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Originally Posted by Captain Kidd
I've heard, and tend to agree with, that some people need to believe in consiracies to maintain a sence of control over their lives. They know a secret that people who have control over them don't want them to know and, therefore, they themselves have some sort of control back.
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I think I see some parallels between the way conspiracism views The Powers That Be and the sort of gods the ancient polytheists constructed, like the ones in Bulfinch.
Both sets are isolated, violent, selfish, quarrelsome, untrustworthy, cruel, vindictive (e.g. Diana and Actaeon), scheming, hypocritical (see D & A again- I mean, taking out your outraged modesty on some poor slob who was going about his business when
you're the one who's been prancing around naked in a public place? I would think that a goddess would know better), fickle, indifferent to the fate of mere mortals, simultaneously fiendishly clever and jaw-droppingly stupid and generally no better than they should be.
They seem to make a perfect screen on which to project all our own guilts and fears, as well as providing a handy means of explaining what we don't understand.
Makes me wonder if we have a collective need to believe in such beings.
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