{"id":1201,"date":"2016-02-20T22:41:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-20T22:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2016-02-20T23:59:50","modified_gmt":"2016-02-20T23:59:50","slug":"conspiracy-theories-the-biggest-conspiracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/conspiracy-theories-the-biggest-conspiracy.html","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracy theories: the biggest conspiracy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

People don’t have much\u00a0time on their hands, including me. I’ll at least try to be brief…<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Despite most people’s lack of time, they still have no end of intellectual curiosity. I won’t call them stupid. Most people are a lot smarter than the average politician or journalist realises when they talk\u00a0their bullsh*t speeches. The\u00a0only weakness is that they are perpetually distracted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The result is that they rush to understand subjects, like the “new world order”<\/em>, before they have read everything about it. People are confused over this term. The New World Order<\/em> (caps) conspiracy theory is all wrong and there’s nothing more to say of it. The claim\u00a0that a group of men, possibly Freemasons or part of an older secret society like the Bavarian Illuminati, have Satan-worshiping beliefs, perform child sacrifices, and believe in transhumanism\u00a0while scheming to cull the world’s population and rule the Earth\u00a0is bogus. The UN is not a sinister plot to wage war and impose world government\u00a0–\u00a0it’s a diplomatic forum to end conflicts. All of this “NWO” hysteria is based on paranoia, overblown rhetoric, and misinterpreted academic terms.<\/p>\n

People hear a term like “new world order”, they key it into Google, and they get a conspiracy theorist talking about it rather than the person who actually originated the term and is the real authority on that term. Lazily, they take the conspiracy theorist’s explanation as the real definition, and the result is a chaotic, nonsense worldview of evil men in robes plotting to take over, like Star Wars<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As a student of International Relations (IR) I know what the new world order really is. It was a phrase used by President\u00a0Bush Senior and some other politicians. More often, it is called the “world order” and just refers to the “balance of power” in the world. It is common International Relations terminology. That’s why it is used by politicians, academics, students, and ultimately by me. And that’s how we use it. “New world order” specifically describes the constellation of forces after the Soviet Union collapsed. “Old world order” is when the Soviet Union and the United States competed in the Cold War. Alternatively, people say “bipolar order” (two powers) to talk about the old world order, and “unipolar order” (one power) to talk about the new world order<\/p>\n

The “Illuminati” is just nonsense. There is no modern powerful Illuminati. Even if there are some groups using that name, there are no politicians or top business names in that group. You are really thinking of the Bilderberg Group, and should use its real name.<\/p>\n

Call it a conspiracy theory of mine, but I and other web commentators<\/a> believe conspiracy theories are deliberately planted to influence opinions. Let’s say I have firsthand knowledge that this really is the case. However, I don’t even say it\u00a0is bad. Some of those opinions being disseminated\u00a0are good (if we look at conspiracy theories as polemic)! For instance, the movements\u00a0against power-hungry elites and refusing to go along with the mainstream media<\/em>\u00a0are great as\u00a0I’m all for that. Alternative media is the correct camp to be in, within journalism, even if it contains some crazy people and remarks and a lot of hysteria carried along with its message. These crazy ideas even make their way onto some of the most respected alternative media platforms, but can be like a virus, leading people to fraudulent\u00a0ideologies and worldviews that muddle their minds and blind them to the real villains in world affairs.<\/p>\n

But please, don’t listen to Alex Jones<\/a> or David Icke as actual authorities. Deep down, the\u00a0agendas promoted by their websites are absolutely crazy, and those people are just off the rails. Even if some of the things they say about world affairs are accurate, from time to time, they are getting viewers and readers that belong to much better, more informed people within the academic community.<\/p>\n

There are heroes like Edward Snowden on Twitter<\/a>, and there are writers like Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks team<\/a> who bring you the absolutely exposed, real documents straight from the beast’s lair. There is a host of real geniuses like futurist Jacque Fresco<\/a>, or the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein<\/a> (a personal favourite influence of mine), along with dozens of op-ed writers and vloggers who actually research their claims properly and are not lazy.<\/p>\n

It is somewhat tragic that the\u00a0lunatic fringe, consisting of Alex Jones and David Icke, is hogging millions of people’s\u00a0attention with their exceptionally crazy ideology and claims. If you share conspiracy theories, please also at least consider what better authors write and say. There’s even a collection of links to small, independent bloggers showing up on the right rail of lordre.net<\/a> if you want somewhere to start!<\/p>\n

\"hjb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People don’t have much\u00a0time on their hands, including me. I’ll at least try to be brief… Despite most people’s lack of time, they still have no end of intellectual curiosity. I won’t call them stupid. Most people are a lot smarter than the average politician or journalist realises when they talk\u00a0their bullsh*t speeches. The\u00a0only weakness…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,41,353,17,63,37,72,127,66,40,15,89],"tags":[1341,180,1394,1399,236,50,1400,401,1397,1398,110,1396,1395,91],"class_list":["post-1201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alter-globalization","category-book","category-censorship","category-edward-snowden","category-futurism-2","category-history","category-international-relations","category-journalism","category-politics-2","category-publishing","category-us","category-wikileaks","tag-alex-jones","tag-conspiracy-theory","tag-david-icke","tag-illuminati","tag-immanuel-wallerstein","tag-jacque-fresco","tag-lunatic-fringe","tag-new-world-order","tag-polemic","tag-rhetoric","tag-star-wars","tag-terminology","tag-unipolar-order","tag-wikileaks-2"],"yoast_head":"\nConspiracy theories: the biggest conspiracy? - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Conspiracy theories are some of the biggest conspiracies out there, with dishonest writers and websites trying to trick you into what to believe.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/conspiracy-theories-the-biggest-conspiracy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Conspiracy theories: the biggest conspiracy? - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Conspiracy theories are some of the biggest conspiracies out there, with dishonest writers and websites trying to trick you into what to believe.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/02\/conspiracy-theories-the-biggest-conspiracy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-20T22:41:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-02-20T23:59:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/files\/2015\/10\/hjb-signature-new-opaque-2.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. 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Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. 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