[Americans sure can
believe some cray cray
things. That’s right, I said cray cray. In this week’s series, I’ll
AmericanStudy five such conspiracy theories, past and present. Please share
your own conspiracy theories—ones you believe, or just ones you find
interesting and worth studying—for a suspicious weekend post!]
On how not to
respond to a contemporary conspiracy theory, and how to do so.
The community of
September
11th “Truthers” (those who believe that the 9/11 attacks were not
carried out by Al Qaeda hijackers nor masterminded by Osama Bin Laden, but planned
and executed by other forces, most often U.S. government insiders) was back in
the news earlier this fall. At the start of the current NFL season, the
political website Huffington
Post hired former wide receiver Donté Stallworth as a correspondent
covering “national security,” and the dedicated community of web hunters soon
discovered that Stallworth had Tweeted Truther sentiments back in 2009. To his
credit, Stallworth
then took to Twitter once more to note that his views had changed in the intervening
five years; but whether or not this particular Truther still holds to the
outlandish conspiracy theory, there’s no question that many
of his fellow Americans continue to espouse those beliefs about one of the
darkest and most tragic days in American history.
One of the most
consistent responses to and arguments against these Truther theories has been
that they are disrespectful or
insulting to the thousands of victims of the attacks, as well as their
families, friends, and communities. But I would argue that this argument doesn’t
quite hold up, for a number of reasons. For one thing, those lives were lost
and ruined in any case; the tragedy and horror doesn’t change depending on what
we say or think about it. For another, a significant part of what makes the
event so tragic is that its victims were entirely innocent and disconnected
from any relevant histories (compared, for example, to soldiers or combatants
killed in war); that factor once again does not depend in the slightest on who
was behind the attacks. Finally, and most importantly, if we owe the victims
and their loved one and communities anything—besides mourning and remembering
them, which are first and vital responses to be sure—it is precisely to make
sure that we do not elide any of the details of what happened to them; that
doesn’t mean believing Truther nonsense, but it does mean that researching and
investigating the events should never be seen as disrespectful or insulting to those
affected by them.
Just because the
Truther theories aren’t insulting, however, doesn’t mean that they’re not
seriously wrong-headed and unproductive (to say nothing of crazy and stupid),
and responding to them as such can help direct our conversations more
productively as a result. For one thing, if we want to criticize the government
in relation to 9/11, we have plenty of much more accurate and meaningful ways
to do so: highlighting Dick
Cheney’s 2001 conversations with Taliban leaders; analyzing President
Bush’s inappropriate response to his August 2011 daily briefing about
potential terrorist attacks; recognizing how quickly and wrongly we turned our
attention to the drumbeat for war with Iraq; and so on. For another, and even
more important, thing, correctly attributing the 9/11 attacks to Al Qaeda has
the potential—if pursued with nuance and depth—to lead to more far-reaching and
ongoing conversations about, among other things, America’s
long history in the Middle East, how and how not to
combat terrorism around the world, and other such salient issues. Which is
to say, the Truthers are right about one and only thing: the truth of 9/11 is
complex and worth extended attention, analysis, and discussion.
Crowd-sourced
post this weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other conspiracy theories you’d highlight?
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