I’m tired of seeing conspiracy theorist Plandemic-ers pointing to virologists, medical doctors and investors and telling me, “You clearly don’t know anything about this!” These Klaus-Schwabbers are as bad as the Lockdowners saying, “You don’t know The Science!” Invariably, the “experts” pushing the Plandemic conspiracy theories have no expertise in making sense of complex emergent phenomena, much less among masses of brimming-with-fallacies humans. They look as ridiculous as I would if I were to talk about the details of vaccine science or heart disease.
I don’t agree with your assertion that “conspiracy theory” has been used as a pejorative for 150 years. In fact it’s not in the authoritative 1892 dictionary.
Also Chatty G could be cajoled to affirm as much when asked the question “What did conspiracy theory mean in 1892?”:
The term "conspiracy theory" did exist in 1892, but its meaning was slightly different from how it is commonly used today. At that time, the term was primarily used to describe a legal concept, referring to the idea that two or more people could be charged with conspiring to commit a crime, even if the crime itself was never actually carried out.
In other words, "conspiracy theory" in 1892 referred to a criminal charge, rather than a belief or explanation for an event that is not supported by evidence. It wasn't until much later, in the mid-20th century, that the term began to be used more broadly to refer to theories about secret plots or schemes by powerful people or organizations.
I've said, "it's interesting that so many 'conspiracy theories' turn out being true." If I understand your point that would be the same as, but more accurately argued that, "it's interesting that so many snubbed hypotheses end up being proven."
Which, yes, often happens in history when those in power and the commoners have a belief system challenged, like say, the earth is flat and the sun orbits the earth. Conspiracy theorists in the same category as heretics. Until their theories become widely accepted as true. Is that the type of distinction you're making?
A big factor in this is linguistics. And the struggle over language. Controlling the language, the terms used in a debate for advantage. And one side of the ideological and philosophical debate has proven to be very effective at controlling the language.
It's not an accident of history that one of the most influential voices found on the traditional left over the past 50 years, Noam Chomsky, is a professor of linguistics. He had generations of eager, young, idealistic followers who leaned into his teachings. His values they shared expressed in words that gave them more power to shake up the existing power structure. Using carefully calibrated linguistics.
Orwell embraced this in his novels as "Newspeak." It's all around us now. It always was, but today the campaign of Newspeak is inescapable. Words being reappropriated to gain advantage in the eternal struggle for power. And it's happening without much pushback. The only opposition strategy that's had much success has been taking a term meant as a pejorative and wearing it as a badge or mocking it and turning it around as a pejorative in the other direction. Like, "Deplorables" and "woke." A linguistic jujutsu.
These times are as much about linguistic battles for power over the minds of the body politic as any other battle in a broader ideological and philosophical struggle for power.
We most certainly live in interesting times. How do those of us who share closer ideologies and philosophies get better at linguistics, which seems to be a source of contention in using terms like "conspiracy theories."
There's three problems with the "normie" (i.e. person who doesn't think for himself but rather just blindly trusts what authorities tell him) sense of "conspiracy theory": (1) as you mention, it wasn't coined in sincerity, but rather to shame those who questioned authority; (2) the phrase doesn't signify in any way whatsoever the definition you're giving it here, objectively-speaking it just means "conspiracy" and "theory", i.e. a theory (quoting sense 2 in a standard dictionary: "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.") about something that might have happened behind the scenes.
The third problem is of course that it's the normie sense of the term. Just because most people use it that way doesn't mean I have to, assuming I'm fine with the risk of being misunderstood by normies. It's OK to try to reclaim the rational meaning of a term. If enough people do it then the meaning can revert back to something sensible. It's a valid form of protest.
I don’t agree with your assertion that “conspiracy theory” has been used as a pejorative for 150 years. In fact it’s not in the authoritative 1892 dictionary.
Also Chatty G could be cajoled to affirm as much when asked the question “What did conspiracy theory mean in 1892?”:
The term "conspiracy theory" did exist in 1892, but its meaning was slightly different from how it is commonly used today. At that time, the term was primarily used to describe a legal concept, referring to the idea that two or more people could be charged with conspiring to commit a crime, even if the crime itself was never actually carried out.
In other words, "conspiracy theory" in 1892 referred to a criminal charge, rather than a belief or explanation for an event that is not supported by evidence. It wasn't until much later, in the mid-20th century, that the term began to be used more broadly to refer to theories about secret plots or schemes by powerful people or organizations.
I've said, "it's interesting that so many 'conspiracy theories' turn out being true." If I understand your point that would be the same as, but more accurately argued that, "it's interesting that so many snubbed hypotheses end up being proven."
Which, yes, often happens in history when those in power and the commoners have a belief system challenged, like say, the earth is flat and the sun orbits the earth. Conspiracy theorists in the same category as heretics. Until their theories become widely accepted as true. Is that the type of distinction you're making?
A big factor in this is linguistics. And the struggle over language. Controlling the language, the terms used in a debate for advantage. And one side of the ideological and philosophical debate has proven to be very effective at controlling the language.
It's not an accident of history that one of the most influential voices found on the traditional left over the past 50 years, Noam Chomsky, is a professor of linguistics. He had generations of eager, young, idealistic followers who leaned into his teachings. His values they shared expressed in words that gave them more power to shake up the existing power structure. Using carefully calibrated linguistics.
Orwell embraced this in his novels as "Newspeak." It's all around us now. It always was, but today the campaign of Newspeak is inescapable. Words being reappropriated to gain advantage in the eternal struggle for power. And it's happening without much pushback. The only opposition strategy that's had much success has been taking a term meant as a pejorative and wearing it as a badge or mocking it and turning it around as a pejorative in the other direction. Like, "Deplorables" and "woke." A linguistic jujutsu.
These times are as much about linguistic battles for power over the minds of the body politic as any other battle in a broader ideological and philosophical struggle for power.
The Body Politic: Body, Language, and Power
National Council of Teachers of English, 1990
https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.2307/377544
We most certainly live in interesting times. How do those of us who share closer ideologies and philosophies get better at linguistics, which seems to be a source of contention in using terms like "conspiracy theories."
There's three problems with the "normie" (i.e. person who doesn't think for himself but rather just blindly trusts what authorities tell him) sense of "conspiracy theory": (1) as you mention, it wasn't coined in sincerity, but rather to shame those who questioned authority; (2) the phrase doesn't signify in any way whatsoever the definition you're giving it here, objectively-speaking it just means "conspiracy" and "theory", i.e. a theory (quoting sense 2 in a standard dictionary: "a proposed explanation whose status is still conjectural and subject to experimentation, in contrast to well-established propositions that are regarded as reporting matters of actual fact.") about something that might have happened behind the scenes.
The third problem is of course that it's the normie sense of the term. Just because most people use it that way doesn't mean I have to, assuming I'm fine with the risk of being misunderstood by normies. It's OK to try to reclaim the rational meaning of a term. If enough people do it then the meaning can revert back to something sensible. It's a valid form of protest.