• axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    The function of all conspiracy theories isn't to engender skepticism, rather it's to mystify mundane explanations. Leftism offers otherwise very mundane explanations for why things are this way. It's because of class dominance, capitalism, imperialism, and the enforcement of violence to protect those things. It's the job of a conspiracy theory to step in front of those explanations and instead offer secret technologies, UFO landings, reptile people, etc.

    Leftism is the opposite of conspiracy theories, because we don't believe the problems come from anything secret. The problems are caused right in front of us through things in our daily lives.

    Maybe some conspiracy theories could be channeled leftwards, but I've never seen it happen. They always turn into reactionary slime.

    • Redbolshevik2 [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Michael Parenti - Conspiracy and Class Power

      Conspiracies happen, every casus belli the US has used in the last 70 years has been the result of a conspiracy. Experimenting on the people of the Bikini Atoll was a conspiracy. The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment was a conspiracy. COINTELPRO was a conspiracy.

      Acting like it's either a conspiracy or the result of systems is a false dichotomy.

      • 420blazeit69 [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        When someone mentions the term "conspiracy," I ask if they mean lizardmen mind controlling us from inside a hollow earth or stuff the CIA has flat-out admitted.

        • Redbolshevik2 [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I consider the term "conspiracy theory" so ideologically charged that it's basically useless. As far as I can tell, most people's definition of "conspiracy theory" is "a thing that some people believe that I think is weird" instead of "theory about people coming together to do something nefarious for personal gain."