Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

I know that last week I said I was going to skip the very long introduction, though I did also say that there were some bits that needed to be explained...so we're going to cover the entire 40-page introduction in this post. There are some points that need to be covered as I think it gives us some insight into the author himself. One of my academic interests in this subject is how people got into it. What motivates a person to wake up one day and accept the conspiracy world as true. With Robison and Allen before him; the motivating factor seems to be a loss of control over the world. Not personal control but the shifting of the status quo for which they enjoyed an elevated position. In both works, the authors try their best to explain how it is that the world had changed around them and both blame it on nefarious controllers. So, with Cooper, it's going to be more interesting (hopefully).  The first 20 pages are a family history which is just biographical. It's not that int...

Well, we did it. It took us nine months, but we have closed the back cover on the first book to warn us of the dangers of a private club of 18th-century skeptics. So what did we learn? Well, we learned that conspiracy theory books are pretty much the same throughout time. Remember this is the first book to call the Illuminati out and it reads like a slightly better-written version of the books that get popped out today. This is an interesting difference because Robison doesn't have access to the vocabulary or the concepts that we do. Otherwise, there isn't a substantial difference other than the historical references that peppered Gary Allen's book. Yet they are still arguing against the same thing, the encroachment of "liberalism." The funny thing about that is Allen would be Robison's enemy, I don't think that Allen would understand Robison's complaints. As much as I dislike Gary Allen's book and the ideas of the John Birch Society, I don't t...

" Nor can it be said that these are vain fears. We know that the enemy is working among us, and that there are many appearances in these kingdoms which strongly resemble the contrivance of this dangerous Association." It's nice that it cannot be said that this is the case. It isn't exactly a vain fear, the fear that Robison has is without a warrant, but his fear is not the Illuminati. The fear is that the world is changing around him and he can't accept it. The fear is that the world is now more literate than it has ever been and new ideas are being tossed around that aren't the orthodoxy that he grew up with. Yes, Robison has a real fear, but the vanity is in thinking that the Illuminati are out there trying to target him.  For once we actually get a name of a book that is widely available even now, Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason." Here's what Robison claims about the book, " Till Paine's Age of Reason appeared, the most sceptical wr...

 In this post, I'm left with a weird choice. I could power through to the end of the book and just say, "boom we're done." In fact, that's what I planned to do, but the conclusion isn't wrapping up the way I thought it was going to. Robison is writing a proper conclusion, not a call to arms like his conspiracy theorist progeny. He's plodding through the points that he thinks  he's made throughout the work and then gives what he feels is the proper observation. The problem I have is that there isn't much new here to say, and this conclusion is over forty pages (by the pdf) long. I'm not willing to trudge back through the conclusion like I'm playing Halo 3; however, it's also a disservice to the readers who have been with me for this entire book. So, we'll break this down into two posts, with a third post being the wrap-up for the entire book.  I'm also going to skip over his retread unless there's something I've noticed o...

We're back from grading, more grading; and then the murder storm that felled my city (Buffalo). We left off beginning Robison's conclusion. Way back in the beginning of this project I mentioned how refreshing it was to read Robison. This is because I had just come off of Gary Allen's book, and to remind old readers--reading conspiracy theories is my profession. Robison's work, I found at the time, to be surprisingly coherent. His work was focused, he began a chapter to discuss the Illuminati and that's what the chapter was about. His problem is that he relies on the reader to draw connections between the disparate groups that he mentions. The events, the people, the letters...so many letters; all dance around a subject because he doesn't have the information which connects these things. However, the writing quality itself isn't bad. For the most part, he's competent but then in other parts he's very good. It's a level of quality that we don't...

 Again, no update this week. Grading week is upon me. We'll be back next week to hopefully wrap this book up. 

The final chapter begins, and it's going to be full of some navel gazing nonsense. The ultimate problem with this final chapter is that it is going to be conclusion and the conclusion should do a few things. In this book what it should do summarize the story that Robison thinks he's been telling. Before I dive into his conclusion let me summarize the story that he thinks he's communicated thus far:  Robison is claiming that in Europe there has been a group which has infiltrated all of Masonry. Their existence is so subtle that when you ask any Mason, they have no idea what you are talking about, but this group is twisting Masonry to its own end. That end is the destruction of Christian Europe. To accomplish this: they had to infiltrate Masonry in order to find a lodge that was amenable to this kind of plot. Once that was established this particular lodge gave birth to the Illuminati. Which was the same kind of thing only now it wasn't as secret. Once the Illuminati were...