Some Call It Conspiracy Theory, Part 2

Some Call It Conspiracy Theory, Part 2

 Iain Davis

In Part 1 we contrasted the popular misconceptions about so-called “conspiracy theorists” with the well-grounded demographic research done on the individuals who, collectively, have had that pejorative label slapped on them. The demographic research reveals that there is no such thing as an identifiable group of people who can legitimately be called “conspiracy theorists.”

The research also finds no credible evidence that people branded “conspiracy theorists” are prone to hold extremist views or have underlying psychological problems or pose a threat to democracy. These claims are all canards levelled against anyone who questions the Establishment and the power it has amassed.

We noted that political scientist Joseph Uscinski, who is perhaps the foremost scientist in the field of “conspiracy theory” research, cited the work of philosopher Neil Levy as a “simple and consistent standard” by which academics could “demarcate between conspiracy theory and [real or “concrete”] conspiracy.”

Professor Levy’s “simple and consistent standard” was first outlined in his article “Radically Socialized Knowledge and Conspiracy Theories.” In it, he pointed out that “conspiracies are common features of social and political life, common enough that refusing to believe in their existence would leave us unable to understand the contours of our world.” Levy therefore proposed that academics need a way to differentiate between the rational acceptance of acknowledged conspiracies and the supposedly irrational claims made by people who suspect conspiracies that haven’t been officially approved for discussion.

Levy suggested that “[r]esponsible believers ought to accept explanations offered by properly constituted epistemic authorities.” As we explained in Part 1, he defined the epistemic authorities as:

[. . .] the distributed network of knowledge claim gatherers and testers that includes engineers and politics professors, security experts and journalists.

In his listing of “journalists” as epistemic authorities, Levy was almost certainly referring to journalists who work in the state controlled or corporate-owned legacy media (LM), not to journalists in the independent media, who are frequently labelled conspiracy theorists.

Independent media is broadly defined as:

. . .] news media that is free from influence by the government or other external sources like corporations or influential people.

Similarly, in Levy’s view, only the “right” scientists and engineers are welcomed as “epistemic authorities.” For example, he categorically stated:

Few responsible intellectuals reject the explanation of 9/11 that cites the conspiratorial actions of a group of terrorists under the direction of Osama Bin Laden[.] [. . .] [M]ost of us have little doubt that it is true.

Dr. Leroy Hulsey, a now-retired professor and department head of structural engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, led a multi-year study in which he and his team of engineer PhDs examined the structural collapse of World Trade Centre 7 (WTC 7). The conclusions they arrived at in their peer-reviewed report thoroughly contradicted the official 9/11 narrative. It seems unlikely that Prof. Levy would consider Dr. Hulsey to be a responsible intellectual or an “epistemic authority.”

In his article, Levy opined that allegedly irrational “conspiracy theorists” could be identified by virtue of the fact that they disagree with the properly constituted epistemic authorities. Therefore, he claimed, their arguments and any evidence they presented should be dismissed. He wrote:

[K]nowing that a proffered explanation conflicts with the official story (where, once again, the relevant authorities are epistemic) is enough for us rationally to reject the alternative.

But there is nothing “rational” about rejecting an explanation simply because it is offered by people with whom you disagree.

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