Princess Di or Princess Murdered?

In The Independent, Frank Furedi gets to the secret heart of the official Princess Di investigations:

The public's scepticism towards the official version of events surrounding Diana's death is the result of a profound sense of distrust in conventional authority. We live in an age of rumours where official facts often carry little more authority than an internet site devoted to alien abduction. Indeed we are increasingly cynical about the official "version of events" precisely because it is official.

In a review of Daniel Pipes' Conspiracy: How the Paranoid Style Flourishes and Where It Comes From, Reason's Charles Paul Freund dug deep into the conspiracist mindset.

[Link via Arts & Letters Daily]

Comments

[will]

i don't know where all these conspiracies come from, but the economist has had enough of them. (i think that's a premium link, sorry.)

[Jussi H]

Diana pissed off the Queen by dumping Charles and threatening to ?out? him (or something).The vengeful Elisabet II ordered that MI6 rub her out.(I'm assuming she was killed by someone with a halfway sane motive - therefore,86 Bill Clinton,Mossad).

The secret agents,somehow knowing beforehand which route Diana's Merc would take through Paris,sent an agent in a puny Fiat to push her car off the road.Alternatively,Diana's driver was actually on a suicide mission (this seems to be Mohammed al-Fayed's reasoning).

Problems:1)there's like,no evidence that it was anything but an accident.
2)The Queen has no power over Britain's secret services.Or anything else.The Prime Minister does.Tony Blair,why'd you do it?
3)The French.Why would they cooperate?

OK,so what's your point?

The point is,conspiracy theories shouldn't be used to explain shit.Either you have proof of the conspiracy,or not.Pulling one out to explain unpleasant happenings is kooky.If one thinks that Tony Blair can order a hit on Princess Diana,that agents in British government will carry out the pointless murder of a beloved royal,instead of calling Sun,that the French government will help cover it up.. ..then one is truly on the way to kook-land.

And once you convince yourself of one conspiracy theory,it is easier to swallow others,no matter how delusional.

[Jason Ligon]

Conspiracies are a great way for people who feel marginalized to make themselves special. It is no different from 10 year olds having a club with membership rites. Say the secret word, Trilateral Commission, and we may let you in the treehouse, where we do Important Things.

They are a great way to be able to mock everyone around you for not understanding the REAL truth without ever having to come up with a single shred of evidence for anything you assert. It is one area in which each person has the power to be unassailably correct. In a perverse kind of social event, tribes form around arbitrary conspiracies, and certain vocal people become the Law Givers of the tribe. They may even get published. Nomination to Law Giver is based on one's ability to market the conspiracy, and has less than nothing to do with the conspiracy's correspondence to the real world.

They are a great way to demonize anyone you don't happen to agree with by making them no mere ideological adversaries, but part of a Great Evil.

They are a great way to fulfill the human need to create abstract meaning. People become emotionally invested in these things that originally served as fortresses for their fragile egos, but eventually become a way to express creativity by rearranging the patterns in new ways.

I might be related to a few of these folks ...

[Shultz]

"The public's scepticism towards the official version of events surrounding Diana's death is the result of a profound sense of distrust in conventional authority."

It often seems to be the case that when someone in the press finds that their story is met with a bit of scepticism, the skeptics are dismissed as "paranoids" with a "conspiracist mindset".

"Paranoid" suggests that these people don't have a reason to doubt what they read, but that isn't the case with our news sources. Look at your local paper's business section on any given day, and I bet you'll find at least three ideas, presented as gospel, that, if believed, would flunk you out of ECON 101.

Have we already forgotten Jayson Blair?

I'm glad there are still people able to think critically and doubt what they read. I wish this kind of skepticism would spread from merely questioning the "conventional authority" of our news sources to questioning the honesty of our politicians and their policies.

If I pointed out that that's what the conventional press is supposed to be doing, would you call me a conspiracy theorist?

P.S. No, I don't think this shiny hat will protect me from alien mind reading technology. I just like the way it looks.

[junyo]

...that's just what they want you to think!

[Jason Ligon]

There is a distinction between skepticism and conspiracy theory.

There is not much of creativity in being a skeptic. A skeptical approach to a story is simply not to accept it at face value. Critical to being a skeptic is the analysis of sources of information and one's own inclinations toward belief, and at the end of the day, it just means saying "I don't know."

Conspiracy theory begins with a creative act. It is the creation of a story, followed by a plea to be skeptical of the official version but not the version just created by the conspiracy theorist.

Case in point - UFO abductions. The positions held by skeptics and true believers are not comparable. One asks us not to trust the government, but to trust THEM because they are privy to secret knowledge. The other is an appeal to empiricism that says, "I don't know for sure, but probably X."

[dhex]

i really like the idea of conspiracy theory as a form of reality-relationship artistic expression.

that's probably just the fluoride talking, though.

[twistedmerkin]

It seems clear to me, from reading the above comments, that Jason Ligon is in cahoots with *them*.

[Andrew]

Conspiracy theories function a little differently in democratic and non-democratic societies. The most dismaying cesspool of conspiracy-thinking on the planet today is the Arab world, where no population is enfrancised. Information, both real and spurious, flows-- thanks to the Internet, more than ever-- but people can't DO anything about it.

What would happen if the masses were empowered abruptly? For a time, you would have to assume that they would vote their pre-formed paranoid political beliefs...and this makes you wonder whether democracy would enjoy enough of a span for those beliefs to be eroded in the give and take of political debate. (One Man-- One Vote-- One Time).

I don't know. I am inclined to gamble on democracy. Let us gamble on early elections in Iraq. Make a shiite administration responsible for security. Same with Algeria-- another generation of FLN rule isn't going to solve anything there.

African democracies came and went-- now they are back. Neo-communist parties won big in Eastern Europe-- so what? The swing to the left in Latin America is no big deal either-- those leftish governments, and the voters behind them, will get an education in reality.

[Justin Raimondo]

Too bad the reviewer of Daniel Pipes's polemic doesn't examine his own conspiracy theory, which involves a worldwide Muslim conspiracy against "democracy." But I guess that would be out of bounds.

Of COURSE there are no conspiracies: it's just an ACCIDENT that we're on the verge of seeing the Bill of Rights repealed, that a President who campaigned for a "humbler" foreign policy is invading the world, and that all those "facts" about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq turned out to be lies based on forgeries and BS.

And as for all those Israeli "art students" who were poking around the U.S., sticking their noses into secure government offices -- hey, what are you, one of those nutty conspiracy theorists?!

There's nothing to see here, so move along ...

[Jason Ligon]

Justin,

What is really depressing is that you found your arguments in support of a conspiracy to be persuasive enough to post.

Civil liberties are under attack as they have historically been when the nation as a whole feels threatened. There is no conspiracy to destroy the constitution, there is a urge to 'do something' to appease a concerned conservative base. I find it hard to believe that you can look and look but not find any possible factors for a president to adopt a more aggressive foreign policy than the one he campaigned on.

You don't have evidence of conspiracy, you have evidence of policies that arise from values different from your own.

I don't agree with many policies of this administration, but it is a bit childish to blame in on a Zionist Conspiracy to Take Over the World!!!!

[stubby]

Jason points out something about conspiracy theories, and conspirace theory mongers, that really bugs me. They'd have me think I shouldn't believe what I read in the paper or hear from the government, but I am supposed to accept whatever Tinfoil Hat Wearer X is pushing. I am, I believe, properly sceptical of everything I read and hear, and I make it a point to get my news and information from more than one source. (Plus I'm pretty confident of my own superior intellect, of course). But most of the conspiracy pushers I run across, whether in person or in cyberspace, don't exactly impress me with their reasoning or their reasonableness, you know?

I know a hairdresser who is gay (which has nothing to do with his fondness for conspiracy theories) and a drug addict (which I think has a lot to do with it). He doesn't own a TV (drugs cost money), his roommate has a computer but he (the hairdresser) thinks the Internet is just one big sales scam (although he recently opined that it looks like it's "catching on"), he never reads the newspaper, but he knows - because he's been told by people he trusts - that the Bush administration is planning to install a military dictatorship and they're going to imprison gay people. And that's just the start of their nefariousness (no, he didn't use the word "nefariousness"). And he pities me for being so gullible as not to believe this. This is no different than the uncle who believes we should have guns buried on our property against the day the US government, in thrall to the UN, comes to take us away. A friend of mine who used to work for the UN is always asking me to repeat this story for him - nothing makes him giggle like the idea of the UN taking over anything, including the UN.

On a related note, anytime anyone uses the word "sheeple", I automatically switch that person off. I just can't help it.

[Shultz]

Fascinating post Justin...just a couple observations.

1. Suggesting that any particular point of policy or act of injustice will inevitably lead to the repeal of the Bill of Rights is so obviously a slippery slope fallacy that...it's hardly worth responding to.

2. Believing that Saddam's WMD was a lie, " based on forgeries and BS" requires us to ignore the facts, i.e., he had them, he used them on civilians, he kicked UN weapons inspectors out in '98 because they found them, etc.

[stubby]

sorry - me again - I have to add something. Some peoples' belief in conspiracy theories seems religious to me. I grew up in a devoutly religious (Christian) environment, and a lot of people I mixed with viewed every act, every event, as if it were personally caused by God. When good things happened, it was a sign of divine approval; bad things were an indication of divine displeasure. I'm still a Christian, but I find that way of looking at life to be simplistic, to put it mildly. It leaves no room for accidents, misfortune, human actions gone awry. The people I'm talking about could not abide the thought that sometimes, stuff just happened, and good people suffered and bad people didn't get what was coming to them. They had to have an intelligent agent behind every event.

The conspiracy theorists do the same thing. Paul Wellstone's plane couldn't possibly crash because of bad weather or faulty equipment or pilot error - obviously the Bush junta did it. Vince Foster couldn't just be a guy depressed by the viciousness of DC and turmoil in his own life - Hillary offed him. Diana was a lousy judge of character, Dodi was a moron, the driver was drunk - no, that's way too simple. Someone has to be behind all this bad stuff.

And of course, there will always be nobodys, who will believe that any denial of conspiracy is just more proof it actually exists.

[ed]

It's really, really hard for this Yank to care about Di. She knew what she was getting into, she took the good with the bad, she died a pointless death and became a saint in the eyes of her millions of daft admirers. Just like JFK! Not bad for someone of her limited intellect.

[nobody]

Reason reviews a book by neocon Daniel Pipes that denies there are conspiracies. How convienent for Pipes to deny that. And how convienent for Reason to lap it up like the neocon lackeys they are.

Expect me to be denouced by the resident neocons as a "tinfoil hat wearer" in mere seconds.

[Ayatollah Usoe]

"Conspiracy theory" is a label used to discredit the concept that government employees working towards their own self interest (the only work they do) seem to work in concert, towards what government does. It has the same outcome, without all the prior planning.

[dj of raleigh]

I wish someone had the control over life that conspiracies assume, assuming that no one can have that control.

Just because you are being followed, doesn't mean you aren't paranoid.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean you aren't being followed.
===========
" On a related note, anytime anyone uses the word "sheeple", I automatically switch that person off. I just can't help it."

Well, at your advice, 'sheeple' user,
I'm switching you off

==========

> despite the fact that he sees in it, culpability for; "the American role in spreading conspiracism".

[Rick Barton]

From Charles Paul Freund's review of Conspiracy by Pipes:

Pipes's view of conspiracy thinking as essentially profane obscures its historical scope and, I believe, its actual heritage. When Pipes describes this material as largely debased, he is certainly right. But is it pornography?

Pipe's uncritical and total dismissal of conspiracy analysis in his; Conspiracy is anti-intellectual and in it he commits some key errors of fact and logic. As to logical error: Pipes presents some bad conspiracy theories as sufficient cause to dismiss the whole discipline.

But why indeed; the equivalence of conspiracy theories and pornography, which Pipes takes great pains to try to establish and so emphatically insists on?

A look at his words may reveal a motivation that is frightening considering his influence:

From Conspiracy:

"Indeed, conspiracist writings constitute a quite literal form of pornography (though political rather than sexual). The two genres became popular about the same time, in the 1740's..." (p. 49)

And then he goes on to write:
"The United States has far and away the most complete freedom of expression of all the countries in the world (one survey of censorship calls it "libertarian to the extreme"), so conspiracist ideas banned elsewhere for their violent and noxious qualities find American publishers." (p. 118)

"Lauck's (a Nebraska neo-Nazi)stint in a German
jail for activities perfectly legal in the United States confirmed the exceptional nature of First Amendment freedoms and pointed to the alarm in foreign states about the American role in spreading conspiracism" (p. 119)

These quotes are concerning. First, he tells us that conspiracy writing is in fact real pornography and then he seems to lament the American freedom of speech as; "libertarian to the extreme", since it does permit conspiracist ideas to "find American publishers." while they are banned else where and with seeming good cause, after all they do contain; "violent and noxious qualities". He than tells us that our First Amendment freedoms are behind foreign states "alarm" "about the American role in spreading conspiracism". (BTW, This "alarm" seems rather contrived considering the flimsy evidence that Pipes offers for it)

Well now; what is another attribute of pornography? (which of course, Pipes emphatically tells us conspiracy writings are literaly the same as.)The answer; is that pornography is a form of expression in America that is rare, in that has a history of being made illegal. It's reasonable, after reading his passages in Conspiracy to conclude that Pipes' agenda is to lay the foundations for making some conspiracy writings illegal.

Am I being paranoid in this matter? Consider that nowhere in Conspiracy does Pipes allow how that this "libertarian to the extreme" freedom of expression we enjoy (recent Supreme Court decisions not with standing) should not be changed despite the fact that he sees in it, culpability for; "the American role in spreading conspiracism".

[Rick Barton]

I think we need to engage in conspiracy analysis to understand political power. We need to ask the question; who benefits? I like Rothbard's extension of common sense volitional analysis from small political situations (such as the collusion between labor and management to enact tariffs, which surprises no one) to things like entry into war, the creation of the Federal Reserve, etc.

Often, conspiracy theorizing is the only way to apprehend political reality. When you debase conspiracy analysis, you're throwing out an invaluable tool for understanding real politic because political power is often transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction.

Charles Paul Freund wrote:
Sometimes this material can be appalling, especially when a history of evil criminality is attributed to members of a religious group

Much in the political world goes on via conspiracy. What's also bad about racial and religious group conspiracy "theories' is that they unfairly put valid and important political conspiracy theories, concerning ruling elites, in bad light.

[Rick Barton]

Jason Ligon at January 16, 05:21 PM wrote:

"I don't agree with many policies of this administration, but it is a bit childish to blame in on a Zionist Conspiracy to Take Over the World!!!!

What is really childish is to make that surmise from Justin's post that, that is where he lays blame!. Also, it does not follow that one who comments on the well documented spying by the Israeli government on our nation...

(i.e., the Israeli "art students" story. see: "The Terror Enigma : 9/11 and the Israeli Connection" by Justin Raimondo):
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595296823/reasonmagazinea-20/

...would believe any such nonsense as a; "Zionist Conspiracy to Take Over the World" which Jason Ligon conjures up.

[Douglas Fletcher]

dj, my bluegrass buddy, I don't understand your posts. Are those supposed to poems?

[Andrew Lynch]

Actually, Douglas, that's iambic "conspoetry" theory.

[Rick Barton]

...and why is a "Zionist Conspiracy to Take Over the World", nonsense? Because; there is not a shred of evidence, or logic to support such a notion, the scope of which is preposterous. And btw, this notion has been employed to foster anti-Jewish bigotry by those who advance it.

Of course, this is not to say that the Israeli government does not engage in conspiracies.
In the book "The Mossad" by Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan and Eli Landau, the authors provide evidence of the Israeli government tactic of getting people with assumed allegiance to their native nation but with real loyalty to the Israeli government in positions of power in various nations. We may have seen this dynamic played out in the case of Richard Perle, the man at the nexus of so many neo-con "pro-democracy" organizations that have a long history of advocating an attack on Iraq. In 1970, while working for Sen. "Scoop" Jackson's office he was caught on a NSA wiretap giving classified information to the Israeli Embassy.

Throughout history, there is evidence of many governments and those who support them doing this type of thing. It is this type evidence, among others, which makes it foolish for us not to use conspiracy analysis as a tool to apprehend political reality.

[dj of raleigh]

> dj, my bluegrass buddy, I don't understand your posts. Are those supposed to poems?

[Don]

Ayatollah Usoe,

I dunno. In the good ol' USA, people vote for more government. Most specifically, they voted for the New Deal, Great Society, etc. It ain't just the fault of the politicians and government workers.

[Don]

"Too bad the reviewer of Daniel Pipes's polemic doesn't examine his own conspiracy theory, which involves a worldwide Muslim conspiracy against "democracy." But I guess that would be out of bounds."

Muslim nations haven't exactly been conductive to democracy or freedom. I don't think anyone thinks it's a conspiracy (outside of the likes of Al Quada et al), but it does seem to be a cultural trend.

"Of COURSE there are no conspiracies: it's just an ACCIDENT that we're on the verge of seeing the Bill of Rights repealed, . . ."

FDR pretty conclusively showed that the BoRs could be ignored at will as long as the public at large didn't care. Witness the flaccid Tenth Amendment.