Successful conspiracies require means, motive and opportunity.

Successful conspiracy theories require only creative thinking about means, motive and opportunity. Conspiracy theorists have stock candidates for these components, and the mixing and matching need not be particularly imaginative for a new permutation to hit the meme market.

But successful conspiracy theories do have to find nourishment in a pre-existing mass psychosis. This makes them powerful cautionary tales—articulations of prejudices and fears that do not otherwise surface. And it makes them dangerous, because in the global democracy of ideas successful memes become historical facts.

The most successful recent conspiracy theory posits that the September 11 attacks were in fact orchestrated by Mossad, which warned 4,000 Jews not to go to work in the World Trade Center on the day of the attacks: A poll taken late February 2002 shows a good majority of citizens of predominantly Muslim countries now take it for the truth; less than one in five thinks Mohammed Atta et al did it, at least not without brainwashing help from Mossad.

Bear in mind that the idea being promoted can be only one of these three things:

A) A deliberate piece of disinformation planted by Osama Bin Laden’s ilk in the more extremist Muslim media, which in turn somehow manages the extraordinary feat of simultaneously applauding an act of violence against the United States that it insists was carried out by Israel’s secret service in order to set the US against Islam.

B) A slightly more benign version of (A), which borrows the concept of natural selection to the extent that a conspiracy theory can evolve from a spate of sloppy, tendentious reporting and Op-Ed pieces masquerading as fact.

C) A horrendously well-kept secret involving foreknowledge by thousands of talkative New York Jews who nevertheless managed not to blab to their goy husbands, wives and waspy work buddies until the crime was perpetrated, because all Jews represent a monolithic front of hatred against Muslims.

The means, motive and opportunity proffered for scenario C are simple. Mossad provides the means, because–like the CIA–it is commonly ascribed by its enemies with the godlike qualities of omniscience and omnipotence. The technologically illiterate have no means of differentiating science fact from science fiction; Scenario C requires 20 Manchurian Candidates ready to crash planes and an efficient means of tracking and secretly contacting 4,000 Jewish employees in the World Trade Center. How hard can that be if these agencies have satellites that read license plates?

The ascribed motive betrays severe prejudices against Jews, because a central assumption of the conspiracy theory is that a secret and silent mass of Jews would be willing to condone the killing of thousands of innocents in order to effect a hardening in US policy towards Muslim countries. You have to buy into the most virulent of anti-Semitic constructs before this becomes plausible. Yet often these are the only constructs available to citizens of countries whose governments and clergy have long gained currency at the expense of Judaism.

Even worse, a tendency to believe conspiracy theories may be a healthy instinct in countries where conspiracy is the modus operandi of rulers. Predominantly Muslim countries, on the whole, have not had transparent and democratic government, and often these local autocratic regimes have been propped up with the support of the West. If the house of Saud is underhanded in its grip on power, its Western backers are seen capable of the same by implication.

And as for opportunity, why not throw in a little cooperation between elements in the CIA and Mossad? After all, Jews, more than likely, have infiltrated the CIA. And surely the CIA would know which weaknesses in domestic security to exploit?

Enough. Why am I riled up? Because nothing good has ever come from a situation where a significant portion of the worlds population have had their capacity for rational thought so brutalized that they believe something so patently false.

The two immediate situations that come to mind are German and Austrian support for their Fuhrer, and Stalinism. But other mass “errors in judgment” litter history, all the more densely the further back you go: McCarthyism, the Dreyfus Affair, Catholic anti-Semitism, the Crusades…

[Wed, Apr 03 2002 – 08:57] Matthew (email) I have no idea what you’re talking about. Anyone?

[Wed, Apr 03 2002 – 23:21] Felix (www) (email) Nope…

[Thu, Apr 04 2002 – 19:32] Matthew (email) Hm. Guess that’s a consensus.

[Mon, Apr 08 2002 – 15:23] Charles Kenny (www) (email) But just think of all the ‘mass errors of judgement’ we don’t have. That the Lord of the Rings will sweep the Oscars, that Apple will win out because ot has the better user interface, that pints of beer will have less beer in them because you can’t count the head as part of the beer…

Your whiggish (who says a Peterhouse education is worth nowt) interpretation of history –that ‘errors in judgement’ are falling as we all realize the universal wonderfulness of some sort of soppy liberalism– seems contradicted by the very examples you suggest, four out of seven of which were in the last 60 years.

[Tue, Apr 09 2002 – 12:50] uppers (email) If you think about it, it says 2 things: 1) Arabs think they are all utterly crap, incapable of organising a pissup in a brewery, and that’s not just because they’re not supposed to drink. And 2) They have at heart a huge psychological disadvantage relative to the jews, who they think are capabable of any effortlessly amazing feat of ruthless daring. Poor Arabs. It must be miserable having such low self esteem.

Also, Stefanie, I thought it was murders that require means, motive and opportunity etc, not conspiracies. Silly boy. Conspiracies just require a couple of secretive people who are upset about something.

Charles, a Potato House education is in fact worth nothing, but I recognise your point: I would add belief in CND, the Labour Party of the 1980s, the benevolence of the Soviet Union and the efficacy of World Bank Aid in alleviating the poverty of anyone but its officers, as other examples of these popular delusions.