider the theory before rejection then we would be compelled to listen all the way to the conspiracist explaining that the Titanic sunk on the meridian line of the Time Cube. This I don't think is viable position to hold.
Barkun gives us a pretty bare bones but essential categorization of CTs. His hierarchy lists three different categories: Event, Systemic, and Super. Each category builds off of the previous one. An event CT revolves around a singular event and is roughly encapsulated within that event. If a person thinks that a shooting was really a false flag and ends it there, it's an event CT.
A systemic CT is one that links different events, involves a conspirator(s) with an involved plan, and a goal that necessitates the events in question. To link it with our previous example: if that person then continued on by saying that all mass shootings are false flags in some poorly thought out plan to reduce gun ownership we would have a systemic CT.
The super CT is global. It involves a group that controls world events, has a dedicated hierarchy and a some kind of plan that would likely be to strengthen its world domination scheme. Usually these kinds of CTs involve a list of secret societies whose usual suspects include: the Illuminati, Deep State, Freemasons, Rothchilds, Tri-Lateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, International Bankers, or some kind of anti-Semitic Jewish Conspiracy. To continue our example, if a person then describes all mass shootings as false flags by the Illuminati so that they can attain their New World Order plan then we are definitely dealing with a Super CT.
Barkun's categories I think are lacking in one category, that which I've termed "Meta-CT." The Meta-CT is the CT in which nothing is actually real, as far as we know. These would upend not only our explanations of history and science, but are very notions of reality as well. Our examples here would include the Flat Earth explanations of what the world really is (that we either live in a dome with the sky projected on it or that the disk of the Earth is careening through the Cosmos), David Icke's version of "reality" where 4th dimensional lizard people (not time but a different fourth dimension) control the fate of the world in order to steal our mono-atomic gold, and Time Cube, which I can't even begin to understand. In our test case, we would then have the Conspiracist claim that the shootings didn't happen, they happened in our perspective but only because reality was being manipulated by the real power in the world. It's hard to even explain the example because I feel like I'm just "taking the piss" but I've read and heard enough of this stuff to know that there's largely no discernible difference between making fun of some of these theories and actually repeating them. (my students laugh when I explain the flat earth but I tell them that I'm being serious)
The issue at stake here is, at what point do we get to stop listening to the theorist? For Dentith's particularist position it's unclear and I think that is a problem. His claim (from a few posts ago) is that we have an obligation, in the interest of intellectual honesty, to listen to any theory that someone proposes before we can reject it on merit. So let's take a real conspiracy example: The Titanic.
The Titanic was famously the largest maritime disaster in history. The ship itself was one of three that were all described as unsinkable. In fact, its sister ship the Olympic collided with the HMS Hawke, a "protected cruiser," which means that its bow was armored for the specific point of colliding with enemy ships; and the Olympic suffered damage but it didn't sink.
There are two theories regarding the sinking of the Titanic, one is that it never happened. The second was sabotage in order to collect insurance money. This theory is that the Titanic was switched with the still damaged Olympic, the Olympic actually sunk and JP Morgan (a part owner of the White Star Line) collected the money. If someone proposed this to you it would be an Event CT. You could make a couple arguments against this: that the insurance settlement wouldn't have been enough, too many people would have to be involved, the financial motive collapses when you factor in the damage to reputation of the shipping line would cause a loss of future customers; and that's before getting into the specific forensic problem of the two ships not looking alike.
The Particularist might deem the theory explained enough to be able to dismiss it here, and I would like that to be the case. However, the logical extension of their theory means that they would need to continue listening as the theory moves beyond Event and into Systemic wherein the theorist argues that the ship was sunk also to kill the three men planning on voting against the formation of the Federal Reserve Bank. With the death of Benjamin Guggenheim, Isa Strauss, and Jacob Astor; the Fed was created and now functions as a money machine (not at all but this is the theory) for the elite.
Done yet? No, because the theorist continues explaining how the elites run the world and that American economic policy is under control of these elites which effectively controls the world markets and probably the world bank, the IMF, and whatever else they can throw out there. This would then blend seamlessly into Icke's theory since he's all about the gold for some reason and has a real bone to pick with how banking works.
My contention is that we ought to be able to cut this person's claims out at the foundation by only considering the event that the rest of the theory is built on. Yet because the explanation continues. If our obligation is to consider the theory before rejection then we would be compelled to listen all the way to the conspiracist explaining that the Titanic sunk on the meridian line of the Time Cube. This I don't think is viable position to hold.
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