Why Conspiracy Theories Are Like Religion

On the night of the 2000 US Presidential election, when it was decided that the race was going to be too close to call, Vice-President Al Gore called Governor George W. Bush and retracted his withdrawal from the race.

'You're calling me back to retract your concession..?' said Bush

'There's no need to get snippy about it,' said Gore.

That’s right, he said ‘snippy’; two of the most powerful people in the world, vying to be the most powerful person in the world, couldn’t help but devolve into bickering twelve year-olds.

There’s something reassuring about the idea that those in power are so much more capable than us common folk, and for good reason. As Jacob Weisberg of Slate pointed out last week, we as a general populace aren’t too bright… look at any poll and you’ll see a populace that supports deep spending cuts, while simultaneously lobbying for increases in spending programs… most want stricter restrictions on financial institutions, while at the same time demanding regulations on businesses be lifted. In the United States, almost half of the public wants out of the Obama stimulus package, while over eighty-percent want to spend more money on roads, bridges, and other types of infrastructure… in other words, exactly what’s in the Obama stimulus package.

Turns out we’re no smarter than those parents from that Simpsons episode where the PTA disbands.

(Forward to 2:40... or just watch the whole thing and soak in the awesomeness)

No wonder nothing in government can get done; if they’re representing the people, and the people have no idea what they want, how are they supposed to act?

Which is why it can be so inviting to believe in conspiracy theories; it would be nice to think that someone somewhere knows what’s really going on. A few months ago a random customer in a coffee shop came up to me and asked me my opinion on who was behind the September 11th attacks…

Umm Al Qaeda..? I replied

He and his friend gave each other a knowing look, as if to say, “another sucker…”, before launching into a diatribe regarding those they believed to be really responsible (which by the way includes everyone from the world government, to the Illuminati)… the thing that struck me most while they went down the list of super-powerful suspects, was that their tone was almost hopeful. It’s comforting to think that there are people out there with some sort of plan, even if the ultimate goal is to do us all harm; that’s certainly easier to swallow than what does rule our world… out and complete, self-interested chaos.

Check out this article from last month’s New York Times citing the reasons behind Microsoft’s inability to keep up with Apple’s innovation. What the author (a former vice-president at Microsoft) observed, wasn’t some scheming multibillion dollar hegemon bent on world domination, but a company struggling with infighting, jealousy, a lack of clear direction, and an inability to anticipate what’s happening ten minutes from now, let alone ten years from now. In other words, despite the fact that they’re one of the most successful businesses in human history, they’re no better at predicting the future than they are trying to mould it.

Or what about the corporate bogeyman that’s taken centre stage since the great economic collapse, A.I.G.? Doesn’t A.I.G.’s fall show that just like Microsoft, or the government, or the very public as a whole, are all too incompetent to have control over anything.

Check out this great article by Michael Lewis for Vanity Fair, in which he dissects the cause of the great financial implosion of 2008. Was there some sort of great master plan in play? Nope, A.I.G. just happened to hire the wrong guy at the wrong time. Joe Cassano, the son of working class parents, and a political science grad from Brooklyn College became head of A.I.G. almost by default. Once in charge, he refused to take advice, bullied those who disagreed with him out of a job, and despite his lack of mathematical knowledge, liked to impose his own financial models on the traders that worked beneath him. So how did such a man of such limited means get such a powerful position?

Hank Greenberg, the C.E.O. of A.I.G… proposed Joe to replace him,” says Greenberg, “and we had no reason to think he wasn’t able to do the job.”

A.I.G. F.P.’s employees for their part suspect that the only reason Greenberg promoted Cassano was that he saw in him a pale imitation of his own tyrannical self and felt he could control him. “So long as Greenberg was there, it worked,” says one trader, “because he watched everything Joe did. After the Nikkei collapsed [in the 1990s], a trader in Japan lost 20 million. Greenberg personally flew to Tokyo and took him into a room and grilled him until he was satisfied.” In March 2005, however, Eliot Spitzer forced Greenberg to resign. And, as one trader puts it, “the new guys running A.I.G. had no idea.” They thought the money machine ran on its own, and Cassano did nothing to discourage the view. By 2005, A.I.G. F.P. was indeed, in effect, his company.

In other words, a few inflated egos and short-sighted decisions not only levelled the company, but the global economy too; interesting from a Shakespearean perspective, but a lot less romantic than some shadow government, or global conspiracy, don’t you think?

In the end, we’d all like to believe that there’s some sort of rationality to the madness going on around us… whether it be caused by an all knowing God, corporation, government, or shadowy network involving all three (thank you Da Vinci Code.) Unfortunately, the truth can be a lot less reassuring. Sometimes all it takes to turn the world upside down are a few crazy people in a plane, or an overwhelmed C.E.O… and maybe that’s why we’d wish it weren't so easy.