Conspiracyphilia and Vigilantism: Dangerous American Obsessions

I noticed two related features of American society when I was last home: a love of conspiracy theories and an approval of vigilante justice. I was appalled to see a "documentary" on the History (or Discovery?) Channel in which there were two explanations put forward for the loss of a squadron of air force planes: 1. The leader got cocky and led his partners astray, as evidenced by the strange things he said, confusion, and disagreement about what to do heard on the radio; or 2. That crystals from the lost city of Atlantis screwed up their navigation instruments and possibly inverted the horizon in order to lead the men astray. There was no conclusion and both stories were represented as equally plausible. This is despite the fact that such crystals have never been found nor is there any real evidence for anything like this. The fact that the second version sounds absurd should demand evidence (though it should not rule it out outright), but this was not given. No doubt most viewers are not fooled... but some may be. The two "theories" are NOT equally plausible to anyone with any sense.

Another example is continued skepticism about the moon landings. Read this for more details on the facts. Here's a quick summary of the most compelling stuff: Signals from the Apollo missions were received all over earth and triangulated by various scientists. One documentary I watched interviewed German scientists who did this. Triangulation allowed them to find out exactly where the craft was in three dimensions and follow its course. It is not possible to fake this. Another great one is some sort of radio array they set up on the moon which can be seen from earth. Setting up is a complex task that back then could only be done by humans. The technology required to send robots to the moon to set it up and do everything else required to pull off the hoax would have been more formidable than actually going there in person (which is what really happened). There's much more, but I won't get into it here. Suffice it to say that I was skeptical of the moon landing until I compared the conspiracy theories with the evidence and found the evidence to be overwhelming. The 9/11 conspiracy theories follow a similar pattern.

The second alarming trend is a desire for vigilante justice (going out and bringing "justice" to someone yourself). My own father went on a rant at one point about how the courts had let some guy off who had murdered two people. He said someone should just go and kill the murderer. Vigilante justice is also a common theme in American movies (where the hero "takes the law into his own hands"). My father, or anyone else not involved in the trial, is significantly less well-informed than the judges and jury at the trial. The idea that someone should be found guilty in the press "because everyone knows he did it" and then executed by some vigilante is frightening. It is also undemocratic, unlawful, and sure to cause more injustice than it fights, as innocent people get killed and emotions rather than reason determine punishments. This is mob rule and it is what exists in a completely barbaric society. Luckily, the fact that you'd be punished yourself for doing it, or perhaps some deeply held norms against it, have so far prevented vigilantism from getting out of control. These two ideas combined are dangerous, however.

America was founded on anti-establishment ideals. We are supposed to question those in power. This is undoubtedly a good thing to question authority. But it is bad when questioning is replace with an assumption that authority is incorrect as soon as one person claims it is, no matter how dubious the claims.

America also has self-reliance as a core ideal. This is also a good thing and is liberating for those who succeed in it. It can also be bad when it leads to an unwillingness to accept the outcomes of a democratic system, including its judiciary.

The result of these two ideas is, for one, a damaging gullibility. Most of the people who believe various conspiracies do so with no further research and no investigation of the other side of the (usually fake) debate. Meanwhile, anti-establishment sentiment, so integral to American culture, leads to an assumption that any large organization (the federal government being the largest of all) is bad until proven otherwise, while smaller organizations and individuals are good until proven otherwise.  

Again, true skepticism would be a good thing. But this is a fake skepticism composed of gullibility about random claims from smaller groups assumed to be innocent victims and an insurmountable skepticism towards larger organizations assumed to be bad. The result is a lot of people all too willing to believe utter nonsense and to justify this by the fact that big, visible organizations are corrupt and have done bad things (while the bad things and corruption of smaller, less visible organizations is ignored or not seen). When strong positive feelings about self-reliance are combined with a natural predisposition toward believing anything someone says that is bad about the government, for example, the solution may seem logical: Take the law into your own hands, question the government's legitimacy, and withdraw from political participation along normal lines (like calling your senator or voting). This perpetuates the cycle by leading to further disengagement and ignorance of the facts.

Mercifully, vigilante justice has not been very common, but it may be only a matter of time. The reason there is due process for criminals and that certain types of evidence, or evidence obtained in certain ways, is excluded in courts is precisely because the judiciary must check executive power. Otherwise, it would be too easy for the police to jail anyone they wanted to (or that they were ordered to). The whole idea behind innocent until proven guilty is that it is better, on the whole, to let a guilty person go free than to lock up (or execute!) an innocent. One highly public case (per year or perhaps even more often) of a man assumed guilty going free is therefore not, by itself, evidence that the courts are not working, and certainly not that they are corrupt. Quite the opposite: If accused people were always convicted, that would be a sign of a corrupt court system!

The shock people expressed about the NSA spying “scandal” highlighted for me how people generally fail to inform themselves about the actions of their government. The extent of information gathering was a surprise, but the fact that it was going on was not—for anyone paying attention. Conspiracy theories contribute to this problem by clouding up debates with nonsense. If people were a bit less gullible and spent less time debating nonsensical conspiracy theories (by “sharing” items without further reading on Facebook, for example), people might be more aware of the real scandals going on around them and be more involved in shaping the government and the world they live in for the better. This is not a gossipy reality TV show. This is just “plain” reality, which is full of real scandals and excitement—again: for anyone paying attention.

What is terrorism?

The murder of a British soldier was terrorism. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, viewed as a whole, are not. The Western coalition may have used acts of terror in specific incidents in those wars, however.

The brutal murder of a British soldier in broad daylight in London a few weeks ago has sent shock waves through the United Kingdom and the world. The Prime Minister, David Cameron, was quick to call the sickening attack a "terrorist incident," while the Times (London) called it "the first terrorist murder in mainland Britain since 2005." At the same time, a writer for the Guardian (also London) questioned whether this could be called an act of terrorism or not and, if it was, how we could then not call the Western coalition's actions in Iraq and Afghanistan terrorism.

It's a fair question, though a reading of the Guardian article is likely to make many people angry (I found his quoting of Michael Moore particularly unfortunate). The reason for that is that the term terrorism has negative connotations in itself. The assumption is that it is an unacceptable form of violence (as opposed to the more "honorable" form of meeting your enemy on the battlefield or defending yourself in your own home, for example). Defining terrorism is extremely difficult. Trust me. If you don't want to, I suggest you read Richard English's Terrorism: How to Respond or Smith and Neumann's The Strategy of Terrorism: How It Works and Why It Fails.

I'll sum up a difficult topic with the best answer I can muster (though one that is not immune to further debate, as I agree with English that coming up with a perfect definition of terrorism probably isn't possible). Terrorism is the use or threat of violence against mainly symbolic targets for political ends (this is a paraphrase of Smith and Neumann's definition). Notice the absence of a definition of targets as "civilian." This is because of the difficulty of defining who is a civilian and the questionable logic behind that restriction. (Why wouldn't a politically-motivated attack on a bunch of unsuspecting soldiers at a base in America be considered terrorism, for example? Is a terrorist attack with mixed victims only terrorism for those among them who are civilians? There are many more issues as well.) A further issue is that it contributes to the normative connotation terrorism brings with it (i.e. it is wrong), which will ALWAYS be subjective, making terrorism impossible to define. If terrorism is always considered "wrong" or "illegitimate," the tendency will be for the side that disliked the attack to call it terrorism and for the side supporting the attack to view it as something else more "honorable."

All violence is scary, which is why I left out the "causing terror" part of the definition, which is still important (after all, it forms the root of the word!). The most important aspect left is the target type. When is a target "mostly symbolic"? When striking it serves little or no "strategic" purpose. The WTC attack is a good example: the US could not be brought down by that one attack, and there would have been better targets for strategic purposes (power stations, airports, military bases, arms contractors, etc.). The main point for the Twin Towers was their powerful symbolism.

So how about the London attack?

• It was certainly an act of violence
• It was for political reasons (the perpetrators were quoted as saying " The only reason we've done this is because Muslims are dying by British soldiers every day. ... You people will never be safe, remove your Government, they don't care about you."
• The target was not strategically significant, but was highly symbolic: a British soldier wearing a "Help for Heroes" shirt.

Put together, these points mean that we are very justified in labeling this a terrorist attack using a strategic definition.

How about the Guardian author's other question: Are the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan terrorism? Viewed as a whole, they are not. They are military operations in which targets are selected primarily for their strategic value in weakening the other side. Because terrorism is a tactic, however, that means that individual acts can be terrorism even if it cannot be said that the entire war in Iraq or Afghanistan is. The author mentions "Shock and Awe," the attack on Baghdad during the Second Iraq War. This was indeed meant to impress the Iraqi public and encourage them to help overthrow their leaders. It was a form of propaganda (often cited as an important secondary aspect of terrorism). Nevertheless, the operation's targets were not, I believe, primarily symbolic, so while there are some grounds for labeling this some sort of act of terror, I do not believe, on balance, that this was the case. Other incidents during the war, however, may very well fall under a label of terrorism by this definition. Each attack would have to be evaluated on its own.