The Night of the Conspiracy Meme

by

Donald E. Stahl

In “The Conspiracy Meme: Why Conspiracy Theories Appeal and Persist,”i Ted Goertzel informs
readers that a “meme” is “a cultural invention that passes from one mind to another and thrives, or
declines, through a process analogous to genetic selection.” (29.) Memes “make copies of themselves.”
Unlike genes, what makes them up we don't know, but they're like genes in that they replicate.
Culturally. Some are behaviors, some are ideas; and according to Goertzel one may both “use” and “fall
into” them. (37.) They have “practitioners.” (30.) Some of them are terrible things, apparently. The
conspiracy meme is a rhetorical meme, like the fair debate meme, the scientific expertise meme, and
the “resistance to orthodoxy” meme. I'm not sure about the last three, but the conspiracy meme, in
Goertzel's mind, is a Bad Thing; more like a virus, really. (Google “criticism of memes.”) Of course,
when one is simply talking about ideas, it's much more up-to-date and interesting to call them memes
instead of ideas. People will get the idea they're learning something.

In a Felkerized venue, where one is likely to run across “Adolph” Hitler and Alfred “Russell” Wallace,
and where papers are cited approvingly which take explicit stances against “fair debate,” it is hard to
know what to expect when one takes the time to create and submit a reply; so I will reply in a different
one.

Goertzel's paper is what (I am told) conspiracy theorists call “a hit piece;” ('hit' is actually code, as one
might say “a piece of hit.”) Like his magnum opus, Turncoats and True Believers, it is strictly about
abnormal psychology, not anything to do with architecture, engineering, climate, vaccination, politics,
religion, or the shape of the Earth. It naturally does not bother to mention any reasons why someone
might hold an unusual opinion, it merely lists the opinions. And by inclusion in the list, any such
opinion stands condemned. I'm not interested in debating the shape of the Earth. Goertzel's not
interested in debating anything.

Goertzel has a litany of the deplorable practices resorted to by the people who are his subject, such as
“cherry-picking facts” (32), and raising “a long series of questions illustrated by tendentious
information” (29). Being tendentious, I had thought, was simply making your case, but it seems to be a
bad thing. I did not, however, notice any instance in Goertzel's paper in which a “conspiracy theorist”
did anything good. Rather, he seems influenced by those “less responsible critics” who “focus
exclusively on the pecadilloes of the other side.” (35).

According to Goertzel, “...the conspiracy meme was successful in shifting much of the public debate
from the substance of the issue to criticism of personalities, procedures, and motivations.” But of
course, “This is not the place to review the substance of the issue...,” either, so he will examine the
peccadilloes of the other side.

Goertzel says that: “There is no chance of getting agreement on an 'official' definition, but people
alleging conspiracy should be challenged to be clear about their meaning.” (30.) Quite so. And so, by
parity of reasoning, should people alleging 'conspiracy theory'. I therefore invite, if not challenge,
Goertzel to explain his own use of the term. He says: “But the term 'conspiracy theory' usually refers to
claims that important events have been caused by conspiracies that have heretofore remained
undiscovered (Coady 2006). The claim that the World Trade Center was bombed by al-Queda would
not be a conspiracy theory in this sense, but the claim that it was bombed by Israeli agents or that
American authorities knew about it in advance would be.” (30). Having read Coady, and no doubt
others, he knows that the term 'conspiracy theory' has been the subject of some discussion, (see
Michael Parenti's talk at: http://understandingdeeppolitics.org/) but he does not allude to those
discussions, or explain his own use of the term. He merely says that, because the World Trade Center
was discovered to have been bombed by al-Quaeda, the claim that al-Quaeda bombed it is not (or no
longer?) a conspiracy theory. However, like Dick Cheney, he forgets that according to the Government
the World Trade Center wasn't bombed at all. There were no explosions.

“In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting
that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted
prior to Sept. 11, 2001.”

To Cheney, and even Goertzel, it is so obvious that the World Trade Center was bombed  "blown up,"
as Cheney says that they cannot help assuming that everyone knows it. "The obvious stares you in
the face," as Dr. Sunder says while denying what is obvious.

The need for such a paper as Goertzel's arises not from the fact that so many people these days are
flocking to join the Flat Earth Society, but because people in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and
Australia have noticed that the United States' account of what happened on 9/11 amounts to claiming
that, in two cases, an airplane hit a steel building and turned it into dust, and debris from one of those
buildings turned another building into dust. Of course, put this way these claims are impossible to
believe, and so they are responsible for the formation of societies on those continents, as well as North
America, devoted to the terrible idea that a lie has been told by an official government body. Thus, the
necessity of an article such as Goertzel's to help stop this infection before it spreads to the Moon. The
idea has already invaded some 1400+ architects and engineers in the U.S., and produced the following
startling statement online:
“As officers in the U.S. military, we took an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the
United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." Regardless of our current status -- active
duty, reserves, retired, or civilian -- that oath remains in force. Therefore it is not just our
responsibility, it is our duty to expose the real perpetrators of 9/11 and bring them to justice, no
matter how hard it is, how long it takes, how much we have to suffer, or where it leads us. We owe
this to those who have gone before us who executed that same oath, and we owe it to those who are
following that same oath today in Iraq and Afghanistan. We believe the official account of 9/11 as
defined in the 9/11 Commission Report is grossly inaccurate and fatally flawed. It is imperative that
we have an accurate understanding of 9/11 so that those responsible
can be identified and brought to justice in order that they and similarly-
minded people never again commit such heinous crimes. It is also
imperative that we have an accurate understanding of 9/11 so that
governmental policies resulting from 9/11 are based on truth rather than
deception.”
 http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22665

Clearly, it was time for Professor Goertzel to act.

Because the claims as stated above are impossible to believe, they aren't phrased this particular way.
Instead, they are phrased so that the airplane (or the debris) “weakened” the buildings, or fire
“weakened” the buildings, and then gravity turned them into dust in ten seconds (six, in one case). Of
course, the fire didn't “weaken” the concrete, just the steel. The concrete wasn't holding the building up,
the steel was. But gravity turning concrete into dust in ten seconds isn't believable either, so this is just
ignored.

But then again, the claims aren't put quite this way either. Rather than being “turned into dust,” which
they obviously were, the buildings are said to have “collapsed” (in the case of the Towers, outward in
all directions, symmetrically.)

In English, an object is something which has a proper definite shape. A quantity of air or water is not an
object because it has no proper shape, it simply assumes the shape of its container. It is not an object, it
is merely a quantity. When a wax figurine melts into a puddle it ceases to be an object and becomes a
mere quantity of wax. It is true that the puddle, at any one time, has a shape, but because that shape is
random and easily changeable, it is not a proper shape. The puddle is not an object, as the figurine was.

In English, when an object explodes two things occur: it suddenly loses its proper shape, and increases
in volume. Typically, the object turns into a cloud, occupying a much greater area than the object did.

Goertzel's article has six illustrations. If I were to be permitted six illustrations, I would pick these:
All of these pictures were taken long after the airplane impact.

"The obvious stares you in the face."

I would only add that one can see the South Tower suddenly turn into a cloud, an hour after the airplane
strike, at:
http://thecameraplanetarchive.magnify.net/video/Ball-of-flame-as-South-tower-go .
i (The Skeptical Inquirer, 35, (2011), pp. 28-37.