Saturday, June 30, 2007

Conspiracy Theories

Louis Black, of the Austin Chronicle, writes regarding the nature of conspiracy theorists. I have been following the these guys for sometime, and even I was impressed with his analysis. You can find it here and here. An excerpt:

One of the major strategies of those writing in response to my last column has been to invite me to engage in a debate over the "facts" of 9/11. This seems more than reasonable, except that it isn't. Debating a theorist on details is neither a debate nor a discussion. It is the act of the theorist educating you about your own complacent blindness. Theorists know they have the truth. Any detail that vaguely supports their position is true. They discredit and discount sources and experts that disagree with them. They know acres of minor details with which they will happily overwhelm you, losing the forest for the trees, if not also losing the trees for the trees, as well.