The Trouble with Conspiracy Theories

Perhaps the problem with conspiracy theorists is not that they have gone too far, but that they haven’t quite gone far enough yet. But, if James Tracy is any indication, they are getting very close.

Samuel Johnson once heatedly remarked to a man he was conversing with in a coffeehouse, “I can give you an argument, but I cannot give you an understanding.” There is no evidence that the great sage made this comment to a conspiracy theorist, but I have often been tempted to repeat it when I am talking to one, especially after I have exhausted every argument I can think of to show the conspiracy theorist the error of his ways.
Today I would like to offer Johnson’s remark as a word of caution to anyone who has encountered the various conspiracy theories that have cropped up in the wake of the Newtown tragedy. Of these there have been several, but I would like to focus on the theory put forth by James Tracy, a media professor at Florida Atlantic University, who on his website Memory Hole has argued that the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, did not really happen.

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2013/january/the-trouble-with-conspiracy-theories