Who believes?
People have a hard time believing that events so tragic, such as 9/11, could actually occur. In many cases when people can't believe something is happening or if there aren't direct answers to why something happened, a conspiracy theory will arise. This is what led people to believe in all different types of theories on what "truly" happened during 9/11. Almost every single theory that is brought up by a theorist can be proven wrong through true evidence rather than made-up ideas. 9/11 was such a huge tragedy that the conspiracy theories tend to be endless, so it's hard to point out every single conspiracy theory that there is. Instead of looking into the facts of what really happened, people look for something or someone to blame.
Jonathan Kay, author of Among the Truthers: A Journey into the Growing Conspiracist Underground of 9/11 Truthers, included a chapter in his book about what makes people believe in conspiracies. He says that, "On a personal level, conspiracism is not so much a psychological ailment in and of itself as it is a symptom of a mind in flight from reality". According to Kay, here are the eight different reasons why people turn to conspiracies:
1. Midlife Crisis Case: Like many forms of midlife crisis, this is the same except for the gact that it allows for people to reinvent themselves in front of a new audience. It offers adventure and escape that many people are looking for while going through this stage. That's why conspiracism is something new and exciting because it creates a whole new reality.
2. Failed Historian: People use conspiracies to explain why history didn't unfold the way that they thought it should. Hofstadter has a good quote that fall under this category of the failed historian. He says, "The crowning attainment of historical study is to achieve an intuitive sense of how things do not happen." This is showing that people lose their sense of reality and believe in things that never actually happened.
3. Damaged Survivor: This is usually a correlation. For example, a baby got a shot and then was later found to have autism. The parents think that the needle caused the autism rather than being born with the disease. Since the parents can actually see the needle and they can't see their child's genes, they automatically connect the shot with the reason why their child now has a disease. This can happen with many other incidents as well.
4. Cosmic Voyager: This is like living in a completely different world. This theorist tends to base their beliefs on this unseen natural force that is claimed to bind everyone together. They have a tendency to combine forms of conspiracy theories to create a new combination that is pretty far out there. Basically, the cosmic voyager thinks that the world is a fragment of a reality that is much deeper than we know.
5. Clinical Conspiracist: There aren't many of these believers because they are considered insane. They tend to have very personalized explanations of their own constructions that include people such as their spouse, relatives, or colleagues. A lot of times their ideas are added into the conspiracy at a very early stage because they are able to easily include their ideas into the foundation of it.
6. Crank: You would think that this type of theorist wouldn't fall under a category of someone who believes because they rely strictly on arithmetic, flowcharts, maps, and data lists. They are the type of people who won't take someones word for something until they have come up with the truth of their theories through sources and rules of logic. These people like the idea of control, independence, and superiority in an intellecutal sense. This is why these people fit under someone who believes because these ideas are daring and also allows them to find their own idea rather than listing to the experts.
7. Evangelical Doomsayer: This person always tries to find some type of sign to show that the world is moving toward a final confrontation of good and evil.
8. Firebrand: This person is usually in their late teens or early twenties and is most susceptible to believing because the mind is still developing and that makes it much more vulnerable. This person is also the easiest one to find because he or she is the loudest and makes themself more noticeable.
These eight main reasons to why people believe are very accurate. It might be difficult to figure out which category each 9/11 conspiracist fits under, but almost all of them will fall under one of these categories.
Jonathan Kay, author of Among the Truthers: A Journey into the Growing Conspiracist Underground of 9/11 Truthers, included a chapter in his book about what makes people believe in conspiracies. He says that, "On a personal level, conspiracism is not so much a psychological ailment in and of itself as it is a symptom of a mind in flight from reality". According to Kay, here are the eight different reasons why people turn to conspiracies:
1. Midlife Crisis Case: Like many forms of midlife crisis, this is the same except for the gact that it allows for people to reinvent themselves in front of a new audience. It offers adventure and escape that many people are looking for while going through this stage. That's why conspiracism is something new and exciting because it creates a whole new reality.
2. Failed Historian: People use conspiracies to explain why history didn't unfold the way that they thought it should. Hofstadter has a good quote that fall under this category of the failed historian. He says, "The crowning attainment of historical study is to achieve an intuitive sense of how things do not happen." This is showing that people lose their sense of reality and believe in things that never actually happened.
3. Damaged Survivor: This is usually a correlation. For example, a baby got a shot and then was later found to have autism. The parents think that the needle caused the autism rather than being born with the disease. Since the parents can actually see the needle and they can't see their child's genes, they automatically connect the shot with the reason why their child now has a disease. This can happen with many other incidents as well.
4. Cosmic Voyager: This is like living in a completely different world. This theorist tends to base their beliefs on this unseen natural force that is claimed to bind everyone together. They have a tendency to combine forms of conspiracy theories to create a new combination that is pretty far out there. Basically, the cosmic voyager thinks that the world is a fragment of a reality that is much deeper than we know.
5. Clinical Conspiracist: There aren't many of these believers because they are considered insane. They tend to have very personalized explanations of their own constructions that include people such as their spouse, relatives, or colleagues. A lot of times their ideas are added into the conspiracy at a very early stage because they are able to easily include their ideas into the foundation of it.
6. Crank: You would think that this type of theorist wouldn't fall under a category of someone who believes because they rely strictly on arithmetic, flowcharts, maps, and data lists. They are the type of people who won't take someones word for something until they have come up with the truth of their theories through sources and rules of logic. These people like the idea of control, independence, and superiority in an intellecutal sense. This is why these people fit under someone who believes because these ideas are daring and also allows them to find their own idea rather than listing to the experts.
7. Evangelical Doomsayer: This person always tries to find some type of sign to show that the world is moving toward a final confrontation of good and evil.
8. Firebrand: This person is usually in their late teens or early twenties and is most susceptible to believing because the mind is still developing and that makes it much more vulnerable. This person is also the easiest one to find because he or she is the loudest and makes themself more noticeable.
These eight main reasons to why people believe are very accurate. It might be difficult to figure out which category each 9/11 conspiracist fits under, but almost all of them will fall under one of these categories.
Facts before belief
In almost every scenario, there are facts to prove that something is true or actually happened. It has become so easy for people to believe what they hear because social media is taking over our world. People are so quick to believe something that they hear because most people don't want to take the time to look up straight facts. Even if they want to get facts, there is usually a conspiracy theory video or website to prove what was heard was actually true. It's difficult to find the straight up facts, but people CANNOT believe everything they hear.
Along with this, conspiracy theorists are good at getting people to believe their side because they believe it so much that what is actually fiction becomes fact in a matter of seconds. They work with the psychological part of our brains that then allows us to believe what they are telling us. This makes it hard for people to believe anything more than the actual facts because the people get so involved with the conspiracy that nothing else seems more real than their own beliefs. This is why it is critical for people to find all the facts about something before they get too far into a conspiracy theory.
In the big scheme of things, always get facts first!
Along with this, conspiracy theorists are good at getting people to believe their side because they believe it so much that what is actually fiction becomes fact in a matter of seconds. They work with the psychological part of our brains that then allows us to believe what they are telling us. This makes it hard for people to believe anything more than the actual facts because the people get so involved with the conspiracy that nothing else seems more real than their own beliefs. This is why it is critical for people to find all the facts about something before they get too far into a conspiracy theory.
In the big scheme of things, always get facts first!