Reply #1: One can't defend something one doesn't understand. [View All]

[greyl]

It may have helped if the OP first looked up some definitions and explanations of "worldview", "conspiratorial worldview", and "conspiracism". Nobody on the planet denies that conspiracies exist. Nevertheless, the OP attacks that strawman vehemently, while never providing one reason to either adopt or keep a conspiratorial worldview.

The appeal to emotion of mentioning Nazi concentration camps, very sadly misses the point that Hitler was acting upon his own conspiratorial worldviews. It didn't require a conspiratorial worldview to see what the Nazis were up to, it only required specific knowledge and not being under the spell of that worldview.

There is no defense of a conspiratorial worldview.

Excerpt from Conspiracism as a Flawed Worldview
by Chip Berlet

People with unfair power and privilege generally try to hold onto that unfair power and privilege. Sometimes they make plans that are not publicly announced. Sometimes they engage in illegal plots. Real conspiracies have been exposed throughout history. History itself, however, is not controlled by a vast timeless conspiracy. The powerful people and groups in society are hardly a "secret team" or a tiny club of "secret elites." The tendency to explain all major world events as primarily the product of a secret conspiracy is called conspiracism. The antidote to conspiracism is Power Structure Research based on some form of institutional, systemic or structural analysis that examines race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, class and other factors that are used to create inequality and oppression. We do not criticize conspiracism because we want to shield those with unfair power and privilege, but because we believe that conspiracism impedes attempts to build a social movement for real social justice, economic fairness, equality, peace, and democracy.

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Conspiracism as part of an anti-regime populist movement works in a different fashion. Populist conspiracism sees secret plots by tiny cabals of evildoers as the major motor powering important historical events. Conspiracism tries to figure out how power is exercised in society, but ends up oversimplifying the complexites of modern society by blaming societal problems on manipulation by a handful of evil individuals. This is not an analysis that accurately evaluates the systems, structures and institutions of modern society. As such, conspiracism is neither investigative reporting, which seeks to expose actual conspiracies through careful research; nor is it power structure research, which seeks to accurately analyze the distribution of power and privilege in a society. Sadly, some sincere people who seek social and economic justice are attracted to conspiracism. Overwhelmingly, however, conspiracism in the U.S. is the central historic narrative of right-wing populism.

much more: http://www.publiceye.org/top_conspire.html