Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Beyoncé is Correct: “Y’all Haters Corny with that Illuminati Mess”
As everyone knows, one of the things that is expressly forbidden here at Ricochet is trafficking in conspiracy theories. Beyoncé herself takes the “haters” and conspiracy theorists to task in her most recent video. Case closed, obviously.
But what makes people believe in these kinds of things? Why do people insist on vast conspiracies, whether they’re “right wing” ones (thanks, Hillary!) or the “new world order” direct from the Trilateral Commission? (Don’t click on the second link, by the way … Life is too short.)
What’s the source of the pathology? From Boing Boing:
A study by Jennifer Whitson and Adam Galinsky from the University of Texas found a correlation between a belief in superstitions and conspiracies and a sense of helplessness about your own life and your ability to steer it.
Which found, unsurprisingly, that people who felt their lives and destinies were out of control were more likely to see plots and conspiracies elsewhere. If you have zero control over your own life, you tend to assume that someone else must have it. But if you feel like you have some control and agency, you realize how random and chaotic the world can be.
So how does a therapist treat this? Here’s what they did:
So a lack of control not only affects our perceptions, but our actions too. What happens if you restore control? Will that reduce one’s propensity for seeing false patterns? To find out, Whitson and Galinsky asked volunteers to remember events where they had control or lacked it, and tested their tendency for see shapes in snowy images, and for believing conspiracy theories. This time, however, some of the volunteers were given a chance just before the tasks to complete a questionnaire on a value that was very important to them.
Studies have found that this sort of self-affirming exercise can help to counteract feelings of helplessness of distress, so the duo reasoned that it should go some way toward negating the tendency to see patterns brought on by a lack of control. And that’s exactly what happened – compared to volunteers who went straight into the tasks, those who remembered lacking control but had a chance to affirm their closely-held values were less likely to see patterns in snowy images or conspiracies in everyday events. Their behaved in the same way as volunteers who had thought about being in control in the first place.
That’s all you have to do for the conspiracy theorists in your life: Just remind them that they’re powerful and in control and help them connect with moments in their lives when they had the most personal agency.
It would work with Hillary. And it would work with people who see everything in terms of the all-powerful Republican “Establishment.”
Published in Politics
We all know that the Amish are pawns of the greater Quaker conspiracy.
C’mon…. The Amish work for the Jesuits…everybody knows that.
Ek,
Do any of the Amish or the Jesuits look or sound like Jerry Lewis? This is important!!
Regards,
Jim
Who needs conspiracies when actual history is just as improbable?
In 1776 a small group of landowners and pub crawlers decided to steal a good chunk of an entire continent from the most powerful empire at the time. Yeah, sure
two bicycle mechanics from Ohio build the first heavier than air craft and started an industry. Right.
A large banker loaned the US government money to keep it solvent. Tell me another one.
TK,
Did any of those guys look or sound like Jerry Lewis? C’mon TK don’t lie to me!
Regards,
Jim
Where can I get a colander like that? And is there a cold-weather version with earflaps?
Rob,
Listen I’m just trying to warn you! He spreads chaos and discord wherever he goes. If you frighten easily don’t watch this.
There didn’t I tell you.
Regards,
Jim
Needs a visor.
And those spindly things on top are gonna snap off the first time someone whacks you in the bean.
There’s a rent-controlled apartment building in Jim’s head and Jerry Lewis is in apartment 2B.
Oh come on. You’ve just bought into their brain control (aka monotheism). I have visual proof – proof I say! – which I will show you. Later. If they don’t get me first…
Did Squish Central tell you to say this?
Pen,
Oh sure, oh sure you say it’s all in my head. This could happen to you.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Regards,
Jim
I vacillate between believing this and being cocksure that they are trying to wreck America.
My brother is one. I’m starting to think that there are baked and ossified conspiracy theories, about which what you and Rob say is true, but that there are also incipient ones, elsewhere on a continuum, that most people would still scoff at as though they were the same thing, but which may or may not end up baked like the first type.
Currently available on Amazon’s streaming service:
Netflix is streaming Zeitgeist: The Movie, a conspiracy rant made by a member of Occupy Wall Street.
Is there any major media platform that would make itself available for a far-right “documentary” that accused Democratic figures of such things?
“Is there any major media platform that would make itself available for a far-right “documentary” that accused Democratic figures of such things?”
Netflix. They like money. And they need content.
Jews are behind everything: the banks, the media (both popular and news (and “news”)), and, like, other stuff. They’ve even started to take direct control! Look at the evidence and see for yourself:
Jewish Reggae? That’s a thing? Like Kingston Rosenbaum? Oy irie vey, mon!
Good grief … it is a thing.
What’s next? Nordic Klezmer? Buddhist Bebop? Eastern Country & Western? Qawwali Rhythm & Blues?
♫♪ Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be swamis … ♫♪
Way to go, TRF. You broke my brain.
Yet another Jew plot.
Exactly right. In my profession, Kennedy conspiracy theories are a constant annoyance.
For Leftists, undermining America is not a conspiracy, it’s a consensus.
If you think a Jewish reggae singer is bad, check this out.
Carey,
Finally, somebody who understands. Carey, I’m telling you we are in danger great danger.
Regards,
Jim
And did you hear the one about landing men on the moon? Please..
Every distributive coalition is a conspiracy against the public interest. Every coalition of coalitions is a larger conspiracy and so on. So we believe in them because they exist. Cliques, gangs, HOAs, professional associations, bars, boards, they are all conspiracies. But few can keep secrets and they are most often built on narrow communities of interests. The biggest and most extensive are the political parties which are vast coalitions of conspiracies. All conspiracies are wracked by cliques and conspiracies within them and so on down until we reach individuals who also conspire.
Well … Who is the individual spiring con (breathing with)? (But, maybe I’m being a pedantic Grammar Nazi.)
It’s all Mancur Olsen, and it begins with the individual economic man making trade offs in this head and juices in a world of scarcity. Is that grammar or trying to see how deep the turtles go?
I guess you could have a whole platoon in there:
There was a young man who said, “Though,
It seems that I know that I know,
What I would like to see,
Is the I that knows me,
When I know that I know that I know.”
STOP THE PRESSES!
I have just learned the truth. I will post it here in image form, since They can’t track it so easy.